Public Transit Cuts Rant and Dessert

General:

1. Last night on my bus ride home a fellow passenger proposed a more militant version of something I’ve been saying for years. Putting in toll booths at the merge point of 79 to 279. (His suggestion involved guns, mine involves tire spikes.) Those bastards in the far north suburbs should pay for all the services they use in our city every day.
2. Stop all busses past zone 2. Or start making them pay exponentially more. The price of gas, etc. necessary to bring all of those suburbanites to the city every day far exceeds their fare. The zone prices should go up by at least a dollar a zone.
3. Stop with the fancy painted/decorated busses. Make them come in any color as long as they’re black. Or blue. Or white. I’ll even take black and gold, just stop with the extra expense.
4. The $2.00 flat fare is infuriating. I refuse to subsidize the suburbs. I refuse to subsidize white flight. I will stop riding the bus if they institute this. And I love riding the bus.
5. Start charging a substantial occupation tax for people living outside of the city and even more substantial for those living outside the county. Other cities do this with much success.

Specific to the 63B:

1. There were EIGHT people boarding the bus at my stop.
2. By the time we got to the busway, people were standing in the aisle. It is like this most mornings.
3. If most of these people take the 61A or 61B instead (keep in mind the elimination of the 501 and 69A) we will fill the bus before it reaches Squirrel Hill inbound and Oakland outbound. This means that there will be no room for the students. If the students can’t take the busses to school, the universities will stop their funding.

The proposed changes will contribute a great deal to the downfall of the city. Young people will be more likely to leave the city for the suburbs (as one young attorney told me that he and his family will do) if they don’t have access to public transportation. There is so much more to say about this regarding being working class, being female, having to watch my city die, etc. . .


But in better news, that doesn't deserve to have to share today with Port Authority, I finally made it to Dozen Cupcakes last night and purchased the Asteroid. I'll not go into my behavior upon finally meeting James. Later, after an impromptu dinner for four (homemade pesto and soup, and some wine) it was time for dessert. I ate all the asteroids off first, then scraped off most of the icing (thanks A & S for taking care of that for me!) and the cake was yummy, yummy, yummy!