Question time for the Port Authority
The public transit authority in metro Pittsburgh -- the Port Authority -- needs to be subjected to the tough scrutiny of journalists.
Fellow journalists and ex-journalists --
At no charge, here are some timely Port Authority story ideas, public transit facts and questions you might want to ask PA executives. They are based on my quick (unpaid) perusal of the PA's own data drawn from its (pre-covid) 2020 budget.
One big timely news story that is begging to be addressed --
How has the PA dealt with and responded to last year's ridership-crushing lockdowns?
-- Port Authority bus ridership at one point was down 70 percent. In March it was only down 44 percent year over year.
-- Rail (T) ridership was once down 83 percent. In March it was only down 72 percent year over year.
-- One Squirrel Hill bus route averaged 32 passengers a day -- Down from 518 pre-Covid (maybe it's missing CMU students?) Airport Flyer riders down from 1903 a day to 654 last year, though that number must be coming back.
In response to this huge drop in ridership numbers because of lockdowns, has anyone at the PA been laid off, had their hours cut, etc. What other cost saving measures have been employed?
The PA should have been able to save millions of dollars in operating costs in 2020. Did it?
(Some of my questions about revenue losses due to lockdowns and other things are answered in this outside audit of Port Authority that compared fiscal year 2020 with fiscal year 2019. Skim it at your own peril.)
Meanwhile, it's in the process of planning to order new rail cars -- for $400 to $500 million, Ed Blazina reported recently for PG. Does that purchase still make sense (as if it ever did)?
Chronic problems that the PA has that the local news media have rarely if ever challenged or questioned (other than me and the old Trib editorial page):
Total operating costs of PA ($413 million in 2018) were virtually the same for years 2017-2019.
In the 2020 budget (pre-Covid lockdowns), the PA projected operating costs of $461.9 million.
Here’s the PA’s explanation:
Expenses
Operating expenses total $461.9 million. An increase of 8.9%, or approximately $38 million over FY 2019 actuals. The majority of the additional expenses are attributable to a 5.8% increase in Salaries & Wages and a 5.2% increase in Employee Benefits driven by the continued rise in the Authority’s Pension obligations.
Operating Assistance
Port Authority receives operating assistance from state and county governments. For FY 2020, these funds are budgeted at a total of $298 million, an increase of $27.2 million over FY 2019. A portion of this increase, $22.9 million, is this usage of deferred state operating assistance to ensure a balanced budget.
How will the 2020 budget be changed to reflect the new post-lockdowns reality? Was it adjusted during 2020?
With ridership slowly declining (or barely staying flat), operating costs went from $390 million in 2017 to $461 million in 2020 (and that was a projection; obviously revenues didn't get to the budget-planned number and costs should have been far lower).
The PA should be sitting on a lot of extra leftover $ -- in 2020 it had to have been using less labor, less diesel, fewer tires, right? Did it?
Finally, look at all the maintenance projects the PA has to complete -- the PA rail route in South Hills is old and falling apart. It's been poorly maintained -- not enough money from state and feds, I'm sure, will be the excuse. But …
Ridership is always down a little each year; 2020 was a massive drop. Does the $350K/year exec of PA really think ridership is coming back with all the remote downtown office workers staying off buses? How does she/the PA plan to adjust? Cut anything drastically — or at all?
This is nothing new.
The PA has always been poorly managed and wasteful: 73 percent of its operating budget goes to wages/salaries and pensions/benefits; the state and feds buy the new buses and T-cars.
The number of PA employees is stuck at 2,600. That number has essentially been flat since 2011 -- what has ridership done since then? It ain't gone up; costs up too. So how long will the current workforce level be maintained?
Will PA cut people -- or continue adding them?
Look at the breakdown of employees by job types on Page 55 of the budget:
Transit employees (drivers, maintenance, etc.) stable; but 95 f-ing people in the law department? 49 Marketing people? Planning and legal together went from 33 to 140 or so in last three years; 150 more managerial/office employees today than 2017?
WTF?
That's 150 white-collared people costing PA 75K/year in salary and benefits on average. What are they doing all day? What were they doing every day in 2020?
Still More:
If ridership was down 70 percent on buses in 2020 and the PA anticipated about $80 million in fares for 2020, that means they only took in about $24 million in cash instead of $80 million. Did that happen? Where did the money go/not go?
For the T, instead of getting the $11 million the PA projected in fares for 2020, it would have lost 83 percent of that amount -- ending up with only about $3 million something.
Extra Credit:
Based on the PA pie charts, it's pretty much a myth that poor people and seniors disproportionately use public transit bus:
-- It looks like only about 13 percent of riders are seniors.
— About a quarter of riders make more $75k a year, and 39 percent make over $50,000 a year, if the PA’s survey is accurate, which means a lot of well-off city/suburban people are having their bus/T fares subsidized. How does the PA's CEO justify that as fair play?
Final fact:
Did you know that 65 percent of bus passengers are female? https://www.portauthority.org/contentassets/a87b421c115246c29b635b79f090cace/budgetfy2020.pdf
You guys who are still getting paid to do journalism can take it from here.