Pittsburgh Regional Transit is recommending a 25-cent fare hike and steep service cuts as the agency faces tremendous financial pressure.
If ultimately approved, the fare hike on single rides would take effect next year.
Single-ride fares would rise to $3 from $2.75 effective Feb 1, 2026.
Proposed service reductions would eliminate the transit agency’s light-rail Silver Line and 41 of its roughly 100 bus routes. It would also reduce service by at least 30% on 34 other routes.
Such severe cuts would be the agency’s largest service rollback in a decade.
The board will contemplate the moves in an effort to plug a huge hole in the agency’s fiscal year budget, which starts July 1.
The agency is facing a $100 million deficit in 2026 and a projected $1.8 billion shortfall over the next 10 years, according to agency CEO Katharine Kelleman.
In addressing a key board committee Thursday morning at agency headquarters in Downtown Pittsburgh, Kelleman said the hike would make the new fares “among the highest in the nation.”
Without drastic action, “We are talking catastrophic service cuts,” she said. “Pittsburgh Regional Transit has a deficit. This is not unique. This is not new. But this is critical.”
The agency’s planning and stakeholder relations committee voted unanimously to open a public comment period from March 31 to June 18 to allow input on the proposed changes.
Next Friday, the full board plans to meet to discuss the proposal.
Amy Silbermann, the agency’s chief development officer, said Pittsburgh Regional Transit has lost 36% of service over the past 20-odd years.
The proposed changes would decrease current service by up to 40% and boost both fixed route and paratransit fares, according to the presentation to the committee.
Also under consideration: eliminating all service after 11 p.m., including on weekends.
Adam Brandolph, an agency spokesman, talked about the anticipated moves to reporters earlier this week.
“State funding, having not increased the share to public transit in more than a decade, does not meet the needs of public transit in Allegheny County,” Brandolph told TribLive news partner WTAE on Tuesday. “(It) has caused a funding crisis at Pittsburgh Regional Transit.”
The advocacy group Pittsburghers for Public Transit has slammed the public transit agency in the past for responding to financial crises — such as those presented by covid — with fare increases.
“While we understand that transit funding is in crisis, we believe that the remedy is not to extract fare revenue off the backs of those who can least afford to pay,” the group said previously in a prepared statement.
Bus ridership in many cities nationwide was hit hard by the pandemic — and has not bounced back.
Total Pittsburgh regional transit ridership topped 33.2 million rides last year, the agency said Thursday.
The agency received more than $500 million in federal stimulus funding to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, the agency said in its fiscal year 2025 report.
It is seeking a $117 million increase in funds from Harrisburg for the budget year that begins July 1.