The draft recommendations of the TDP have been released.  I’ll be working my way through it (all 230 pages of it) over the weekend, but check it out in the meantime to see how your route will be affected.

Individual route maps aren’t up yet won’t be posted until sometime next week, but the document goes over (somewhat cryptically) changes to be made to each line.  I haven’t been able to tell if I’m going to have bus access in my neighborhood or not, reading it could go either way and the map, even though it is marked as “large” does not cover the entire area.  But we’ll see, it is such a process.  And besides, this give me more time to start saving money for the fee increase (or possibly decrease if you used to live in the soon-to-no-longer-exist Zone 3).

I’m not a huge fan of twitter.  Most of it has to due with my cell phone plan without free text messages, but besides that, I find them a bit unwieldy and not the most convenient.

That being said, I do check in on the Port Authority’s twitter page (from a computer) to check out the latest happenings, since much more appears there than on their website.  And it looks like the proposed final version of the TDP is going to be released on Friday.

Suddenly I feel like I should be taking bets…

Work has kept me very, very busy, and I’ve been doing a lot of driving (thank goodness for the invention of Easy Pass!), and with all the driving, I”ve burned through a lot of CDs, so I’ve even occasionally turned on the radio.

PAT is running ads about the north shore connector.  Which is all well and good; that combined with the news that they were able to cut some of the costs really is welcomed news. 

However, having studied advertising- actually, no,  having ears and living in Pittsburgh is what allows me to ask the question, “wait, really?”

And I don’t have the official transcript of the ad, so I’m going of my memory here, but it goes something like this:

Pittsburghers hate crossing rivers

This is where my brain starts to hurt a  little bit and I question the ad shop that put this together.  The only Pittsburghers I know who are afraid of crossing rivers are the ones I make fun of because they can’t go anywhere.  Same with going through tunnels, although it is a little easier to get around without using a tunnel.

But really?  Pittsburgh.  City of bridges.  Really?  And I’ve been asking for a long time why PAT felt we needed an underwater T tunnel, when we’re really good at bridges.  I mean really good, it’s kind of what we do here.  But hey, apparently I’ve always hated crossing rivers and never knew it.

Although to be fair, this is extra special since it’s on Thursday!  The Port Authority released the findings of the Transit Development Plan online on Tuesday, one day after the Post Gazette reported on it.

Currently, PAT operates 187 routes with over 16,000 stops.  The goal of the TDP is to make the system more efficient, easier to use and faster for everyone.

Right now, there are three general options in place: Better Radial, Better Radial Plus and Grid.  None of the three are completely fleshed out, in fact, the closest Park-n-Ride lot to me isn’t even connected by any bus route in any of the new options.  But specifics aren’t there yet, the Port Authority knows this.

At the moment, I don’t have the time to be pouring over all these documents like I want to.  I’ve perused them quickly, but I really want to spend a lot of time reading and understanding the thinking behind each of the three options, as well as some of the other changes, including three different options for new bus loops in the Golden Triangle.  So I’ll take a little more time and get back to you, I promise (granted, it will probably be over a couple different posts, with so much to cover, I don’t want to try to cram it all into just one).

I’ll be revisiting this very soon, but in the meantime, check it out here.  Open houses (I’m guessing forum-like discussions) are planned for June in Oakland and Downtown, and changes are going to start by the end of the year and continue into 2010.

See what I did with the title there?  Funny, huh?  Ok, probably not.  And as much as I wanted to talk about the upcoming service changes (I’ll probably do a special edition PATransit Thursday, ohhhhhhh), I was looking over the latest Rider Report and found this gem that I felt needed to be shared:

If you are a social service agency professional and would like more information about participating in an upcoming curse, please contact ACTA at 412-809-3505.

I added the emphasis.  And yes, it’s just missing an ‘o,’ and yes, I have been guilty of the same thing time and time again (many times right here on Metblogs, I do have a tendency to hit ‘publish’ before spellcheck, I’m trying to reverse that order), but I couldn’t resist posting this before it was caught and then corrected.

And in a related note, this edition of the Rider Report (and with this article) shows a bus with a tribute sign from the funeral last month.  The back signs on the buses were flashing “Zone 5,” also in tribute.  I tried to take a picture, but my cell phone camera was not up to the task.  I’m still trying to extract it somehow that is still viewable (without a zoom, it’s really small), if I have any luck, I’ll post it here for you.

I thought the signs were very, very nice and once I made the connection with the back signs (took me a second, I was trying to figure the schedule out for the EBS), I was taken aback by how such a small gesture could really mean so much.

And this week in wild, unsubstantiated ideas about the service changes: Base price will remain at $2, but for $3, you can get a pass good for unlimited rides for up to twelve hours.  And buses that run on the hopes and dreams of the citizens of Pittsburgh.

This week’s column is more of a tangent, but since the mayoral race is heating up and politics are seemingly coming from all sides, I figured this would be a good time to bring some attention to this article.

The mayor of Berekely, 71-year-old Tom Bates, has recently given up his car in favor of a transit pass.

“I figure, if I really want to go someplace I can just rent a car.”

How awesome is that?  Wouldn’t it be cool to see Luke and other prominent members of city government to give this a shot.  Seems like the mayor and city council are very concerned, and rightly so, about transit during contract negotiations.  But what if they actually used it?

I don’t follow the city politics that much since I’m not a resident of the city, so there may be some higher-ups that do use transit as their primary mode of transportation.  But I do have to wonder what their reaction would be if this was asked of them, maybe at the next debate?

And as promised, here’s today’s unsubstantiated, unsolicited, wild speculation about the upcoming changes to PAT: The call center will reduce its hours and the system will finally change over to the text messaging service.  And free Twinkies with ever transfer.

Bus Stop Opera is slated to perform again this weekend (I’m guessing here, but possibly the last performance, unless the cast and crew are sticking around after the semester ends).  However, no route is posted.  So if you’re on the bus or at a bus stop around Oakland and the East Busway between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. tomorrow and see people spontaneously breaking out into song and dance, don’t worry, it was supposed to happen.

Two topics for today’s column: Earth Day and the possibility of service changes.

First off: Earth Day!  Tomorrow, Wednesday the 22, is Earth Day.  Everyone should go out and hug a tree.  Barring that, the Port Authority will have a presence at Pitt’s Earth Day festival, showcasing how to utilize the bike racks on the buses (need some info but can’t make it to the festival, check out Bike Pittsburgh’s page here, including video and information for buses, the T and the inclines).  PAT will also be downtown from 11 to 2 at Fifth Avenue Place, as part of Highmark’s festival.  Want more info about their Earth Day presence and their hybrid buses (six on the road now, more coming in the fall – I wish I knew what they looked like so I could comment on them), check out their press release.

The second, and more interesting issue of the day, is the possible service changes coming to the T in the south hills (and mentioned complete overhaul of the entire transit system).  Now, generally, I don’t worry about the T that much, seeing as it does me no good.  I know that I’ve mentioned this before, and it is kind of bothersome.  But I do realize that once the North Shore Connector (another rant for another day) is finished, it will be moderately more useful to me.  But anyway, it looks like some stops will be eliminated and the routes will be changed from numbers to colors.

Lots more after the break, check it out.

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First, a quick response to this column last week. Apparently my bus did show up, just 15 minutes early. It still begs the question, but to be fair, it was made up for the next day when it was 15 minutes late.

Now normally I don’t gripe. I do love the bus. I love not driving. Quite frankly, I dread the days when I have to drive. That being said, I need the bus to be a bit more reliable please!

Yesterday, while waiting at Penn Station for my bus, it went past without stopping. This typically wouldn’t be a huge issue, it gets crowded there: the FACT bus has no idea how to pick up passengers and move on in a timely fashion and the New Stanton Castle bus picks up what I can only imagine is the entire population of New Stanton Castle each time, so I can understand my bus going past without seeing me. When it goes past without a sign saying it was my line, then I don’t know to head to another stop, and I as well as another passenger, are stuck without rides, then it’s a bad thing.

Thankfully a friend was also working downtown and I hopped a ride home, but again, I ask, this time with more fire and brimstone (if that is even possible), what the crap?!

I’m calling this the What the Crap edition of PATransit Tuesdays.  Firstly, because Mother Nature is crazy and decided that we needed snow today.But hey no biggie, we’ve had stranger weather in Pittsburgh before.

Now, the real reason I must ask “What the crap” would be in regards to the bus that I took home yesterday. Oh wait, it never showed.

I got to Penn Station early, like I typically do, and stood around for a while. Eventually, I got nervous enough that I decided to hop another bus to the Monroeville Park and Ride, figuring from there I’d grab my regular bus to my neighborhood, or one of the other two routes that run that way.

I waited for a while and neither of those ever showed, although I think I might have been early for them anyway (well, late for one ride and early for the next). I was offered a ride home and got there thanks to the kindness of a fellow stranded bus-rider (which has happened before, we’re good people.)

I can understand busses not showing up when the roads are very bad and traffic makes them impassable, however, I don’t understand what happened yesterday, so I have to ask, what the crap?!