We’ll get back to holiday and lighter news soon, but here’s just one more item about public transportation.  This morning Port Authority voted to enact a big fare hike and 35% service reductions.  The fare increases will take effect on January 1, 2011, and the service reductions will begin in March 2011.  There’s a story in the Post-Gazette that explains it in more detail.  Port Authority also has information and a full chart of service reductions on its website.

On that chart is one small reassurance to Polish Hill residents: the 54C is not one of the routes Port Authority plans to eliminate, although service will be reduced.  There’s no information yet on whether that reduction will eliminate the Polish Hill leg of the route.

Over a third of our residents, many of them older, do not own cars and depend on the 54C to get to Bloomfield to get groceries, go to the doctor, and do other errands.  Others rely on it to get to work, or to school.  Polish Hill residents turned out in force when Port Authority last considered eliminating the service through the neighborhood, so they are aware how much the 54C means to our community.