NEWS RELEASE
For immediate
release: 2004 April 5
For more
information -- Glenn A. Walsh:
E-Mail < gawalsh@planetarium.cc
>
Telephone 412-561-7876
TAX MONEY TO BE WASTED BY PAT
ABANDONMENT
OF
NEVER-USED RAIL CAR STORAGE YARD
According to long-time public
transit advocate Glenn A. Walsh, “The Mid-Day Rail Car Storage Yard, located
adjacent to the Port Authority Police Station near the Pennsylvania Railroad
Station, was constructed as part of the Stage I Light Rail Transit project, to
permit the storage of extra light rail vehicles Downtown between the morning
and afternoon rush-hours. However, after more than fifteen years, this rail
yard has never been used for its intended purpose—in fact, it has never been
used, at all, for the storage of
light rail vehicles! Now, with the proposed construction of the Convention
Center Subway Line, this rail yard will be completely abandoned, wasting the
original capital investment of the taxpayers in the 1980s.”
Mr. Walsh states that the
actual cost of construction of this rail yard is unknown, as the Port Authority
has never specified the cost of this one part of the Stage I project. Hence, in
an April 2 letter to Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Paul P. Skoutelas
(copy of letter attached), Mr. Walsh asks for the cost of construction of the Mid-Day
Rail Car Storage Yard, under terms of the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law.
According to a 2002 amendment to the Right-to-Know Law, State law requires that
the Port Authority honor Mr. Walsh’s information request, within five business
days of receipt of the written request.
With the relocation of the
primary rail car storage yard, from South Hills Junction in the City’s
Beltzhoover neighborhood [not far from Downtown], to a new Rail Center adjacent
to South Hills Village in Upper Saint Clair, the designers of the Stage I Light
Rail Transit project saw a need for a new rail yard, in the Downtown area, for
temporary storage of light rail vehicles. These extra vehicles, needed for the
morning and afternoon rush-hours, but not required during the late morning and
early afternoon, would otherwise have to make the ten-mile trip between
Although a very nice rail
yard was built for this temporary storage of vehicles, as part of the Stage I
project, it has never been used! Following the conclusion of the morning
rush-hours, excess light rail vehicles have always been sent the ten miles back
to
Why was this rail yard never
used? From discussions with Port Authority staff members over the years, Mr. Walsh
concludes that the staff considers access to and from this rail yard as a
nuisance and believes it could cause switching problems on the main line. For
instance, after a rail trip is completed at
News Release: Tax Money To Be Wasted On
PAT Abandonment of Never-Used Rail Yard
2004 April 5 Page 2 of 2
Mr. Walsh considers this
explanation to be an excuse, as the problem cited would have been obvious to
the designers of the Stage I project. Mr. Walsh says, “The designers of the
Stage I alignment must have been aware of this design drawback. But the rail
yard was built anyway. Obviously, they must have thought that this rail car
movement was a problem that could be lived-with.”
Traffic
on the Penn Station rail line, which runs from
has always been light. From June of 1988
to February
of 1993 a shuttle rail car ran between
on weekdays;
the elimination of this shuttle came with transit service cutbacks in 1993.
This shuttle service, which ran about every
ten-to-fifteen minutes, provided
access to the
Currently,
only two roundtrips operate to and from Penn Station, in the afternoon
rush-hour period. Had the Mid-Day Rail Storage Yard been
used, as intended,
there would have been
much more traffic on the Penn Station line and much more
service to the light rail station
at Penn Station.
As
a long-time advocate of public transportation, who neither owns nor operates a
motor vehicle, Mr. Walsh has actively
supported the expansion of rapid transit
service in
spend limited government grant money to construct a rail yard,
never use it, and then attempt to abandon it.
Further,
with abandonment of this rail yard, the Federal, State, and County governments
may ask that the money used to build the rail yard be returned, since the rail
yard was never used. Following the abandonment of the “PATrain” commuter rail
service to the
commuter rail stations in the
mid-1980s.
“This
is a clear-cut example of the waste of limited taxpayer funds available to aid
public transit,” Mr. Walsh said. He added, “Good public
transit is very
important to urban areas such as
to an agency that shows such poor financial
judgment. More public scrutiny,
over Port Authority operations and capital projects,
is
needed to regain public support for this vital public service.”
Mr.
Walsh has also sent a letter
(copy of letter attached) to Port Authority Board
Chairman John A. Brooks, asking, under terms of the
Pennsylvania Sunshine Act,
to address
the PAT Board regarding this matter at the Board’s April 23 meeting.
-30-
Note to Editors and
Reporters:
Glenn A. Walsh has been an advocate of public transportation, and has closely
followed proceedings of the Port Authority of Allegheny County (including the
attendance of many meetings of the PAT Board of Directors), for more than
twenty-five years. Mr. Walsh was a charter member, in 1984, of the Allegheny
County Transit Council, a citizens' advisory body designated by the
Internet links to the
two letters cited in the News Release --
Letter
to Mr. Skoutelas: < https://andrewcarnegie2.tripod.com/transit/L-SkoutelasRailYard.htm >
Letter to Mr. Brooks: < https://andrewcarnegie2.tripod.com/transit/L-BrooksRailYard.htm
>
gaw 2004 April 3 Glenn A. WalshElectronic Mail - < gawalsh@planetarium.cc >
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