THIS WEEK
“THEY ARE FILLING A NEED WHERE WE DO NOT HAVE SERVICE.”
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Hear from the local artists who featured their work at the nationally touring Wizard World Comic Con that rolled through town this weekend. www.pghcitypaper.com
Check out #EarlyBurgh, our new weekly Instagram feature, by Theo Schwarz, showcasing earlymorning scenes throughout Pittsburgh. instagram.com/pghcitypaper {PHOTO BY THEO SCHWARZ}
Lynn Manion with the ACTA shuttle outside IKEA
MICRO MANAGEMENT
This week: Balkan dance parties, bands in homage to bell hooks, and hot, hot peppers. #CPWeekend podcast goes live every Thursday at www.pghcitypaper.com.
CITY PAPER
INTERACTIVE
This week we re-grammed @shansstory’s #CPReaderArt photo from The Waterfront in Homestead. Tag your Instagram photos as #CPReaderArt, and we just may re-gram you! Download our free app for a chance to win tickets to Toby Keith on Sept. 26 at First Niagara Pavilion. Contest ends Thu., Sept. 17.
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EET ALLEGHENY County’s “secret” shuttles: Ride ACTA and Heritage Community Transportation are “micro-transit” services that provide some 240,000 rides a year to mostly low-income riders, in suburban areas that aren’t covered by the Port Authority. While many locals haven’t heard of them, these tiny transportation groups provide a crucial service. And some see them as the future of public transit in outlying suburban areas. But critics wonder why these services don’t have to follow the same rules as the Port Authority (PAT). Micro-transit drivers are paid less than PAT drivers, and the agencies are not required to adhere to the same accountability standards the Port Authority follows. “If they are being seen as public transit, then they need to act like public transit,” says Molly Nichols of Pittsburghers for Public Transportation, a transit advocacy group.
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 09.16/09.23.2015
NYESHA NEAL lives in Duquesne and works at Firehouse Subs, in Robinson. She commutes more than 90 minutes each way on two PAT buses, the second of which drops her off about a mile from work. Without the Ride ACTA shuttle, she would have to walk over the 376 overpass and up two hills, all with no sidewalks to separate her from the cars that speed between shops in Robinson Town Centre.
What does the growth of “micro-transit” services mean for public transportation? {BY RYAN DETO} “There are a lot of jobs out here that are really hiring, but I wouldn’t travel all the way out here without the shuttle,” says Neal. Ride ACTA and Heritage were both created in the early 2000s as nonprofit social-
service organizations, in part to transport workers and fill gaps left by canceled Port Authority routes. Ride ACTA, the transit arm of the Airport Corridor Transportation Association, serves the pedestrian-unfriendly airport-corridor area of Robinson, Findlay and Moon. It picks up riders at the IKEA Port Authority stop, then the driver plans the trip based on the destinations requested by riders (most of whom get dropped off at one of two large call centers, Fed Ex or Wal-Mart. Heritage (part of Heritage Community Initiatives) serves the Mon Valley on fixed routes, with many stops connecting to PAT buses. Both services contract out to local transportation companies that provide the drivers and shuttles. Lynn Manion, director of ACTA, says that more than 70 percent of the nonprofit’s ridership is lower-income riders, and that 96 percent of all Ride ACTA riders use the service to get to work. “Just because these jobs are in a middleCONTINUES ON PG. 08