Port Authority budgets for 30% service cut, 500 layoffs (Gov Unions put gun to head of taxpayers)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | 6/15/2010 | John Schmitz

[Buckeye McFrog]

Port Authority expects to cut service by 30 percent or more and lay off at least 500 employees as of Jan. 1 if it doesn't get state help to close a $50 million deficit

[snip]

Gov. Ed Rendell has convened a special session of the Legislature to deal with a transportation funding crisis brought on by the federal government's rejection of the state's plan to collect tolls on Interstate 80.

[sni]

[Buckeye McFrog]

Temper tantrum time! Free spending PA transit systems did not get their wish to slap toll-booths on I-80 and raise revenue from people who don't live in Pennsylvania, let alone ride buses here. So now they're going to stamp their feet then hold their breath till they turn blue. You have a downtown business and need for your employees to somehow get to work? Too bad! We want our revnue streams, and we want them NOW NOW NOW!!!

[pnh102]

Something tells me no one would miss them if they go.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

That’s what happen when you have a dim Gov.

New Jersey went through the same thing. All Corslime did was suck up to the unions and we paid the price.

[RS_Rider]

How about the proposed $6-$7 fares?
I commuted on those lousy pieces of garbage for years and I refuse to step foot on one again.

[Think free or die]

Let the Gov unions share the pain the rest of us have felt for years and years.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Will likely not happen, but is a scare-tactic to cram thru some other tax hikes. If they do these cuts then all remaining business would likely vacate Downtown Pittsburgh since there is no parking there.

Oh, and they are supposedly working on some new proposal to stick toll booths on the interstates. Hey, Ed...what part of NO do you not understand??

[Plumres]

In the state of Pennsylvania the unions are treated like royalty. The state workers, teachers, and bus drivers have amazing benefits. The bus drivers that are grandfathered into the pension can retire after 25 years of service with most of the salary and free health care for themselves and their family for LIFE!

[Wuli]

more economic truth about the failure of government subsidized transportation;

the subsidies are never enough and never will be;

and how can they be?;

does more of an addictive substance cure the addict, or does it just encourage continuation of the behaviors that desire continued addiction?

There might actually be an economic-worthy place for “mass transit” systems, but we’ll never know, because they are never required to operate by getting 100% of costs from ticket revenues. If they were, they might actually be able to afford the capital and productivity improvements that would allow them to operate profitably AND with fares the general public could afford.

The politically desired fare - the cart, is always put before the horse (the power/revenue) of profitable transportation, and so it’s always a subsidized loser.

[Think free or die]

"In the state of Pennsylvania the unions are treated like royalty. The state workers, teachers, and bus drivers have amazing benefits."

How well I know. Our school taxes are going up almost 13% this year, thanks largely to new school construction, but also to years of generous teacher contracts. We also seem to have a never-ending parade of township workers with taxpayer funded vehicles to drive to their less-then-essential jobs.