Colin McNickle Columns category, Page 3

What can the public reasonably conclude when one of the very remedies required to help right-size the badly bloated, too-expensive and ridership-bereft Pittsburgh Regional Transit system yet again is contractually excluded from a new and too-lengthy labor agreement? That major policy changes are necessary to rein in the mass-transit agency...

Much rah-rah-sis-boom-bahing has been coming out of the Allegheny County Airport Authority about how robust passenger and cargo traffic has been at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) as we continue to put the coronavirus pandemic behind us. But a new analysis of the latest-available numbers suggests such cheerleading is misleading, according...

The 14-school Pennsylvania State System of High Education, or PASSHE, has been beset with many woes over the past dozen years. There’s the tanking enrollment. Then there’s a darn-near open acceptance policy for those who do enroll, which does a disservice to those wholly unprepared for college-level studies. PASSHE also...

A revenue stream once highly touted as being a double saving grace that not only helped make Pittsburgh International Airport’s (PIT) current $1.4 billion terminal modernization program possible but kept PIT from defaulting on its debt is struggling to live up to its original billing, according to a new analysis...

Well past the deepest throes of the coronavirus pandemic, ridership on Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) buses and trolleys remains a shadow of its former self. And a new analysis of that paucity by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy says Allegheny County’s mass-transit agency must right-size its many weak performing...

The City of Pittsburgh should cut its losses and not appeal a Common Pleas Court ruling that found its “jock tax” unconstitutional, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. Then, the city must cut its budget to help offset the loss of the proceeds previously garnered by...

A contingent of Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) officials, along with local business and community leaders, is in London this week hoping to convince British Airways (BA) to expand its four-day-a-week service to seven days. But as a fresh analysis of pertinent data by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy concludes,...

Should Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) not soon make serious cost-containment efforts, state legislators who hold the purse strings should consider pulling those strings tighter to force the issue, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “The renamed PRT must focus intently on the factors it can control...

Private employment in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) had still not returned to pre-pandemic levels in July, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). And that remains a dysfunction of the same old — and same wrong — calcified government practices, concludes an analysis by the...

News that Pennsylvania’s onerous Corporate Net Income Tax (CNIT) will be cut by five percentage points over the next nine years is welcome and long overdue. But the questions writ large are whether the commonwealth can sustain the phasedown, from 9.99% to 4.99%, reduce other business taxes, and enact legislation...

You’ll recall that some observers in Pittsburgh pooh-poohed the prospective sale of two hallmark commercial properties owned by a North Carolina company as being any harbinger of poorer things to come for the city’s office occupancy fortunes. But a new analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy posits that...

One thing is clear: Passenger traffic at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), which had been rebounding as the covid-19 pandemic subsided, faltered in June. But another thing is quite unclear — the reason for that slippage, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “PIT is struggling to get...

The General Assembly’s steadfast refusal to mandate that every Pennsylvania county conduct regular property reassessments for tax purposes is patently unconstitutional, reiterates a new analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “The Pennsylvania Legislature has known of the property tax problem for a long time,” says Jake Haulk, president-emeritus...

Gaming in Pennsylvania continues to be strong. But there remain cautionary examples of how existing robust state income from gambling might not end up as the be-all and end-all that some portray it down the road, warns a new analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “(K)eep in mind...

Pennsylvania’s private employment and labor force are trailing national gains and lagging far behind the fast-growth states as the economic recovery from the covid-19 pandemic continues, finds a new analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. And one of the root causes is the state’s latest exercise in its...

A third round of government school “emergency relief/rescue” dollars is wending its way to school districts in Pennsylvania and nationwide. Whether it is the final round of funding related to issues wrought by the covid-19 pandemic remains to be seen. But there are critically important questions that still envelop such...

Myriad challenges must be overcome if there is to be anything approaching significant passenger traffic growth at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. And it’s all because some prior endemic issues are colliding with newer ones in very turbulent times, says Jake...

The Port Authority of Allegheny County’s light-rail per vehicle revenue hour costs were near the top nationally while the rail system’s share of total mass-transit trips was near the bottom of respective systems’ nationwide, concludes an analysis of pre-pandemic 2019 transit data by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. And...

The population malaise in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has been well-documented for decades. Yet, iteration after iteration of political leaders and their acolytes have tried to “solve” the problem with political scheme after political scheme. “In short, absent a shift to a much friendlier business climate, less labor...

Recently released March 2022 private-sector employment data show the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has failed to recover to the pre-pandemic level of March 2019. And new research by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy shows that Right-to-Work MSAs have performed better than Non-Right-to-Work MSAs, those that compel workers...

New research from the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy documents how poor PSSA scores presage poor Keystone Exam scores in Pennsylvania. But it also prompts two critical questions: Do such achievement test results point to a massive failure of the commonwealth’s educational establishment and/or are the tests too difficult and...

Ten years after the Port Authority of Allegheny County’s North Shore Connector began operations, the mass-transit agency likely will tout the light-rail extension under the Allegheny River from downtown Pittsburgh to the near North Shore as a “success.” After all, and according to official federal accounting, it’s moving thousands of...

The concept of achieving proficiency on Keystone Exams as a high school graduation requirement has been a very costly failure in Pennsylvania, concludes a new analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Implementation has been continuously postponed while more and more complicated and expensive-to-administer alternatives have been enacted into...

Everything old suddenly appeared to be new again recently with a Pittsburgh City Council proposal to tax consumers of higher education and medical services. But although that measure now appears to be moot, the situation represents a golden opportunity for state legislators to amend the law that allows for such...

As if the challenges wrought by weak population and anemic economic growth and the coronavirus pandemic have not been enough for Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), now comes the reality of inflation and the specter of international hostilities. “The war in Ukraine and its impact on fuel costs and the economy...