More CATA routes will be suspended due to ‘unprecedented’ staffing shortages. What to know
More Centre Area Transportation Authority routes will be temporarily suspended beginning Monday due to severe staffing shortages, CATA recently announced.
“Similar to transit agencies throughout the country, CATA continues to experience unprecedented staffing shortages, and this has resulted over the past several weeks in the cancellation of a number of daily trips,” Louwana Oliva, CATA’s executive director, wrote in a press release.
The suspended routes include Route A (Park Forest), Route XG (Pleasant Gap), and the Green Link, which operates on the Penn State campus. The changes take effect Monday. Additionally, the Downtown Game Day Shuttle will be suspended for the remainder of the football season, effective immediately.
In general, all routes except for the Loop and Link campus services will stop at 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday. CATARide will begin at its regular times but will end at 11 p.m.
CATABus and CATARide will not operate on Sundays. The frequency of all routes on Saturdays will be adjusted from every 40 minutes to every 60 minutes.
Other temporary changes include:
Route K (Cato Park) will be modified to two trips in the morning and two trips in the afternoon around peak commute times.
Route HM (Toftrees/Nittany Mall) weekday frequency will be changed from every 30 minutes to every 40 minutes.
Route P (Boalsburg) will end at 8 p.m. CATAGo will operate as it currently does, ending at 8 p.m. All Saturday P route service will be suspended, but CATAGo will be available 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturdays in the Boalsburg zone.
Route XP (Scenery Park) will be changed from every 30 minutes to every 60 minutes on weekdays. Connections to CATAGo will access Boalsburg from the XP.
Early morning service on the Loops and Links will be suspended; service will begin at 7 a.m.
“It is expected that these temporary changes to service will remain in effect through the end of the calendar year and possibly longer but will be reevaluated as hiring continues,” the press release stated.
CATA currently needs to hire 20 additional drivers, but needs 30 to reach levels to operate the service planned for the fall.
This isn’t the first round of temporary changes and suspensions for CATA. In September, several changes were announced. CATA attributed the need for the changes to staffing shortages then as well.
Public Relations Specialist Jacqueline Sheader told the Centre Daily Times CATA started with a math equation. It was based on the available bus drivers and hours that each can work compared to the number of hours CATA planned to operate, she said.
“We looked at all service, the hours used each week to operate the service and the number of passengers we would disrupt with service reductions. We also looked at offering some level of service even if a passenger might have to wait longer to use it where we could,” Sheader wrote in an email.
In an effort to attract workers, CATA is offering a $1,500-$3,000 sign-on bonus depending on license classification, according to its website. Sheader said it helps new operators earn a CDL that is needed. The positions are largely full-time with benefits and retirement; there are also part-time opportunities.
Patton Township supervisors question impact
Mark Parfitt, Patton Township’s representative to the CATA board of directors, spoke with Patton Township supervisors during their Oct. 13 meeting about how the cuts would impact Patton.
The previously-suspended G Route and A route suspension that CATA’s board approved recently both affect Patton Township. Parfitt said because he couldn’t support the A Route suspension, he voted against the entire package of cuts.
He questioned why CATA was eliminating member municipality routes.
“CATA is a joint authority. It is jointly owned by Patton Township, along with the (State College) borough, College, Ferguson and Harris, those are the member municipalities. Then we also contract to non-member municipalities. What I’m concerned about ... is a significant amount of resources — especially when we don’t have resources in terms of driving talent right now — going to the nonmember municipalities,” Parfitt said.
Patton Township’s annual contribution to CATA is $101,000 and won’t change as result of the temporary service cuts, he said.
“That’ll probably go up next year. What’s disturbing is the service continues to get suspended or eliminated,” he said.
Sheader said the local match is determined by state legislation. Local municipalities provide a local match to leverage state dollars and those state dollars in part leverage CATA’s federal dollars, she said.
“While legislation requires they provide 15 percent of total state dollars each year, CATA is part of a group of transit systems in the state that were grandfathered to increase 5% each year until we meet the required 15 percent match. This local match funding makes up about 3 percent of CATA’s overall funding each year,” Sheader said.
“As the requirement is tied to state funding and not service levels there is a chance this could continue. However, the impacts being seen currently are as a result of first the pandemic which continues to impact our service and ridership, as well as the current staffing shortages that are being seen across the country not only in public transport but in nearly every single industry,” she said.
Though it had not been brought to the CATA board, nor was it endorsed by CATA, he pitched to the Patton Township supervisors expanding the CATAGo program to the areas that have/will receive service cuts. He said the infrastructure to support that exists and the technology is there to add neighborhoods. CATAGo was recently added to Boalsburg following pushback from Harris Township officials and residents.
Patton supervisor Pam Robb said as a CATA rider herself, it is “disheartening that Patton gives so much, and it’s getting so little coming back.”
She supported the CATAGo service.
“If they want to eliminate the A Route, then we have to have something in place,” Robb said.
The Patton Township supervisors planned to send a letter to CATA stating they are “disturbed” by the elimination of the A and G Routes and “strongly support” Parfitt’s CATAGo expansion proposal.
But expanding CATAGo service might be a little more complicated.
“There are currently operational constraints with our contractor for expanding service outside of the current locations which make standing up new service areas undoable – we are unsure how long these issues will continue,” Sheader said. The board makes the service expansion or reduction decisions.
Temporary solutions at Penn State
In response to the changes to the campus services, Penn State Transportation Services will offer temporary service alternatives, including using Penn State blue buses as a replacement Blue Loop campus bus service on Sundays between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Beginning Monday Spin e-bike rentals will also be available with no unlock or rental fees every night from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and all day on Sundays until further notice.
