Momentum builds for East Busway expansion into Mon Valley

Port Authority of Allegheny County has received a federal grant to put toward planning work for a possible extension of the East Busway from Swissvale to the East Pittsburgh area, another sign of momentum building for extending the busway into the Mon Valley.

Allegheny County and Port Authority officials acknowledged the growing support for extending the East Busway – the most used transit line in the Pittsburgh region – but Port Authority spokesperson Adam Brandolph also wants to temper expectations as any expansions are in the infancy of planning stages.

“The area where this will go is ripe for expansion and ripe for investment for public transit and so we can not only create better infrastructure and grow ridership, but also economic opportunity for residents and rebuilding some of those blighted areas,” said Brandolph, referencing the communities of Braddock, North Braddock, East Pittsburgh and Turtle Creek.

“It’s good that (extending the East Busway) has a lot of momentum and support. These are vital areas of Allegheny County,” Brandolph said. “But it is also good to temper expectations, since these are just planning studies before anything can be built.”

The Federal Transit Administration awarded Port Authority a $565,500 grant to plan for future development near high-quality transit corridors, also known as Transit-Oriented Development. Port Authority officials said the agency also will spend about $240,000 of its own money, pushing the total planning costs to about $800,000.

Brandolph said the study will look at two options: one where the busway is extended and totally separated from other traffic, and another where bus-only lanes are placed on current streets between Swissvale and East Pittsburgh. The transit agency’s long-range plan, called NEXTransit, includes a plan to extend the East Busway into the Mon Valley.

He said there is no timeline for the planning work to be completed, but the authority hopes to have some public discussions on the plans by the end of this year.

Before the pandemic, the East Busway carried about 24,000 passengers a day, making it the most used transit line in the region, according to Port Authority ridership data from 2018. Development near the busway has started to expand, starting last decade with large mixed-use projects near the East Liberty busway station. The East Busway connects to three large job centers in Downtown, Oakland and East Liberty.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald praised the FTA grant and said he wants to see more planning and encouragement of development along the busway. He said infrastructure improvements like the reopening of the Kenmawr Bridge are important for the Mon Valley region and he is confident that extending the East Busway is possible thanks to the recently passed, bipartisan infrastructure bill in Congress.

Pennsylvania is set to receive about $18 billion over the next five years from the infrastructure package.

“We realize that transit can really be a jumping off point for development and the East Busway has really improved the economic climate all along that corridor,” said Fitzgerald. “I feel more optimistic than I did just a year or two ago.”

Fitzgerald said development spurred by transit has been successful before with Pittsburgh’s last big transit expansion, the North Shore Connector, extending light rail across the Allegheny River. He said development would bring a much-needed boon to Mon Valley communities and improve access to public transit for people without cars.

“Those communities would become more desirable,” he said. “Not just investment in businesses but also investments in homes.”

Fitzgerald said he is confident that an East Busway extension would receive the necessary funding support should Port Authority choose to move forward with the project, noting that President Joe Biden’s administration supports Allegheny County’s infrastructure goals. Biden will visit the Pittsburgh region on Friday to talk about infrastructure.