Bad to Worse

Everyone knew about the transit cuts coming in March.  First off, it looks like those are a done deal, unless something drastic happens in Harrisburg in the next few days (I’m not holding my breath).  Now it looks like they are trying to plan ahead for 2012.  With the new sheriff in town who has pledged not to raise taxes, no matter what (I’m very interested to see how that is supposed to work given the horrid state of our infrastructure, and massive budget shortfalls). 

The Port Authority said it was too early to discuss the scope of a second round of cuts (right now slated for July 2011), but it’s on the horizon unless something changes. 

Depressing, that’s all I can say about this whole situation.  After the optimism of two years ago, all we hear about are landmark cuts and the bad news we already knew about.  What is most frustrating is that it’s easy and politically attractive to say cut cut cut spending.  Meanwhile, we are sitting on an infrastructure time bomb that is ticking away.  Further cuts will only cause the timer to speed up, as increased automobile traffic resulting from further transit cuts on the roads of Western Pennsylvania will only increase the wear and tear on our already worn out roads and bridges.