Transit Trials and Tribulations

Good morning Pittsburgh! It’s a glorious January morning! The sun is bright, the sky is blue, and the air is brisk.  Unfortunately, I’m in bumper-to-bumper traffic, although I get to share this beautiful day with thousands of other Pittsburghers on their way to downtown.  As I creep painfully, slowly, sluggishly through the Liberty tunnel and across the bridge, awaiting the arrival of my exit I say to myself, where the @#$* did all these extra commuters come from?  There was never this many before.  Weird…

After three agonizing hours on the bridge, I finally make it to Downtown. Halleluiah! Free at last.  No, wait! What is this? Where did all the parking spaces go?  Is it an attack of the parking meter monster?  Someone has stolen the parking spaces in Downtown Pittsburgh!  I spend the next 45 minutes getting flipped off, cut off and frustrated from fighting fellow commuters, competing for the very same unavailable parking spots that I want, too.  I search and search, but there is no available space to park, save for the Allegheny, Monongahela, and the Ohio…

Finally! I found a spot.  Collecting my things (briefcase, purse, coat, etc.), I crawl out of my stifling vehicle into the brisk, city freshness of the outdoors and take a deep breath, only to choke and gag after inhaling my daily dosage of car exhaust…so many cars with working Pittsburghers still looking for parking.  I shake my head and laugh…suckers, I think to myself, while those same drivers try to run me over while I cross the street, scanning for the invisible parking spaces.  Just two more miles to walk before I get to work and take lunch…

Six more blocks…almost there…Arg! Who do these people think they are? Demonstrating on the sidewalk…I wonder what they’re fighting for? Oh.  It’s just the unemployed bus drivers angry after the weekend and evening service cuts.  Whatever.  That never affected me anyways.  I drive a car…

As an activist with Save Our Transit, it never fails that I always have that one person, or in this case several people, who claim that cutting the bus services and raising the fares will not affect them.  However, it is clear that in order to keep this city alive and functioning, public transportation is at the heart of the equation.  Keep Pittsburgh alive.  Prevent public transportation from bleeding to death.

- Amanda Zeiders is a senior at the University of Pittsburgh enrolled in the school of social work. She is currently interning at the Thomas Merton Center, working with Save Our Transit.