Posts Tagged transit
The Port Authority Finally Knows Who’s Riding What, When and Where
written 9 Dec 2008 well into the night
Brent over at Peak Direction has awesomely pointed out that the study the Port Authority commissioned to analyze it’s routes has finally come out to the public, and it’s got a ton of great information inside. Some of the info the report contains provides general information about Port Authority routes, such as the fact that they’re too complicated, often too long, and some routes are just completely pointless. Check out his site for all of the links you’ll need to really get in depth with reading the report, but I thought I’d share some highlights that I found interesting as I read the report.
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Pittsburgh’s Transportation Wiki
The City Paper recently asked me to take part in their wiki dedicated to improving transportation in the grand city of Pittsburgh. The idea is that if enough people show interest and take action, then our transit systems and pedestrian/bike-friendliness in general will reap the rewards.
The Port Authority Wants to Hear from You
As part of the major renovation that’s happening with our fair city’s transit system, the Port Authority is holding open house meetings specifically aimed at hearing where the public wants to go when it comes to riding buses.
This is your chance to do more than just blog and bitch about the bus system, which for all of its shortcomings is actually halfway decent and so the improvements which are likely to come out of this and the other initiatives the Port Authority has been undertaking this year are going to be a welcomed addition to Pittsburgh.
Bring Back the UltraViolet Loop
There are a lot of great bars and coffee shops and other late night hang outs in this city that are pretty easily accessible via bus routes from where I live, places like the Brillobox or Quiet Storm, or neighborhoods I’d like to explore more thoroughly like Regent Square. The problem is, if you plan on staying late, don’t — very few buses run until 2am or later.
Find Port Authority Hand Schedules Instantly
After I created this mobile-optimized version of the Port Authority’s trip finder, Jake from 42harold.org sent me some code and permission to style up his own creation, an extremely simple and easy to use little form that allows you to type in the name of a bus you’re looking to find and it’ll bring up the PDF version of the hand schedule from the Port Authority’s website.
A Better Port Authority Trip Finder
The Port Authority of Allegheny County offers an online trip planner that is decent from a functionality standpoint, but the Port Authority’s website in general, to be as definitively accurate as possible, sucks. For example, it’s a table-based layout, the design leaves a good bit to be desired, the site’s homepage fails HTML validation with 65 errors, and it’s awfully slow. Plus, it’s one of the few remaining sites where you actually have to type in www or you get a Bad Request error.
So I’ve done what I could and nabbed the primary code from their main site and optimized it for mobile phones. Well, for iPhone in particular, but it should work relatively well on any mobile device that’s got an Internet connection. If you use the site on a mobile device other than iPhone, let me know how it looks / functions in the comments.
iPhone and mobile device optimized Port Authority Trip Planner »
Read more on A Better Port Authority Trip Finder…
The Presidential Candidates Stance on Public Transportation
There are two decent posts over at Peak Direction, a blog focused on public transit in Pittsburgh, about where the Presidential Candidates stand on improving (or otherwise) public transportation.
Clinton and (now defunct) Huckabee »
Baraq and McCain »
Read more on The Presidential Candidates Stance on Public Transportation…
Investigating the Port Authority, Drink Tax and the Onorato Administration
This report will attempt to demonstrate how, given the available data, the Port Authority could actually profit considerably more than $32M per year, if it gets its act together.
I have been doing considerable research (relative to my other posts, anyway) as to the purpose of the Drink Tax and its affect on the Port Authority, namely: Will their be measurable results to indicate if the drink tax is a success? The concern being that this becomes just another tax which has no visible results. I submitted questions to the Port Authority, Dan Onorato, County Council and FACT (Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation) in an attempt to get this question answered.
Read more on Investigating the Port Authority, Drink Tax and the Onorato Administration…
Maglev
The Maglev project has been in the works for nearly a decade. (Have a look at their website’s design to see just how long this project’s been going for. 
) I had first heard of it around the turn of the century (yeah, you can say that now), everyone was all hyped up for this train that had something to do magnets and was presumably super fast.
But how fast is super fast? Read more on Maglev…
The Future of Pittsburgh Public Transportation
Peak Direction is a great blog all about public transit in Pittsburgh and it’s author, Brent, seems to keep on top of what’s happening in the area. For instance, did you know CMU is building an automated phone system to help finding a bus after Port Authority hours easier? Or that Port Authority has plans to build an automated fare system?
Read more on The Future of Pittsburgh Public Transportation…
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