Pittsburgh Regional Transit presented bus station and shelter designs for its Bus Rapid Transit system during a Zoom meeting Monday night scheduled by the Oakland Planning & Development Corp.
The agency’s bus system is to run between Downtown Pittsburgh through Uptown and into Oakland. The project aims to provide more reliable and faster transit on some of the city’s busiest commuter routes.
A development activities meeting to engage the community was required before the project applies for approval from the city’s Art Commission.
Multiple registered community organizations in the neighborhoods where the transit system is proposed were present Monday night. Many have been engaged with the BRT process over the past few years.
Among the groups represented were Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, Uptown Partners, the Hill CDC, the Hill District Consensus Group, the Hill District Collaborative, Oakland Planning and Development Corporation, Oakland Business Improvement District and Oakcliffe Community Organization.
“We have seen a lot of engagement and are supportive of the BRT project,” said Kathryn Schlesinger, senior mobility project manager of Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. “We are all very anxious and excited to see the project come into fruition.”
Three different variations of the same model were virtually presented to the public for the first time Monday evening. The stations will either be 60, 30 or 15 feet long, all with the same features aimed to ease travel for riders.
Stations will consist of a transaction area to purchase and validate tickets, an emergency phone, bench seating, trash receptacles, maps for wayfinding, braille signage and ADA boarding space. The stations also will be well lit with a camera system inside the structure.
“It’s contemporary, but at the same time it's more universal so it can sit in any context,” said Osborne Anthony, assistant vice president in transportation architecture and facilities at AECOM.
Mr. Anthony pointed out that the stations’ material will contain laminated glass and powder-coated aluminum.
With the new bus system will come new sidewalks, replaced ADA ramps and 5 miles of dedicated bicycle infrastructure.
The proposed schedule sees initial construction in the spring of next year, with the goal of concluding work by the end of 2026.
Hannah Wyman: hwyman@post-gazette.com and Twitter @Hannah_SWyman.
First Published: June 28, 2022, 1:40 a.m.
Updated: June 28, 2022, 10:16 a.m.
