Best solution: Privatize public transportation. There used to be several private bus companies serving the Pittsburgh area. Socialists put them out of business, and now we have greedy PAT.
Time for the pendulum to swing the other way. We could have polite drivers, lower fares, and reduced taxes. We could get rid of Mr. Onorato’s drink tax, too.

But, Democrats would much rather help their unions than help the rest of us.

Privatization of any industry rarely means lower costs or fares. Once again a misguided Conservative would rather give up a decent wage and a pension for workers and give it to the private business profit pocket. You can bury your head in the sand and blame all the world’s problems on unions and Democrats. And all the while, the rich upper crust is laughing all the way to the bank and Palm Springs while you work your hands to the bone getting them richer and richer. If you are going to blame someone, blame the corporate profit margin, not the unions that give a worker a decent living.

That’s right, shaft the poor to help a couple of thousand overpaid union members and don’t solve the problem because of imaginary rich people.
Real smart.
Very hurtful.
But, that’s what Democrats do best.

The fuel hedge runs out at the end of August, so fuel is going to be an issue. Work where you live and live where you work or pay up.

“Work where you live and live where you work or pay up.”
Typically self-righteous, nanny solultion.

Why not drill more oil wells? Why do some people like telling other people how, and where, to live? Why not make peoples’ lives easier?
Better to love our neighbors, rather than make their lives harder.

This anonymous “anti-nanny” poster is pissing me off, with their Neanderthal “drill more wells” answer to everything. You wanna live out in East Nowhere and drive 80 miles round trip every day? No sweat. Do it. Just don’t bitch to me about what is costs. There is a reason that people formed villages many thousands of years ago; because they work! Because of cheap oil many millions of people overlooked that fact….but a few are waking up to it now.

Of course, using your logic, if we just drill a few more wells, everything will be fine! The exponential increase in the use of oil by India and China will evaporate and gas will go back to .30 a gallon.

Forget it. We got the wake-up call in the 70’s. Problem was, no one listened.

Can you imagine for a minute what would happen to the WORLD if the oil coming through he Strait of Hormuz were blocked…where something like 70% of all the oil has to pass? It would be game over…or perhaps a massive war.

And like I said, bite me.

First, I think we all can agree to ignore the “PhantomCon”, the anonymous “conservative” poster that occasionally wanders in from his (or her) homemade tactical survival camp in order to engage the hardcore “socialists” here at KP in cyberspace combat. He/she is trying to get a rise out of you, nothing more, and although I probably don’t have to tell you this, the “PhantomCon” isn’t representative of the mainstream conservative movement.The only time I’ll utilize terms like “commie” and “socialist” is when I’m debating pd on an issue (kidding, pd).

Anyway, on to the subject at hand. For KPers that live in the Pittsburgh area, this doesn’t come as a huge surprise. The mass transit/Port Authority issue has been one of the clouds hanging over the county’s head for some time. While the county’s finances are currently ok (and Dan Onorato as done a decent job with them), one of the biggest drags on the county’s potential to remain in the budgetary black is labor costs associated with mass transit. The health and retirement packages of mass transit workers in Allegheny County have been described by many observers as “overly generous” at best and “blatant giveaways to labor” at worst. Labor costs have accounted for a good portion of the financial problems at the Port Authority in the recent past and things probably won’t begin to improve unless the county gets a better deal at the bargaining table. Onorato (who has never had a great relationship with labor), to his credit, seems to be standing his ground on this, and his threat to withhold the county’s subsidy to the Port Authority seems real. With population loss and other budgetary pressures, the county is simply not in a financial position to sustain such “sweetheart” labor contracts anymore (not that they should have been written in the first place, but that’s another issue).

A complete overhaul of the Port Authority would go a long way in shoring up Allegheny County’s financial future. These labor negotiations should reflect the commissioning of that goal.

Contract negotiators sole purpose is to get the best agreement for the union. This best agreement will generally include a livable wage, a pension a worker can retire on, health benefits, and related issues such as job safety. All of this is a good thing for the worker and is, in most situations, good for the other side.

But when the agreement is damaging the very source of work that the union is looking to sustain, then concessions must become part of the relationship.

I am not familiar with the Port Authority and Allegheny County, but I am familiar with unions. I am a union member in the construction industry in an extremely competitive market. The contractor and the union both understand that one needs the other. The union is non-existent without the contractor’s jobs and the experienced, very qualified workforce is unavailable to the contractor without the union. Its not a love affair, but concessions are frequently made to each other to allow both sides to get the most from its work.
JP