Port Authority officials hear from transit riders

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
Port Authority of Allegheny County held a sparsely attended community meeting at the McKeesport Palisades Wednesday to talk to local bus riders about “long-range planning” that is currently underway.
Around a dozen PAT patrons attended “Public Transit: A Community Discussion.”
Port Authority has been holding the meetings in communities across the Greater Pittsburgh area since January, and CEO Katharine Kelleman said input from public transit customers “will help shape the future of public transit in our region.”
“Our goal is to engage communities while it’s still early on for many of these topics so we can get a better sense of the direction our stakeholders want us to go,” Kelleman said.
Kelleman said PAT is in the early stages of a 15-month planning project to develop it’s “first ever 25 year long-range plan.”
“If we don’t know where we want to be in 30 years, how do we get there, right?” Kelleman asked. “We have a whole bunch of studies of where people are moving and what roads make sense and what routes make sense, but we want to talk to the folks that are using our system everyday.
She said Port Authority wanted to know what riders want and what they want to know.

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