About six years ago when the Port Authority of Allegheny County determined that extending light rail service from Downtown Pittsburgh to Oakland via a route along Centre Avenue through the Hill District was prohibitively expensive, it proposed deploying a Bus Rapid Transit system as the next best alternative. The BRT system would deploy special buses, in dedicated lanes, making fewer stops—just like a rail system.
Last week, the authority announced its choice for the system’s route. Called “Core+2,” it would not use Centre Avenue. It would bypass the Hill District, with buses running in dedicated lanes from Downtown outbound via Forbes Avenue and inbound to Downtown via Fifth Avenue. Currently, 14 existing bus routes use Forbes and Fifth avenues in Oakland.
The proposed BRT system requires each BRT bus leaving Downtown to make stops in Oakland. Then, some BRT buses would break off into different routes, labeled branches by the authority—one extending toward Highland Park, one toward Squirrel Hill, and one toward East Liberty, Homewood and Wilkinsburg via the East Busway’s Oakland entrance.
But wouldn’t that just add to congestion, voiding the “rapid” part of the BRT plan?
No, said authority Senior Analyst Amy Silbermann. She told the Courier exclusively that the other buses in Oakland—the 61’s, 71’s, and 12 others on routes numbered from 28 to 93—would no longer go Downtown Pittsburgh.
“The 61’s, 71’s, for example, would terminate (inbound) at a queueing area in Oakland and loop back out on Forbes,” she told the Courier. “Only the BRT buses would go Downtown. And it would not add buses to (Oakland and the branches) because the BRT replaces three routes: The P3; the 71B Highland park, and the 61D Squirrel Hill.”
The “core” route, between Downtown and the Cathedral of Learning, would also see stops only at Chatham, Pride, Dinwiddie, Jumonville, Halket, and Central Oakland (Atwood).
“In the core, all the ‘local’ stops would be eliminated, and beyond that, where the buses are back in two-way traffic, stops would be spread out to the quarter-mile distance we plan for all routes,” said Silbermann. “Currently we have too many stops.”
In the regular traffic beyond the core, with no dedicated lanes, Silbermann said “smart” traffic signals would allow buses to pull out first at intersections—like left turn signals do—this, and the reduced number of stops, would prevent bunching.
Naturally, she said, riders heading directly to East Liberty, Homewood or Wilkinsburg from Downtown would just use the East Busway, as usual. But with this proposal, residents in those communities who want to go to Oakland can do so directly without having to ride all the way Downtown, and then catch another bus heading outbound to Oakland.
It is with the inbound bus traffic, however, where more questions arise. Currently, the “71” buses use a counter-flow lane on Fifth Avenue heading outbound. That lane would become a bike lane.
All inbound buses would use the far-right “inbound lane”—meaning there would be one less lane for regular traffic. Silbermann said the authority’s modeling analysis shows the change will have little effect, because drivers avoid that lane already because of the existing bus traffic.
A bigger question involves the fare system. A rider coming into town from, say, McKeesport, just rides the 61C to Downtown. With the new system in place, that bus will no longer go Downtown; it would end in Oakland. That rider would have to transfer to a BRT bus from Oakland to Downtown, meaning…an extra fare?
“The fare policy for transfers hasn’t been worked out yet,” authority spokesman Adam Brandolph told the Courier. “Will there be one? Is it free? How will it work? And are there changes to other routes that could bring people a direct route into town? All of that still has to be ironed out.”
The estimated cost—which includes new buses, stations and infrastructure improvements primarily in Uptown—is $233 million.
Brandolph and Silbermann said residents will be able to give feedback on the plan at public forums that will be scheduled for late June or early July, after which the authority will submit a final version to state and federal funding agencies.
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