Employment Search Seems Difficult With County’s Public Transit

Since even before I ended my term of service with AmeriCorps (mid-July completed), I have been on the search looking for a job. Until this week, I have not had any luck—be that a job to lead into a future professional career or to even work at a local fast food place.

I landed a part-time retail job in Washington, but that even proved to be rather difficult. The biggest problem I am running into is transportation.

Thanks to a good friend of mine, I will hopefully be getting my permit/license here within a couple months but I still don’t have a car yet. I will be taking the bus, as I have been, to and from work.

What’s the big deal in that you ask? Scheduling issues. Or, a bus even showing up to its designated location (hence, me having to walk across state Route 19 from Wal-Mart on Monday to get to my first day at Dick’s Sporting Goods).

I will not list all of the places I have applied to because that would take way too much room, however, if you name any place within walking/biking distance I have probably applied.

Attaining jobs outside of is difficult, and the reason has been because I am not able to stay there on nights and weekends. If you are trying to find a retail job outside of your walking/biking distance, the buses that run out here (City of Washington Transit and Freedom Lines) do not run past 6 p.m., and only run to South Hills Village on Saturdays at three different times throughout the day.

I understand that the City of Washington and its surrounding communities are much smaller than, say Allegheny County. Most likely, there is also not as much money going into the transit.

If one is working in retail, it seems very difficult to even get an interview because most employers want their employees to be as flexible as they can with their schedules. The buses in this area do not allow that—making it almost impossible to find employment. Also, for anyone who just wants to get out of the area and is limited to the bus system, whether you work during the day or you are in school, by the time you are done with either of those things, you have a very limited amount of time to go out (and can’t even go out in the evenings without having a ride from the t station if you are heading into Pittsburgh).

I don’t write this article to complain, but to state the facts of how unreliable public transportation seriously is in the area because action needs to take place.

Understandably, the economy is bad and none of us can have anything perfectly.

However, more weekend runs need to be added and potentially a couple more night runs during the weekdays to make this bus even useful. I have been taking these buses for this past year and even though I have been able to successfully complete my term of service with AmeriCorp and did find a job with it, it turned out to be rather difficult—more than really should be necessary to find any retail job.

The more people that know about the buses around here, the more we can do to take action.

People say, "just save up and get a car." It's not that easy, you need to have a way to get to a job to save up that money. Right now, transportation around the Washington area barely makes it possible.

Washington City Transit Metro: http://www.washingtoncitytransit.com/Content.aspx?PageId=11

Freedom Line: http://www.washingtonrides.org/FreedomLine.htm