Westmoreland transit fare increases expected to cover expenses for forseeable future

Bus fares for Westmoreland County Transit Authority passengers are expected to level off after a new round of increases is implemented next year.

Authority Executive Director Larry Morris said fare increases phased in over a two-year period should enable the transit authority to meet its future budgets.

“I expect we won't be coming back (for a fare increase) for a while,” Morris said last week, shortly after authority board members approved a 2013-14 budget for the agency.

Last fall, board members approved a two-phase, 33 percent increase in bus fares that required riders to pay 25 cents more this year for every zone of travel on the system.

At that time, the authority approved a secondary increase to begin in 2014 that raises fares another 25 cents per zone.

In 2014, a one-zone trip will cost $2; a two-zone trip, $4; and a three-zone trip, $6.

The fare increase is expected to generate about $170,000 in additional revenue this year.

Commuter ridership to Pittsburgh, which accounts for a majority of the transit system's customers, increased 5 percent during the past 12 months. The number of riders on its local routes within Westmoreland County dropped by 3.4 percent, authority marketing director Lori Brkovich said.

Overall, the authority carried more than 568,000 passengers last year.

As part of its new $12.6 million budget, the authority expects to generate more than $1.3 million in fare box revenue in the upcoming fiscal year. The budget includes $2.7 million in state grant money and $1 million in federal allocations earmarked for public transportation.

The authority will use $2 million in state grants to operate a medical assistance transportation program for low-income users and $5 million in state and federal grants for its shared-ride paratransit system, which provides transportation for clients of human service programs.

Officials said the upcoming fiscal year will be the first in quite a while that the authority has not had to dip into its reserves to balance the budget.

“It's a stable budget. We won't know until the end of the year how close we are,” said authority board Treasurer Harry Smith.

Rich Cholodofsky is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-830-6293 or rcholodofsky@tribweb.com.