PA: Paratransit users rally for more money in Harrisburg to maintain service

Noah Hrynewych, of Greensburg, uses Westmoreland Go! paratransit service every afternoon to get to his job at Lowe’s Home Improvement.

Hrynewych, 27, has a driver’s license, but his autism makes him too anxious to drive. Plus, he really enjoys the door-to-door service and the people he meets riding the van, his mother, Sherry Mergner, said Wednesday.

But the service isn’t as reliable as he would like, often getting him to work an hour early and offering no late evening service to get him home. And funding shortfalls have left smaller transit agencies across the state to choose between reducing regular service or making paratransit cuts, making the future cloudy at best for the elderly and people with disabilities who need paratransit service to conduct their daily lives.

That’s why Mergner joined about 100 transit advocates from across the state Wednesday for a rally in Harrisburg to lobby for more funding for smaller agencies.

To address the transit funding crisis last year, Gov. Josh Shapiro authorized Pittsburgh Regional Transit and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority to use capital funds for two years while he worked with the state Legislature to increase the subsidy for transit.

The governor’s temporary help to avoid service cuts at the state’s two largest agencies did nothing to help about 50 other smaller agencies across the state facing the same funding shortage now that emergency funds awarded during the pandemic have been spent. Those other agencies stressed at the rally that they have immediate problems that already have led to service cuts and they can’t wait until next year for a solution.

Transit For All PA! coordinated the rally and a series of direct meetings with legislative leaders to impress on them the immediate problems smaller agencies are facing. Dan Yablonsky, digital organizing director for Pittsburghers for Public Transit, said 10 smaller agencies brought 10 representatives each tom the Capitol for the rally.

“The people we spoke to seem to get it,” Yablonsky said in an interview after the rally. “I think they understand this is a rural and an urban problem.”

When advocates lobbied last year for the first subsidy increase in more than 12 years, legislators in rural counties said the issue was a hard sell for them because 87% of subsidy funds go to the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas. Advocates are trying to present the case for smaller agencies and especially paratransit service.

“Rural Pennsylvania needs transit. Rural Pennsylvania needs shared-ride programs,” said Bob Garrett, retired executive director of the Susquehanna Valley Chamber of Commerce. “Ultimately, all of Pennsylvania deserves the freedom, mobility and prosperity that smart transit investment brings throughout our commonwealth.”

Richard Farr, executive director of the 11-county rabbitttransit agency based in York County, said the state Department of Transportation in the past month began the second phase of a study to look at paratransit needs. Funding for those services hasn't changed since the 1980s, he said.

We really have a fixed route problem because of paratransit," he said. "We're using our fixed route funds to pay for service for the elderly and people with disabilities. This is our funding crisis.

PRT and SEPTA, which serves five counties around Philadelphia, also want state action to increase the transit subsidy this year, but they can get by another year because they can use capital funds for operating expenses. That doesn’t help smaller counties with either regular service or paratransit needs.

And it raises serious concerns for the future for Mergner, a senior citizen who knows her time filling in the gaps in paratransit service for her son is limited.

“Having good transit is really a necessity for someone like Noah,” she said, noting he also uses paratransit service to get to activities such as Tae Kwon Do classes and horseback riding. “They’d have [better operating times] and more drivers if they had more money.”

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