End of the Line Economics: Why Pittsburgh Must Rethink Transit for Growth, Not Nostalgia

Photo from the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum

In the sprawling ledger of metropolitan infrastructure, few assets are as chronically undervalued—and structurally misunderstood—as public transit. Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT), the linchpin of mobility in Allegheny County and beyond, now finds itself caught in a slow-moving fiscal derailment. Ridership is down, fare revenue is flagging, and federal relief dollars will expire at the end of 2025. What’s left is a structural hole, tens of millions deep, that no amount of tinkering or incrementalism can fill.

But this isn’t a eulogy. It’s a warning—and an opportunity.

The slow crisis facing PRT isn’t just about buses and balance sheets. It’s a test of whether the Pittsburgh region can marshal the political and economic imagination required to align its public investments with its growth ambitions. The question isn’t whether we can afford public transit. The question is whether we can afford to keep pretending that we can compete for jobs, talent, and investment without it.

Transit as Economic Infrastructure

If transit once served the industrial city, it must now serve the innovation economy. And not in the abstract. The real estate markets that cluster near well-connected transit corridors. The university and medical campuses that rely on predictable mobility for thousands of shift workers. The logistics firms that need reliable access to labor pools. The employers choosing between cities with robust, future-oriented infrastructure and those without. These are not soft benefits. They are balance sheet items.

In cities like Denver, Seattle, and Austin, public transit has become a strategic lever for economic development—a way to increase labor market efficiency, expand the geographic reach of employers, and anchor real estate investment. Pittsburgh risks falling behind not because its transit system is bad, but because its institutional model is outdated.

Transit cannot merely be a social service. It must be an engine for growth.

The Geography of Mismatch

The bones of Pittsburgh’s transit system were laid down in the middle of the last century, when the region’s economy was centralized, its population denser, and its work rhythms more uniform. Routes radiated out from downtown. Peak service catered to office workers. Everything else was peripheral.

Today’s economy doesn’t work that way. The region is polycentric: job growth is happening in places like Oakland, the Strip District, Bakery Square, Cranberry, and Robinson—areas with complex commuting patterns and inadequate transit coverage. Meanwhile, remote and hybrid work have dampened demand for traditional downtown commuting, flattening the morning and evening peaks that once defined service schedules.

This isn’t a bug. It’s the new operating system.

A system built to serve one downtown with one kind of worker now finds itself misaligned with a region of multiple job centers, variable shifts, and a workforce dispersed across counties and income levels. It is not enough to wait for ridership to "come back." The truth is it has already moved on—to different places, at different times, for different purposes.

The Local Investment Gap

What’s most striking about Pittsburgh’s transit challenge isn’t just the shifting geography. It’s the underlying fiscal structure.

Like many legacy systems, PRT is heavily reliant on state funding—particularly through Pennsylvania’s Act 89, which draws from the state’s vehicle sales tax. But that fund has flattened. And as fuel efficiency rises and vehicle ownership patterns shift, it will not keep pace with PRT’s structural needs.

Meanwhile, local contributions—particularly from municipalities that directly benefit from transit access—remain modest or nonexistent. Pittsburgh, the city, contributes some local funding through Allegheny County’s vehicle rental tax, but the broader region does not share proportionally in the cost of the system it benefits from.

This is fiscal incoherence.

The municipalities that attract development and reap property tax windfalls from proximity to PRT service are often not contributing commensurately to the system’s operating costs. This is a textbook case of what economists call a "free rider" problem: everyone wants the benefit, but few want to pay.

If public transit is economic infrastructure—and it is—it should be funded like it. Just as we don’t ask Harrisburg to maintain our sewer systems or pave every local street, we should not expect the state to underwrite a regionally vital transit network without a greater share of local buy-in.

Toward a Realignment

What’s needed is not just more funding—but better alignment between who benefits from transit and who pays for it.

That means exploring local revenue sources tied to the actual economic gains that transit enables: a regional payroll tax that captures a sliver of the value created by job access; a transit benefit district model that links property tax contributions to proximity and service level; or a congestion pricing scheme that disincentivizes car traffic into Pittsburgh’s core and generates revenue for alternatives.

These are politically difficult conversations—but economically necessary ones. The alternative is a steady erosion of service quality, a growing disconnect between jobs and workers, and a loss of competitiveness for the region as a whole.

PRT itself must play a role here—not only as a service provider but as a planner, a communicator, and a strategist. The agency should be empowered to articulate a clear regional mobility vision, to gather and share data on ridership and economic impact, and to be blunt about what is—and isn’t—sustainable under the current model.

A Transit System Worth Competing For

In 2023, Pittsburgh was ranked among the best cities for remote workers. But the same dynamism that attracts tech talent and entrepreneurship also requires physical mobility. A city that is hard to move around in is a city that’s hard to grow in.

There is, in this, a conservative imperative: the maintenance of functional, efficient institutions that support private enterprise, market dynamism, and prudent public investment. Good transit is not an indulgence. It is a tool of economic discipline. It ensures that public dollars spent on workforce development, job training, or regional marketing aren’t squandered by the simple fact that people can’t get to where the jobs are.

Choosing the Future

Pittsburgh’s next economic chapter won’t be written in steel mills or suburban office parks. It will be written in places where ideas, people, and capital converge—and that convergence depends, in part, on a transit system that can meet the moment.

The question is not whether Pittsburgh can afford to reinvent its transit model. The question is whether it can afford not to. The train is moving. The only thing left is to decide whether we’re on board—or watching it disappear over the horizon.