Goodbye Joe Grata

While working on my holiday gluttony, I was surprised to see in the weekly "Getting Around" column on PostGazette.com that Joe Grata was going to hang it up!

He has offered about the only regular insightful, really transit/transportation focused writing in Pittsburgh since I have been here (on and off since 1999). It's weird to say it, but I took his writing for granted and was shocked to see him go, especially so quickly. I guess the Internet is catching up with the printed word, and the Post Gazette has offered him (as well as some other "big names" like Bob Smizik) a buyout and early retirement, and he accepted.

He was influential to me, reading his weekly columns really helped me to decide to start muddling my way through blogging. Additionally, in my mind he offered the only real qualified transportation/transit analysis in the region (among real paid writers). Much better than The Tribune-Review's answer to everything transit of "privatize 'em and let 'em sink or swim."

I don't know if the column will continue, or if it will fall by the wayside. I don't believe much, or anything has been said about it. It would be a shame to discontinue the column. Transportation/transit issues would lose one of their few legitimate voices, and it would be a slight to his hard work and insight over the years.

If nothing else, I personally appreciate his work, and will miss his keen insight on transit/transportation issues in the region.

Read his final column here