The Frankstown

Port Authority wants your opinion. They have started a campaign about it, with signage and brochures on many Pittsburgh PAT buses reading “Don't Just Sit There!” and “Let's Talk; communication is a two way street”. I don't know how many takers they've had, but this is is what I read, neatly printed in black marker, on bus panel separating some seats:

“For incompetent drivers,
dirty buses, high fares,
less bus stops, delays and shitty
service, I chose the
One and only

PAT Transit”

It looked like a poster that could be replicated on other buses.


Port Authority of Allegheny County Public Hearing

Out of curiosity, I attended the public hearing that Port Authority held about a week ago to receive public comment on it's one year development plan, Connect 09. According to PAT, the plan “is aimed at making bus service simpler, faster and more direct.” Better meeting the needs of riders and making the bus service interact more smoothly with the trolley, incline and other transit systems are Port Authority's stated objectives. So I went to see what other riders had to say about it.

I rode the 71C to the hotel near the site where the new hockey arena is being built, instead of taking one of the transit authority's many shuttles set up specifically to get riders to the hearing. The air conditioning on the bus was broken, and it was one of those humid, very late summer days in Pittsburgh. Some riders, me included, were quietly bearing it, while others, like a young woman who got on a few stops after I did, were openly complaining. She said, “I hate to sweat. You know, if somebody got on this damn bus with asthma, they'd have a damn asthma attack.” I don't think she had asthma, but I found myself agreeing with her anyway, even though it made me slightly uncomfortable. You need someone like that. We all do.

When I arrived at the hotel banquet room where the hearing was being held, an elderly woman was just finishing her testimony about service to Garfield. She was upset. Since that is my neighborhood, I followed her out of the ballroom and into the lobby, where PAT officials were there to answer questions about proposed new routes with maps and new schedules. I was quickly rerouted . They wanted to talk to me about my own bus schedules. The woman left saying that they had alleviated all of her fears. I left more confused than ever.

Right now, there is no bus of my dreams that travels the entire length of Penn Avenue- one of Pittsburgh's busiest streets, which runs through and defines many east end neighborhoods. And there will not be such a bus with this new plan, either. Instead, the route for the 86B Fransktown, which practically takes me from my door to within a few blocks of my workplace near Homewood, will be cut in half. For complete door to door service from my home to work now, I can transfer from the 86B to the 71C in East Liberty. With the proposed plan, this will be my only option. Taking the new 88 Penn and transferring to the new 86 Liberty. It is not a very big inconvenience if it helps keep reliable bus service on Frankstown Avenue in Homewood, but it is not ideal- potentially costing me up to $20 more dollars a month. And the new numbering and lettering for the buses make as little sense to me now as they did before.


Some Public Testimony

Back inside the ballroom, I was impressed with the issues raised by riders, and by the gravitas with which they were received by PAT. Here are some of the comments from the portion of the hearing I attended:

Higher fares on Zone two passes are unfair. Many rider can barely afford the current rates- $24 a week to $30 a week.

It is inefficient to have buses running through the middle of the Downtown area. They should run around the perimeter of Downtown to avoid delays and traffic.

It is appalling to raise fares and cut service.

Investing in Park and Rides and catering to suburban commuters rather than neighborhoods within the city which rely on bus service.

There should not be shelters and bus stop signs where there is no longer service. People are confused by them everyday.

New service plans for the 11 route will adversely affect the kids who take that bus to school, and who, with the new reduced schedule, will only have one chance to get it right or be late for school. The new route will also cut those in the neighborhood off from other neighborhoods even more than before.

Please extend the busways to the east and west.


Connect 09... "Because People Want It"

Though the PAT officials were there to listen and not discuss, they did provide a 25 page document explaining their reasons for the Connect 09 overhaul. The gist is to do more with less.

Port Authority says that an overall evaluation of the system has not been done in over 50 years, and that with the new plan, service will be improved for existing riders, and new riders, who they are hoping to woo, will find the service easy to use. 60% of routes will remain the same, 6% will be eliminated, and 31% of routes will change(3% of the changes mean new routes). “Rapid Buses” promise more frequent service with less stops.

The plan has taken 2 years to create and included input from 24 previous studies and reports and from the public at other events and through their phone hotline and website. They say education is key for riders with negative comments,and that most complaints will not be by those with “true mobility concerns”, but by riders who either do not understand the changes or do not want to make changes to their current service.

I guess you can count me among those numbers- I am slow to change. I don't wholly identify with the bus graffiti I saw- for me the bus is affordable, and I find the drivers more than competent. But I will be thinking of their bosses with less than fondness when the person standing next to me at the bus stop is no longer asking, “Did the Frankstown come yet?' It's a neighborhood institution, and it is our bus.

People Are Talking

Pittsburghers have been talking, commenting and arguing about the G20 Summit happening here for months. PAT bus riders are no exception. Especially when we learned that our bus service would be curtailed.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a conversation on the 71C outbound. The screen on the front of the bus still read “Go Steelers!”, instead of “Pittsburgh Welcomes the World”, which most buses now boast. Three women, two young women and one who was older, sitting in the front where the seats face one another, were discussing the city's G20 plans with the driver, and here is how it went:

“My aunt works at a building Downtown and they are closing her building and they ain’t paying her for those days. And that’s not her fault.”

“It’s not a matter of fault, it just is what it is.”

“Obama’s gonna be here speaking to the unions on the 15^th- you heard about that? And you ain’t even gonna see him. You think you are going to see him? It’s all going to be no problem.”

“They trying to stop the violence- there’s a difference between free speech and violence. In other places protesters burned shops.”

“When MLK was murdered, we burned it down. We burned everything in the Hill.”

“Why would you burn your own neighborhood? We don’t even have anything.”

Laughter all around, and then the older woman got off at her stop saying, “Have a good day, ladies.” I hope they all did. And I hope they are checking their bus schedules this week.

Zen Mind, Bus Mind

I am not a public transportation novice. Before I had a car in Pittsburgh, I relied on PAT buses regularly. I went to college just outside of New York City and made a complicated and long commute into the city weekly for internships there, not to mention all of the train and subway usage for less resume -building fun. I lived in London for a year and took the bus to Sainsbury's for groceries and the Tube and trains everywhere else- I have minded the gap with the best of them. But what I can no longer do is read a bus schedule.

Just last week I ran to the corner near our house and missed a bus which I was sure would not come again for another 25 minutes. It did indeed show up 12 minutes later- I read the schedule for the A instead of the B, which rattles down Penn Avenue more frequently. It was good news that day, but bad news for my general self esteem.

Growing up, my family pegged me as the book smart one, not the practical one. And though I am a tax- paying, fully capable, productive citizen, I still carry some of that assessment with me. For instance, when I am standing on a corner engulfed in bus fumes, wondering why I can't seem to manage something that most fifth graders can do with ease.

In an attempt to end the suffering, I ask myself, “Does it really matter when I get somewhere, as long as I get there?” As it turns out, yes, sometimes it does. And the burden is that this is entirely my doing. There are times when a bus is late, or it just never arrives, mysteriously disappearing from the rotation. But the situation here is that I just can't get it.

I cannot calculate the time and and distance projections for when a bus should arrive at a certain corner when it is .2 miles away from the corner last listed on the schedule. I cannot remember time intervals between buses on a given route during a particular time of day. And I cannot keep weekday and Sunday bus schedules straight.

When I started riding the bus again, I never consulted schedules. I was so pleased with the novelty of being picked up and transported where I wanted to go by someone else for a change. But now I have expectations.

At a stop in front of the new Children's Hospital, there is a number you can text to find out when the next bus scheduled will arrive, but most stops don't offer that service. My default is to ask the person already standing there, unless of course, it is just me, because everyone else has just been picked up 30 seconds before.

How do I make my peace with this when it frustrates me weekly? I suppose the same way I ignore other lapses of my aging mind, like my shortened short term memory. No amount of schedules in my bag is going to protect me from that.

It seems the way to master Bus Mind is to give in to it, but not to be mastered by it, either. As I work on that, I can work on my bus legs. They cause my body to waiver and totter more than my mind as I navigate buses with two-tiered interiors and abrupt stops.

Rip Car

The trouble with car sharing is that everybody's standards are different.

One of the considerations for my decision to go car-free was the presence of a national car sharing company here in Pittsburgh. My girlfriend doesn't drive or own a car, and the idea of a back up plan for emergencies or joy riding was appealing. For $50, I joined as a member of the service right before the registration on my car expired, and received the keys to my liberation soon after.

It turned out that we wanted to get to a family get-together in Washington County, about 35 miles away, the next weekend. Because we had a promotional coupon, we decided to throw caution to the wind and reserve the car for the whole day. In less than five minutes, our online reservation for a car parked near our home was complete, and we were excited about the adventure ahead.


1st Car Share Driving Experience

A day before the reservation time, I received an e-mail that the original car would not be available, and that the service had switched us to another car parked nearby. The next day we gladly climbed into a Toyota Prius. Once we figured out how to operate it, we had a great ride and a fantastic, worry free, if not car-free, day.

The Prius was quiet- so quiet when stopped at traffic lights, it felt like it had stalled. For a driver used to driving a car that required more participation- like keeping an ear out for noises and maintaining a strong will for getting up that next steep grade- the Prius was a dream. And though my mind and my upbringing tell me “Buy American”, my backside says otherwise. Forget about the environmental friendliness of the hybrid- whoever designed that driver's seat deserves a prize.

However, the car sharing service does not. When I checked my account online later to see if the promotional discount had been applied correctly, I discovered that I had been charged many times more than the original estimated cost. A call to the service revealed that the second car they assigned us did not have a day rate, as the originally booked car had, and so we were charged an hourly rate over 24 hours.

When I explained how they put us into a reservation that was not the same as the original without letting us know, I received the company answer from the company man- but they agreed to immediately refund the difference in driving credit or to put the difference back on my credit card in seven to ten days. With more pressing, I found that the driving credit would expire in two months. I opted for the card, but found days later that the full amount was not refunded. With another call, the problem was fixed.


Strike Two

Everything squared, I felt okay about trying out the service again a few weeks later when I need to take care of a tax matter in an old neighborhood of mine which is less accessible by bus. After all, it wasn't the driving experience that was daunting, it was the sticky aftermath. But when I went to pick up the car, which I had reserved for an hour, it wasn't there. A quick call to the service bought me a free half hour to walk to another of their cars and get me on my way. I was told that the new car was parked on a street with which I was familiar, but I couldn't find it, either. I am not great with maps or directions, but they were worse. Two more phone calls to the service, and it was finally found in a nearby lot.

Unfortunately, another call was in order. I had to report that there were scrapes and dents on both bumpers, and once inside the car, a large gash in the passenger side dashboard and a huge hole in the driver's side carpet. The car was parked in a lot in front of a club, and I imagined the previous driver and his or her sidekick dressed in glamorous heeled boots which this mere vehicle could not contain- one with feet kicked up on the dash and the other with pedal to the metal. The tank was empty, and the car share company's gas card, which customers use to refuel, was no where to be found.


Safety First

These minor nuisances all turned out to be the prelude to the real problem of the day. After driving the car for a few miles, it didn't feel quite right to me- more than just driving a car with which you are not familiar. I pulled over at a gas station, stepped out of the car, and realized that the underside of the front bumper was being held up from the pavement with three pieces of silver duct tape, the same color as the car. A crucial fourth piece had lost adhesion from the heat of the day and the dust on the road, and was causing this part of the car to drag. Another call. The customer service person apologized, and suggested that maybe I could reattach it somehow? He also suggested that I refuel on my own dime. A discount on all of my travels and travails for the day was also mentioned. I was too worn out to argue.

I have car shared since, and I am sure that I will again. Maybe I have low standards- lower than those of the car share company's customer service. That will take more than duct tape to repair. According to the company, car sharing is supposed to be easy, fast and fun- carefree. It was some of those things some of the time. Fast to reserve, and fun to drive a car I can't afford to own, but too easy to become tangled up in carelessness and silver tape.

In the Neighborhood, Phase 1

My dog enjoys walking on sidewalks. He prefers streets populated with alleys rather than trees, and likes hot sun as opposed to shade. He did not get this from me, but I try to oblige him whenever I can. It’s a dog’s life.

Unfortunately for the dog, the longer the walk or car-free commute I have ahead of me for the rest of the day, the less interested I am in our morning walk together. We meet in the middle by sticking mostly to our Garfield neighborhood, venturing out further on the weekends to Friendship(where we skip the park), East Liberty and Lawrenceville.

Garfield is a Pittsburgh neighborhood that gets a bad rap for crime and dilapidated buildings from some quarters, and for short-sighted development from others. On our walks, it is plain that there are not as many alleys. There are big, beautiful, fenced- in back yards and houses that look like they have been dropped from the sky. But these newer houses- clean, plain and somehow mid-western looking- have been carefully placed, not dropped, by the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation and Garfield Jubilee Association. They are the country cousins of the brick and other older homes in the area, speaking the same language, but with a different accent, and with scrubbed and more wholesome faces.

On a recent walk, with the first geese formations flying overhead, we saw kids waiting on a neighborhood corner for their yellow school bus while a yellow dirt remover worked to clear the front yard of a new home, a sign exclaiming, “sold” in a shiny new window. Earlier in the summer, we saw a crew of young Amish men put the roof and sides on another house in less than two days.

Some of the new houses are clothed in white DuPont Tyvek Home Wrap, and look like Christmas presents. A sign in front of a lot where a new home is being built tempts potential owners with an $8,000 tax credit if they buy before December 1^st. Next door is a house with a “Danger: Asbestos” sign tacked to the door, which is next to a house with boarded windows, “By owner, $100 down, $100 a month” sprayed in black paint on the wood. Next to that is a house with a small bicycle on the porch, a trash can on the curb awaiting picke up, and t-shirts and insulation wrapped around the pipes of the gas meter. As I worry about what my dog is nosing on the sidewalk, I hear cartoons on a television inside and I am sorry that a child has to live there.

The seven newest houses are part of Phase III of the development. According to this month's Bloomfield Garfield Corporation newsletter, delivered to our door, the mortgage payments for these homes may be “as low as $795/month”. Some of what I imagine are the Phase I houses already have some paint peeling from their less -new steps. I wonder how they will hold up against the elements and local scrutiny, and what kind of investment is really being made in this neighborhood.

Along side the new homes and the broken down homes are the houses that have already been enhancing these streets, with their lush gardens on smaller lots and their owners smiling and waving good morning to me as they get in their cars.

“That's a beautiful dog,” said a neighbor enthusiastically.

I beg to disagree, but didn't at the time. She is entitled to her opinion, her morning cheerfulness, and her bright blue porch carpeting. And she was just being neighborly.

Whine Flu

I don't have an H1N1 virus infection. I do have sinus pressure behind my eyes, and an active imagination.

The buses have been more crowded this week, with college and high school students back to school and parents of younger children taking new routes to accommodate day care and school pick up. More kids, more people, more germs. Or increased access to them.

When I started riding the bus again last month, after a 10 year absence, I noticed the children immediately. Right after I noted the cool, delicious air conditioning that I didn't have to feel guilty about (I didn't tell Port Authority to turn it on). But after I was refreshed, I noticed the children. There are children on our street who play, and loudly yell, in our yard. I have young nieces, and run into children here and there in my everyday life. But until I was seated on a bus with a wailing child again, they were not at the forefront of my mind, or my health care plan. I see them wiping their noses and their eyes and touching absolutely everything, as is their natural right. And I try to remember not to do the same.

Last month, H1N1 infections were reported at two local colleges, one in the city serviced by these very buses.

I got off the bus this week in front of the Walgreen's near my workplace, and for the first time in my life, I thought about getting a flu shot. There are vinyl signs all over the place shouting about it. Then this week my president urged the nation to get one- or at least the new one? I'm listening. At least my imagination is.

When I got up a little later than usual yesterday, and felt my joints and head achier than the day before, I committed the public sin of getting on the bus anyway. I tried to walk, but my body gave in. Once on the bus, I rested my head against the window in gratitude, and I cannot guarantee that I did not leave the telltale greasy mark there. But the bus is not for sick kids or adults. The excitement of leaving work was dulled by returning home the same way. If only I could have clicked my heels instead! I would have had a difficult time driving home, too- but it would have been more direct, and less bumpy.

So yesterday was the first day that I regretted my car-free life. Still considering the flu shot.

Farewell

They came to take my car today. McGann and Chester Towing on behalf of Goodwill Auto Auction on behalf of Animal Friends, which will receive the proceeds.

It didn't really need to be towed. With 132,812.7 miles on the odometer, my car was still in reasonable driving order. But the inspection and registration were due by July 31st, and I knew there were several hundred dollars in routine repairs ahead. I decided well before the expiration date that our relationship had expired.

I bought the car used- not my taste or my choice, ultimately- at the beginning of another relationship. . My then-girlfriend(now friend) and I needed a vehicle for a business that we were starting, and which we never really finished. And so the car became mine, and for ten years it served me well- taking me where I wanted and needed to go, with very little trouble. Like some of my early, less mature relationships, I was happy with it when things were going well, and blamed it when things were not- timing belts, new brakes and unexpected flat tires. But only in the last year were big repairs needed, calling for the equivalent of a long break up call in the middle of the night.

Like an old relationship, I failed to notice the wear and tear- some flaking paint below the front passenger window, dog nose prints accumulating on the back window, the windshield wiper blade there dull. I just knew that the steering wheel in my hands felt comfortable and familiar. And the smell was mine.

My car was not a cherished friend, a prized possession, or an expression of myself. Not using it over the last month, though, has given me a greater appreciation for the private space that it afforded. It is striking how exposed I feel, both walking and on the bus. If I miss anything at all in the empty space where it was parked in front of our house just this morning, I miss that solid promise of cover.

It is the only car I have owned myself and paid off on my own. There is something in that, as well. I had trouble locating the title. I never thought about someday needing to dispose of the car- freeing myself from it. It seemed as though it would be my car for life.

When it was at last found in a box of much less important papers, the title went to Motor Square Garden, to be turned over to Goodwill Industries and notarized. The building is owned by AAA, but I learned that over the years, it has taken it's turn as city market, boxing venue, and car dealership. Now it is all about service.

With numbers in our hands, we the helpless sat under the steel and glass skylight, looking up, mouths open, as an army of seemingly hundreds of employees punctually took care of us. Drivers licenses were renewed, trips were planned to places like Ashtabula County- home of America's longest covered bridge- and boats were registered- all at a discount for AAA members. The air of industry that drove the building up from its foundation lives on at Motor Square Garden, maybe like nowhere else left on earth.

When a third person, an experienced woman with a bright yellow scarf around her neck, like a flight attendant's, asked me for my papers, and took them behind her counter, and clickety- clacked her keyboard with one eye on the clock, I knew I was surrendering my car, and my lifestyle, into the right hands. Here is where it started, in 1900, when all cars were new. And here is where it would end, in 2009, when my car was old. And a new car-free life would start. And so it has.