Bus rapid transit system is top priority for local officials

Allegheny County’s top transportation priority in the new decade is completion within the next four years of a $225 million express bus system linking Pittsburgh’s Downtown with Oakland and points east, officials say.

Construction of the Port Authority’s Bus Rapid Transit system is scheduled to begin in 2021. Officials had hoped to start work this year but are waiting to see if the federal government approves the Port Authority’s application for a $99.5 million transportation grant.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said the application is high on a federal approval list because of factors including system efficiency and the number of people it will serve.

“In transportation this is our No. 1 priority,” Fitzgerald said. “This is about getting people in and out of the two biggest job areas in the region.”

About 390,000 people work in the city, and about 66% of those jobs are in the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor, according to the Port Authority.

Plans call for dedicated bus lanes running outbound from Downtown along Forbes Avenue to Oakland and back along Fifth Avenue. Three branch lines will extend to Swissvale via a connection in Oakland to the Martin Luther King East Busway, Highland Park and Hazelwood.

The Highland Park and Hazelwood branch lines will not have dedicated BRT lanes, but will permit buses to get through traffic lights before regular traffic.

BRT buses will operate seven days per week, arriving about every three minutes during rush hours and up to seven minutes during off-peak hours. The system will feature 44 stops, including one on Wood Street, Downtown, where riders can access the Port Authority’s light rail system.

“I’d like to see a system that is up and operating within the next four years and one that enables greater accessibility between Pennsylvania’s second and third largest employment centers, Downtown and Oakland,” Mayor Bill Peduto said.

The Port Authority plans to use 15 electric buses along with diesel buses on the BRT, according to spokesman Adam Brandolph. He said the authority would wrap up final design this year and start construction in 2021.

“We’re installing infrastructure that will be able to handle electric buses as we speak,” he said, adding that the first two should arrive in the next few months.

Major changes for Fifth Avenue

Major changes are in store for Fifth Avenue.

Traffic now runs one way into Downtown with an existing bus lane running in the opposite direction.

Brandolph said the bus lane would be converted to a dedicated bike lane running from Oakland to Diamond Street near the old Allegheny County Jail, Downtown, and buses would run in the same direction as traffic along a new dedicated bus lane.

The new bus lane will require the removal of street parking in spots along the route, he said.

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority also plans to replace a water main on Forbes and Fifth that’s more than a century old in places, according to spokesman Will Pickering. He said the work would be completed before the BRT project starts to prevent future problems.

Fitzgerald and Peduto said the BRT system would complement existing business and institutions along the route and spur development, particularly in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood and on the 28-acre former Civic Arena site in the Lower Hill District.

“We hope to unlock even more opportunities for development,” Fitzgerald said. “Companies want to be on the campuses of our major universities so they can embed themselves there to do research and development. But the only way to make that really desirable is getting people in and out of there.”