PA: City Council approves free bus passes for employees who work Downtown

About 750 city of Pittsburgh employees who work Downtown will receive free bus passes as an added employee benefit next year.

City Council on Tuesday approved the city's participation in Pittsburgh Regional Transit's PRTner Pass program that allows employers, apartment building owners and other distinct groups to buy sharply discounted bus passes for everyone in the group.

The group can either give the passes to members or charge no more than what they pay for them, $28 for a 31-day pass that sells for $97.50.

The city is by far the largest of four groups that have committed to the program to this point, PRT spokesman Adam Brandolph said. The city worked closely with PRT officials to define a group that would qualify for the program and will launch it as a pilot next year and monitor it to see how well it is used.

PRT announced the program more than a year ago, but it put off a serious marketing campaign until last month because officials believed it would be a hard sell due to the funding crisis that threatened to reduce service by 35%.

With that delayed for at least two years as a result of the state allowing the agency to use capital funds to cover operating expenses while the Legislature works on a transit funding program, PRT began an advertising campaign on radio and distributed literature about PRTner Pass to about 9,000 businesses and schools.

"Frankly, I can't think of a better group to set an example for Pittsburgh than the city of Pittsburgh," Mr. Brandolph said. "We're thrilled to have the city be one of the first and certainly the largest group to participate in PRTner Pass."

City Councilwoman Barb Warwick, who sponsored the council bill, said she and others have been pushing the city for several years to provide bus passes for employees since city finances limit pay raises for workers.

This discount program, which will cost the city about $275,000 the first year, is an easy way to provide another employee benefit, she said at a committee meeting last week.

The city already has a program to allow all workers to buy monthly bus passes for half-price and get substantial discounts on POGOH bike rentals. All of those programs benefit the public by reducing automobile traffic and pollution, Ms. Warwick and others said.

"[ PRTner Pass] is something all employers — certainly employers in Downtown and Oakland — should take advantage of," Ms. Warwick said. "This puts us forward as a best-practices employer."

From PRT's standpoint, the program is designed to increase ridership and reduce road congestion so buses can operate on a quicker, more reliable schedule. The agency is able to offer the reduced price for the passes with the assumption that not everyone will use them. Since the sponsor pays for everyone, the actual cost per rider is higher.

The PRTner Pass is something that Pittsburghers for Public Transit has been pushing for the past two years as a way to grow ridership.

Bulk pass programs have been popular across the country with one of the best examples being Sound Transit in Seattle, where more than half of transit riders use a bulk pass.

"We hope the city of Pittsburgh will be a model for other employers to get involved," said PRT Executive Director Laura Wiens. "It's a win-win for everyone."

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