Pittsburgh Regional Transit should open University Line lanes in Downtown Pittsburgh early next year

Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s University Line bus routes should begin operating on exclusive lanes in Downtown Pittsburgh early next year.

Amy Silbermann, PRT’s chief development officer, told the board’s Planning and Stakeholder Relations Committee Thursday that crews for Independence Excavating Inc. are on schedule to move utility lines and have five Downtown stations built by the end of the year. Once winter weather ends, the lanes will be painted red and buses will begin to use the lanes in the Golden Triangle.

The lanes are part of the $291 million Bus Rapid Transit system designed to provide more predictable, efficient service between Downtown and Oakland, two of the three busiest economic centers in Pennsylvania. Buses will come inbound on Fifth Avenue from Oakland and go outbound on Forbes Avenue, but bids for the sections in Uptown and Oakland haven’t been advertised yet because PRT is still working on agreements with utilities and the city of Pittsburgh.

Silbermann said there is no reason that the five bus routes – 61A, B and C, 71B and P3 – can’t benefit from the exclusive lanes Downtown as soon as they are ready. The buses will come in on Fifth Avenue, turn right on Liberty Avenue, right on Sixth Avenue and exit on Forbes Avenue.

The Downtown stations will be at Fifth Avenue and Ross Street, Fifth and William Penn Place, Fifth and Market Square, the Wood Street T Station on Liberty Avenue, and Steel Plaza at Sixth Avenue and Grant Street. The exclusive lanes are designed to prevent buses from getting caught in rush-hour traffic that can cause them to bunch together, creating gaps in the system and making it difficult for the agency to meet its schedule.

The Oakland and Uptown sections of the project are scheduled to be finished some time in 2027, but that doesn’t mean the full system will be ready. Smart traffic signals that the city is installing to give buses priority at traffic lights won’t be ready when the system opens.

Silbermann said the agency will get significant benefits from the exclusive lanes before those signals are ready, but those benefits will be “optimized” when the signals are installed. Additionally, branches that will extend the system to Highland Park and Greenfield also won’t be built until several years after the core portion begins operation.