The Centre Area Transportation Authority‘s plans for the upcoming fiscal year include its first fare increase in a half-decade, an expansion of CATA Go in the Centre Region and an evaluation of potential service to State College Regional Airport and train stations in neighboring counties.
David Rishel, CATA executive director, discussed plans for the coming year during a presentation to State College Borough Council on Monday as part of the authority’s annual local funding match request from the borough.
CATA is proposing a 14% fare increase for fixed-route bus and CATA Go service that would raise the cost per trip from $2.20 to $2.50. The CATA Ride paratransit service, which last had an increase in 2023, will not be affected. Rishel said that since CATA’s last fare increase for bus service in 2020, inflation has been 21.97%
“So we’re not even keeping up with inflation but we do think it is time to raise our fares,” Rishel said.
Fare box revenues are expected to constitute about $1.8 million of CATA’s projected $29 million budget for 2025-26. State and federal subsidies make up about 60% at $16.9 million.
CATA anticipates flat funding from the commonwealth, but Rishel noted that if additional money for transit systems in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh currently under discussion in Harrisburg comes to pass, the state’s other public transportation systems would stand to see a boost based on the formula enshrined in state law
Local matches from CATA’s five member municipalities and Penn State are projected to provide $905,000. The borough’s proposed contribution of $328,755, a $26,000 increase, is the largest share of the local match.
Borough Council is scheduled to vote on approving the local match in June.
In addition to Penn State’s local match, the university also contributes about $3.5 million of CATA’s $5.9 million in contract revenue for campus services and ride pass programs. Most other contract funding comes from services negotiated with apartment complex on a per-bed basis, which for 2025-26 will see a 6% increase.
Expanding CATA Go
CATA plans to gradually expand the CATA Go on-demand microtransit service throughout the year until every location within the Centre Region member municipalities has either fixed-route bus or on-demand service. Outside of the community bus route system, much of the Centre Region has CATA Go service, but not all of it.
“We’re going to boldly predict and hope that we can expand our CATA Go service so that everyone living in the Centre Region can have access to CATA service,” Rishel said. “We’re going to slowly expand CATA Go over the year and our goal is by the end of the year to be able to serve the entire area so that no resident in the Centre Region without access to CATA.”
Public feedback on CATA Go has been mostly positive, Rishel said. The service averages 2,764 trips per month, has met 97.7% of demand and has an on-time pickup rate of 99.2% . Average wait time is 11.2 minutes.
“I think the only issue we have with it is that people think it’s going to be like Uber — give you a direct ride and they forget that they’re sharing rides and combining rides,” Rishel said. “So I think some people would rather it be like Uber and we say sorry it’s public transit, we can’t do that.”
Potential Service to Airport, Train Station
CATA is exploring potential on-demand services that would provide transport to and from regional transportation hubs.
One service would be to State College Regional Airport, which Rishel said has long been a challenge.
“The challenge serving the airport has always been that once we get a schedule set up, the airlines change the flights and the schedule doesn’t work anymore, so we’re going to try to do some kind of on-demand service,” he said.
Another could be to the Amtrak stations in Lewistown and Tyrone, which Rishel described as “tricky.”
The goal, he explained, would be to allow riders to book a trip a day in advance from the rail station to the Centre Region, or vice versa. He cautioned, however, that there is still much to be determined.
“We’ve really just started,” Rishel said. “I think it’s just going to be challenging to work with Amtrak. The challenge, as you could probably imagine, is we need to know you’re coming ahead of time. So we’re going to have to coordinate with Amtrak. They’re going to have to publicize this in their time tables that you need to contact us a day ahead of time so we can reserve a trip, and then we need to know if the trains are running on time or not. There’s just a lot of coordination and things we have to work through.”
He added that resources and costs are other question marks.
“We’ve never done anything on this scale,” Rishel said. “We actually have to talk to PennDOT to figure out what do we charge for something like this, because it’s much longer distance service. It’s just a lot of internal things. We need to think about how are we going to do this. And if we get a lot of ridership, it’s going to take a lot of vehicle resources because that vehicle is gone for two hours to make a trip and come back. We’ll have to assess what kind of capacity we have to do that.”
Borough Council member Matt Herndon said he hopes both the airport and train station services can happen.
“Adding service to the airport and Amtrak would be transformational,” Herndon said. “Then it would really let people live a car-free life and actually get beyond our borders.”
New Mobile App, Fare Collection System
CATA is preparing to launch a new mobile app that will provide access to services in a single location, consolidating the three separate apps that are currently in use.
A new fare collection system, meanwhile, is scheduled to go live in August on CATA Bus, CATA Go and CATA Ride vehicles. The mobile validators replace the old fare boxes and will allow riders to use mobile phone passes, paper passes and smart cards, Rishel said. Riders will still be able to pay for fares with cash.
Bellefonte Service
With Bellefonte and Benner Township withdrawing from CATA effective July 1, the B-Line servicing the Bellefonte area will be discontinued. CATA is working with Centre County Transportation Services on options for Centre Region residents to get to and from the Bellefonte area, Rishel said.
“We are talking to the county right now about an arrangement so that residents here who would like to go to Bellefonte for county business will be able to book their trips with the county service and then CATA will pay whatever additional fee there is for that,” he said. “We’re working with the county to make that happen.”
Bellefonte is separately working with the county on a plan to fill the gap in public transit for borough residents.
Summer Trial Routes
Two previously announced summer trial routes launched this week, and Rishel said at least one of them may continue on a permanent basis.
The University Parkway route travels from downtown State College to South Atherton Street, Westerly Parkway, Waupelani Drive, Easterly Parkway and University Drive before entering the Penn State campus and then making its way back downtown.
The route is an “experiment” for Westerly Parkway, where CATA anticipates adding service in the future for a planned student housing development on a portion of the Westerly Parkway Plaza. But it also fills in a missing link.
“We also have always hated that there was kind of a drought of service, no fixed route service on University and Easterly Parkway, so this will address that,” he said.
If CATA has enough operators, it would like to continue the University Parkway route beyond the summer, Rishel added.
The other trial route, the Happy Valley route complements the NV route. It operates operate all day on Sundays and from 10 p.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday. Late nights Monday through Saturday, it services six stops by traveling south on Atherton Street and Burrowes Road from Blue Course Drive. On Sundays it also provides service directly from Walmart, Trader Joe’s and Colonnade Boulevard to Martin Street and The Heights.
The Happy Valley route is likely only here for the summer, but if CATA would like to retain the weekend segments, “if we have the manpower.”
Driver Recruitment Remains a Challenge
While strides have been made since the shortage that has affected transit systems nationwide started during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rishel said recruiting drivers remains a challenge.
“It’s improved, but we’re still working hard for every employee that we hire,” he said.
Beliving the challenge stemmed from wages, CATA upped its pay and shortened the probationary period for new employees. But Rishel said the feedback CATA has received hasn’t been about money.
“It’s frankly a hard job,” he said. “The fact that we operate on weekends and we operate late in the evenings and we have a seniority system and the new people get that work. A lot of folks have just said, I don’t want to do that work. It’s finding the right people who are interested in that.
“We do get a lot of retirees who come in as a second career, which we love. We’re hoping if we can get some younger people as well… the retirees are not as worried about the benefits but the younger people love the benefits, and we have a fantastic benefit program. That is there to keep people long-term, because once you’re in it you don’t really want to leave.”
