In Budapest, we have a train to catch at 5:15am. The first trolley bus that will take us to the station arrives at 4:50am and takes about ten minutes. We weren’t really worried though because it always runs on time. These vehicles are a cross between a bus and a tram, plying the roads with overhead electricity instead of belching fumes. The vehicles themselves are for the most part decrepit, graffiti on all the windows and seats, no shocks, overhead panels held on by duct tape. Definitely relics of the communist era. But they still run quickly and on time and we make our train after getting a quick cup of coffee at the train station.
In Vienna, we get off our train into the Westbahnhof and emerge into a modern mall complete with a live performance of excerpts from “Mamma Mia!”. The U-bahn (subway) is below this and we easily acquire a three-day pass. The entire transit system of trams and metro is easy to use even though we have never seen it before and we are pretty much always hopping on one or another to get to our destination in the freezing temperatures.
In the smaller city of Krakow, though, a subway system was never built. Instead, dozens of trams criss-cross the city. Dedicated lanes for them are everywhere as well as automated ticket systems and overhead signs display how many minutes till the next one arrives. The trams range from soviet-era glass-bowl type wrecks to the much more recent and incredibly slick modern ones, but both types are always packed.
In Pittsburgh public transportation is being gutted as the city has fallen into the endless slash-service/raise-prices loop that is the death spiral of public transit. Buses are usually late, and lavish amounts of money are being spent on a subway that goes virtually nowhere. The tram that runs directly from the top of our street to downtown was discontinued a year ago, and now the tracks are only used for emergency backup service. Everywhere there is road construction, you can see the old street-car tracks buried underneath that used to run everywhere in Pittsburgh, waiting to be paved over yet again.
On the national level, Pittsburgh’s story plays out regularly with transit agencies across the country facing cuts, raising rates, and ever-delaying new construction. In the United States this year, “Nearly 80% of Public Transit Systems Forced to Implement Fare Increases or Service Cuts Due to Flat or Decreased Local and State Funding” .
What is wrong with Pittsburgh? What is wrong with America?
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