Pittsburgh Regional Transit holds bus route redesign meetings in eastern areas

Pittsburgh Regional Transit is continuing its effort to redesign bus routes throughout the system with a series of meetings in eastern communities this week.

The agency started reviewing more than 90 bus routes in October to determine whether they should follow different roads or serve different neighborhoods. The redesign — the first in more than two decades — is an outgrowth of the agency’s long-range NEXTransit plan two years ago and should be finished by summer 2025.

Meetings are scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday at Penn Hills Library, 1037 Stotler Road, Penn Hills, and from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Jeron X. Grayson Community Center, 1852 Enoch St., Hill District.

Ellie Newman, section manager for service development, said this week’s meetings will be formal presentations rather than the open house format the agency has used in other settings. That’s because PRT is participating as part of community meetings already scheduled by other agencies to take advantage of their crowd.

“This week, we’re really trying to slot into existing meetings, so it will be a little different,” she said. “People will still be able to take our survey and see what we are proposing.”

This is the end of the first round of a series of public meetings to find out what changes riders would like to see in the system. The agency expects to use that information to develop a series of recommendations that it will take back to the public several times beginning next spring before it settles on final plans.

The effort has featured a series of online and in-person meetings to gather information from the public about new areas the agency should serve. Among the goals is to create short trips between neighboring communities rather than having riders travel to Downtown Pittsburgh or Oakland to transfer to another transit vehicle for a destination that is just a few miles from home.

Although the agency can’t add a lot of vehicles to its service without adding a fifth maintenance garage, Newman said it should be able to make changes to improve neighborhood service before that facility is available.

“We’re planning on coming up with a system we can use with the capacity we have now,” she said. “We’re looking to better manage our existing system.”

For example, the agency has many routes that last as long as 90 minutes one way, well above the industry recommendation of 60 minutes. As part of this redesign, it will consider splitting that long trip into two routes with the expectation that it can stay on schedule more often with shorter routes, even if some riders have to transfer to reach their final destination.

“We think that will be a better ridership model,” she said.

The goal is to go back to the public with another series of meetings next spring, then have final recommendations in summer 2024.

The agency is close to finalizing a similar rerouting of buses through Downtown Pittsburgh as part of its Bus Rapid Transit project that will link Oakland and Downtown on exclusive bus routes. As a result, other routes that also travel through the Downtown area could have their pathway changed to create a more efficient system with easier transfers and less traffic congestion.