Capital Area Transit

I had the option of driving into the city and paying $ 20 to park my car for 7 hours or taking the cat bus from Hummelstown. For $ 1.75 each way, i have absolutely no complaints.
The drivers were friendly, i found my bus stops, and i got to my destination without yelling in traffic. I drive to Camp Hill everyday and wish that I could take the bus there too. Unfortunately the schedules do not fit into my work schedule or I would!
I will definately keep this as an option in the future if I ever have to go downtown again.

If I could give this a NO STAR I would! This is the most backwards, outdated transit system I have ever tried to use. In fact, I didn’t even use it as the website is out of date– with out of date routes and when you call the customer service line– if you don’t get disconnected and you talk to someone– they will try to dispute you.
I was on their site with their .pdf pulled up and the lady was trying to tell me that there was no «15» bus line. I told her that they need to update it on their site then– which she tried to tell me it was not on their site. (So how the hell did I see the «15» off of Londonberry Road if I was not on their site?)
The map has no other roads listed around the bus stop so you need to know exactly where you are or try to guess where the stop might be.
There is NO trip planner (it’s 2014 Harrisburg– step into the times!) So you have no way of knowing where the hell you are going or want to go or what busses to ride and where to transfer.
The times that the busses do come are ridiculous. I wanted to catch a bus yet the next bus on the route wasn’t coming for 5 hours from now! WTF? Seriously?
No wonder this city is going bankrupt. With public services like this– who would want to live here?
So I am calling a cab. Hopefully there is one in this backwards ass town.
(The only reason I am here is because my girlfriend got a temporary work assignment here from her job in Los Angeles. Luckily it’s only for a few months. I wanted to visit as I had never been to PA before. Guess I will be renting a car if I ever come back.)
Don’t even bother with this shitty bus system. and if you do– Good Luck!
PS. If you want to complain– you have to MAIL a letter– they don’t even have an email address for complaints– probably because everyone is so disgruntled about their crappy service.

lived in downtown Hburg for 4.5 years. My college town had a better– and free– bus system. The schedules are restrictive, some buses running once every hour, or only a few times/​day. And no Sunday service. Seriously? And buses are chronically late and break down. Want to know why the bus system is so lousy? I’ll tell you a couple secrets
1. I had written so many letters to CAT about its service that one day the bus co. mgr invited me for lunch to discuss the service (this was several yrs ago). Very nice guy. He said to me the drivers are scheduled for an 8 hr shift, but some bus routes don’t take 8 hours. He then TOLD me that the drivers deliberately slow down /​run late so they can fill an 8 hour shift without having to be transferred to another bus route. I mean he actually revealed this to me.
2. The former mayor was a wastrel drunk. At some waterfront event my 1^st yr in Hbrg I asked him why the bus system was so inadequate given that this was the capitol, and considering that many ppl– including state workers — like myself– live downtown. Drunk off his ass, he proceeds, sneeringly, to deride state workers and complain that the «state» takes up 40% of taxable land (that seemed an exaggeration) in Hbrg, so why should he bother to promote or fund a bus system that «caters» to state workers? I reminded him of that fact that some of us are tax paying Hrbg residents who also spend money in the town– as do non– resident workers– and as such we’d appreciate decent transit. He swore, mumbled something, and wobbled off.
That man was a seriously corrupt and despicable, above and beyond anything to do with transit.
CAT is hobbled, underfunded, neglected, and clearly riddled with drivers concerned not about service but about doing as little of it as possible.

Though a lot can be said about CATs lackluster schedules, the buses tend to be nice, new, well maintained, and even clean. Even when I go to the local Ghetto Mart, I tend to feel like I’m riding in style. The buses accept cash and coins (even dollar coins), and they all have bike racks, which I find useful. Again, the the schedules could be beefed up – some areas are ignored, there is limited Saturday service, and no Sunday service. But for a small town of only 50,000 CAT isn’t too bad, which for a bus system is pretty good.

What a joke of a public transportation system! Limited service, no service on Sundays, and no designated bus stops on some routes– are you kidding me? In addition thereto, published timetables don’t mean a thing, so be prepared to catch the bus 15, 30, 45 min, 1 hour after the route brochure indicates, or just plan on it not coming at all! With the amount of people in the area, the CAT grossly underperforms. Don’t ever waste your time using this system, unless you absolutely have to. Blame city officials, blame the agency leadership. People of Harrisburg, you deserve so much better.

Cat buses are loud and noisy and pollute the atmosphere like no ones business. the bus stops and goes if anyone gets on it or not. it costs 1.25 to ride it around and usually it can be late. it comes in periods of 30 minutes but it is almost faster to walk than to wait for the bus and just be done with it.
it only accepts quarters, although inside its kinda nice and friendly.