Council President Mike Doyle, now that you are officially the nominee and still Plum Council President, what do you recommend to keep bus service in Plum? What are you going to do to fix this problem? What are your solutions? The article says without more state funding, Plum will have no bus service.

Eliminate the Port Authority and start anew.

Since the bus fares only covers 20% of the cost to run the system with 80% being funded by all the tax payors, it is time for the fares to increase by five times so the riders pay their fair share not be a burden on everyone else. Maybe if the fares were in line with cost, a balance will be achieved. Quit going back to the tax payors at large. Pay your fair share of the cost or start over again.

Are they eliminating jury duty for citizens along these routes, too? The daily rate to serve doesn't nearly cover the cost of parking downtown and one can hardly carpool. Citizens are told to use pubic transportation to decrease their out-of-pocket expenses while perorming their "civic duty."

Why is "civic duty" supposed to be paid by the tax payors! Civic duty should be paid by each person who is called. You do not get it. Why do you expect someone else to pay for your travel arrangements to do your civic duty. This logic has got to stop somewhere. Quit shifting cost. Make the Port Authority and its few riders pay the true cost for their monopoly. Make each citizen pay their own cost to preform "their" own civic duty. You do not get it. I could go on and on, for example, make the Steelers pay for their own stadium, etc.

Another area that needs to be reformed - the legal system - loser pays all legal cost and impeach judges who work 4 hours a day. I too am self employed and pay for everything but I take my lumps as they go do not expect other tax payors to pay up. What does this have to do with gov't run bus service whereby every employee is paid double what they should be. Where there are more retirees than active workers. There is no such thing as a free lunch here. Shut it down or make the riders pay the full cost for the service.

My reason for questioning Mike Doyle and his solutions for PAT is that he won the republican nomination and he is President of Plum Council. Surely he has an opinion. It is time for him to lead. I have not seen anywhere what he has planned to help keep public transportation viable.

I think everyone should do some research on the PAT financial problems before spouting off. The system has been a mess for years and its the internal costs of PAT that we are all paying for. It has little to do with the cost of transporting people around Pittsburgh.

I agree there are plenty of problems and I agree with SUe that the costs have little to do with transporting people. I am simply asking the question of our new republican nominee for State Rep here in Plum. These cuts directly harm Plum. I would think he would have some solutions. I am asking to hear them. He ran pretty hard in the primary about how Joe Markosek was the source of so many of our problems, here is a problem. I am asking for his solution.