Tag Archives: Port-Authority-Transit

An Information Science Solution to Pittsburgh Public Transit Woes

Bob Firth, Informing Design
“The Long Squiggly Line That’s Killing Our Transit System and an Information Science Solution”
February 21, 2007, 3:30 pm
Room 501, 135 N. Bellefield Ave
School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh

The recent proposed cuts to funding of the Pittsburgh Authority
Transit system
have led Bob Firth and his company, Informing Design,
to consider a radical redesign of bus routes based on efficient
transportation systems that are being used in Washington, DC, Los
Angeles, Cleveland and even Curitiba, Brazil. In this talk, Bob Firth
will present his ideas for developing a cost-effective and efficient
bus system, based on years of experience in studying transportation
flows in Pittsburgh and applying basic information science principles
to solving problems of navigation and wayfinding.

Bob Firth is founder and president of Informing Design, which is an
innovative company that has designed a number of novel wayfinding
tools including the colorful Pittsburgh Wayfinder signs and the
www.bigburg.com collection of print-on-demand maps. The talk is
sponsored by the Spatial Information Science Research Interest Group
of the School of Information Sciences and will be followed by a
reception in Room 522.

Port Authority Transit is Riding Me

Somebody at Port Authority Transit must have a screw loose.

Port Authority transit cutbacks are biggest in history

The series of bus and trolley changes include eliminating:

  • 124 of 213 weekday bus routes.
  • 55 of 100 Saturday bus routes.
  • 26 of 75 Sunday and holiday bus routes.

Light-rail service would be trimmed by cutting hours of operation and increasing the time between trolleys. Besides reducing the number of daily transit vehicle hours, the changes would reduce the number of one-way vehicle trips by 24 percent and overall ridership by 11 percent, the authority has estimated.

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The Bus Stops Here (or At Least It Used To)

Ed Rendell seemingly did a terrific job as mayor of Philadelphia. Aside from his pro-choice stance on abortion, I thought he could do a good job as governor of Pennsylvania. Perhaps I was wrong. He’s really screwing the pooch on this public transportation cutback. He’s being very “un-Democrat”.

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