Pittsburgh Regional Transit says proposed bus route redesign will be ‘big jolt’ to riders

Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s first draft of its bus route redesign would reduce the overall number of routes, add 19 routes including some new service areas, and substantially increase the job sites and neighborhoods the system serves.

Officials outlined the proposed changes for the board’s planning and stakeholder relations committee Thursday. The agency will hold a series of public meetings through the end of the year to see if riders like the ideas, make changes as needed next year, and review them with the public again before implementing them in 2026.

Overall, the draft recommends reducing the system’s number of bus routes from 95 to 77, and about 60% of routes will have changes, either involving frequency of service or the path they follow. Some of those changes will be minor, such as moving one block away, but some could involve reducing daily trips substantially or extending/shrinking the service area.

A major goal is to change the current system that routes many buses through Downtown Pittsburgh, often requiring a long trip for riders to get from one neighboring community to another. The revised system would nearly double the number of crosstown routes from 10 to 19 and establish 20 transit hubs in outlying areas to allow suburban transfers.

Among the areas that would get service for the first time would be the Wexford area in the North Hills. The plan also would add 19 crosstown routes such as West Mifflin to Carnegie and Millvale to Pittsburgh’s East End.

Additionally, the identification numbers of routes may remain the same, but the names will change for many of them, and they could receive a destination letter such as D for Downtown Pittsburgh, O for Oakland or N for neighborhood.

The changes will involve some adjustments for many riders who have been used to using the system for decades with few changes.

“This will be a big jolt,” said Amy Silbermann, PRT’s chief development officer. “But we think it’s positive, which is why we’re doing it.”

Planners have worked on the proposed changes for the past year and devised a way to expand daily and weekend service and add service areas without increasing operating costs. The agency claims that despite reducing the number of routes it will continue to serve most of the same areas and provide more frequent service.

It would accomplish that by reducing the number of trips on some commuter routes where ridership has decreased since the pandemic because many workers are working fewer than five days a week at Downtown offices. One result will be more direct trips without transfers to popular destinations such as Oakland and Pittsburgh International Airport from the North and South Hills.

“We’re able to take those resources and put them where we don’t have service today,” Silbermann said. “We think this is tremendous, better than what we are offering now.”

Derek Dauphin, the agency’s director of planning and service development, stressed that commuters shouldn’t have any difficulty getting Downtown.

“This isn’t short-changing Downtown,” he said. “They will have the service they need.”

Despite the changes, the agency claims that 99.4% of current riders will still have service within a quarter mile of their homes.

Planners said the redesign would provide the following benefits:

• Routes providing service every 30 minutes or less would increase from 25 to 43.
• More than 400,000 residents would have access to 30-minute or better service, a 27% increase.
• The number of routes 20 miles or longer would be cut in half.
• 143,000 residents in low-income communities would have access to service every 30 minutes or less, a 32% increase.
• More than 605,000 residents would have access to transit, up about 35,000.
• More than 230,000 residents could have a direct ride to Oakland, an increase of nearly 21,000.

The redesign also would see the agency’s first step into microtransit, providing shorter trips with small buses or minivans. It has received a federal grant to study how that would work in the Alle-Kiski Valley around Harrison and in the Monongahela Valley around McKeesport.

Dauphin stressed that those vehicles would be driven by union drivers at their regular pay rate.

Through the long series of meetings the agency had with riders, community groups, businesses and elected officials, the common theme was that riders want more service.

“I think the one thing that’s clear is that there continues to be demand for more transit,” Dauphin said.

As a result, the agency also developed a wish-list proposal for a 20% increase in service, which would add about $75 million to its annual service budget of about $405 million a year. That would add more areas with service every 20 minutes or less, add more service from the north and south to the airport, and create five microtransit zones in low-density areas.

With the agency projecting financial problems in the next five years without additional state funding, that enhanced proposal won’t move forward unless finances change.

“We’ve gotten as far as we can with the money we have available,” Dauphin said.

In recent weeks, the agency has had a series of private presentations of the draft for community groups, business leaders and elected officials. It began a series of meetings with bus drivers Thursday.

The full draft should be posted on the agency’s website by Sept. 30. The first major public input session is scheduled for Oct. 16 in Schenley Park.

“We know this won’t be 100% perfect,” PRT spokesman Adam Brandoph said. “We want to go back to the people we talked to and say, ‘We think this is what we heard. Is this right?’ and hear what they have to say.”