On Friday, March 28, 2025, Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s Board unanimously approved a public comment period that began on Monday, March 31 and ended on Wednesday, June 18.

PRT accepted comments via an online comment form, in person at the Downtown Service Center, U.S. Mail, voicemail, and at three public hearings as detailed below. Approximately 82% of comments received came from the online form.

Of the 4,830 comments received, 95% of people gave feedback on bus / rail service cuts, about 66% for bus and rail fare increase, about 15% gave feedback on ACCESS cuts and fare increase.

Fewer than 2% of responses supported bus and rail or ACCESS cuts. About 27% of responses to bus and rail cuts were feedback on specific routes.

Support for fare increase was higher but with sharp differences by transit use / income (see details below).

Use the tabs below to see more details about the comments received for each proposal:

In addition to general comments on opposition or support of the proposed service cuts and fare increases, forms and comments were analyzed to see how how the proposed changes would impact commenters. These are detailed below.

Approximately 40% of commenters supported the proposed bus and light rail fare increases.

Approximately 53% of respondents from households earning over $100,000 per year supported fare increase compared to just 24% of respondents from households earning less than $25,000 per year.

Note: 30% of survey respondents did not provide a response to the question about their annual household income.

The chart below shows the breakdown of comments by transit route, sorted in order of routes with the most comments to those with the least. Comment rate is included to provide the context of how many comments were received compared to the number of average weekday riders.

Instructions: There are four pages of routes. You can move between these pages using the right arrow at the top of the chart. The routes are ordered from those receiving the most comments to those receiving the least, but you can click on any heading in the chart to reorder the chart. You can also search the chart for your desired route.

In addition to general comments on opposition or support of the proposed service cuts and fare increases, forms and comments were analyzed to see how how the proposed changes would impact commenters. These are detailed below.

Compared to bus and light rail impacts, commenters most often noted that the impacts of ACCESS service reductions and fare increases would impact their community and their loved ones.

PRT also analyzed all written comments for common keywords and themes. The resulting word cloud shows the words most frequently used by commenters. Testimony most often revolved around the impacts of the changes on people, work, and communities. The hub of PRT’s current system, Downtown, is also a common theme in comments.

Below is a small sample of quotes from the comments PRT received. The full archive of all comments can be found in the three Adobe Acrobat PDF files that make up the FY 2026 Summary of Public Comment Period for Proposed Fare and Service Changes Appendices on PRT's Funding Crisis page.

Considering the significant impact public transit has on communities, it was unsurprising to learn that those who commented extended well beyond only transit riders. Students, small business owners, elected officials from local municipalities, and the heads of several large institutions also commented about how the cuts and fare increases would impact them. Those submitting comments were not required to answer questions about themselves. As a result response rates varied from 60% to nearly 100% depending on the question.

The map below shows the source of comments by zip code (where provided) with darker blue zip codes being those with more commenters, many of whom were outside Allegheny County where PRT primarily operates.

The online and print comment forms asked respondents about how often they use transit, consistent with other surveys PRT has conducted for various purposes. The responses are included below.

Approximately 18% of survey respondents did not provide an answer for race or ethnicity, but of those who answered, 18% reported being minority residents, compared to 24% of Allegheny County (Source: US Decennial Census) and 49% of PRT ridership (Source: 2022 Annual Rider Survey).

30% of survey respondents did not provide a response about household income. Of those who answered, commenters reported slightly lower incomes than the Allegheny County average, but higher incomes than a typical PRT rider as assessed by PRT's most recent rider survey.

All comments are important to PRT and to elected officials because they help us to understand the impacts that service cuts and fare increases are likely to have on Allegheny County. However, when it comes to making service changes, PRT must prioritize the needs of transit riders.

Additional materials are available. You can use an interactive dashboard to do your own analyses on the comments and watch a presentation about public comments from the June 2025 Board Meeting by PRT’s Chief Development Officer.

Interactive Comments Dashboard

Click on the image below to open the interactive comments dashboard where you can see how different groups responded to the proposed service reductions and fare increases.

Note: This presentation was given prior to the end of the public comment period. As a result, numbers will differ from the final numbers published on other parts of this page.