Dozens of routes could change, shifting service across Allegheny County, under a draft plan released earlier this year.
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Whitney Falba, 40, rides the 13 Bellevue bus between her home in Ross and her Downtown nonprofit job four times each week. She’s used public transit for nearly 25 years, knew the route had long served the area, and factored that in when she and her spouse bought their house seven years ago, figuring they could save money by only owning one car.
When Falba saw the current draft of Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s Bus Line Redesign, she was “flabbergasted” to learn how her daily commute would be impacted.
Whitney Falba poses at her bus stop on Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, outside her home in Ross. (Photo by Anastasia Busby/PublicSource)
What is now a one-seat ride to Downtown would be split into two routes, necessitating a transfer. And the essentially halved service frequency would require her either to wake up an hour earlier or walk half an hour south to pick up a more frequent bus.
“Buying a car would be extremely tight,” Falba said. “I don’t have a choice. I need to go into the office to work.”
The route change Falba faces is one of many sweeping modifications PRT is proposing in the latest draft of its Bus Line Redesign project. The transit authority set out to reconsider how bus riders use the system after the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming for a cost-neutral redesign that, the agency says, will “better serve and connect riders to places they want and need to go.”
Under the draft redesign released on Sept. 30, every existing route would experience some kind of modification, ranging from route name changes to route discontinuations. Twenty-two routes would be discontinued and 13 new routes are proposed. Major portions of most discontinued routes would still receive service via new routes and modifications to existing ones. Learn more about which routes are affected here.
PRT plans to release a second draft of the redesign in the spring for a final round of public engagement and have a finalized draft in the fall. Riders can comment on the interactive draft network map, complete an online or paper survey, attend an in-person or virtual event, email [email protected] or call PRT Customer Service at 412-442-2000 to leave feedback on the proposal.
How can I leave feedback on the proposal?
Riders can comment on the interactive draft network map, complete an online or paper survey, attend an in-person or virtual event, email [email protected] or call PRT Customer Service at 412-442-2000 to leave feedback on the proposal.
Other proposed changes include:
- New routes that connect neighborhoods without a Downtown transfer
- Reconfigured bus routes and adjusted scheduling times
- New “transit hubs” to facilitate transfers outside of Downtown
- Increased usage of busways
- Four “microtransit zones” for hard-to-service communities including Penn Hills, South Hilltop, McKeesport and Highlands Area
- Increased direct service from numerous suburbs to and from Oakland
- Fewer one-way trips Downtown during weekday rush hour, but more trips on weekends and midday on weekdays.
While the redesign was intended to be cost neutral, the transit authority is proposing a menu of possible additions that could require an additional $75 million annually. With a 20% increase in service hours, according to PRT, the authority would increase the number of routes with 20-minute or better service, improve service frequencies at existing routes, add routes that connect the North and South Hills to the airport, and add five additional microtransit zones where smaller vehicles could transport riders to areas with PRT routes. The agency says they intend to work with the governments and other potential funders to find the money to provide these services.
A historic drop in ‘a matter of weeks’
PRT saw a drastic decline in ridership during the COVID-19 pandemic which hasn’t fully reversed. In 2023, PRT buses transported about 33.6 million riders, up from about 20.1 million in 2021 but a far cry from the more than 55 million rides given in 2019.
Chris Walker, a volunteer archives manager at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and former PRT scheduling department manager, likened the post-pandemic ridership falloff to the 25-year decline Allegheny County’s transit system underwent following World War II. In 1947, total system ridership hit an all-time peak of around 290 million, but as more households bought cars it fell to about 91 million by 1972.
“COVID took that same decline and compressed it into a matter of weeks,” Walker said. “It definitely brought a major paradigm shift to the industry.”
The proposed redesign would mark some of the most significant changes to local bus services since 2011 when the government addressed a 15% service reduction and eliminated 29 bus routes, cutting service to 38 communities and neighborhoods.
Plan draws mixed reaction
The redesign plan has been met with mixed reactions from transit riders, advocates and enthusiasts alike.
Laura Chu Weins, executive director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit, said she and her group are approaching the proposed changes cautiously because the scale is “overwhelmingly vast.” She said “some communities will be winners,” highlighting better service to some areas north of the city, but she worries that a major change to the network could hurt other riders.
“People have built their lives over generations based on the existing route structures,” Chu Weins said. “At a very minimum, we need to do no harm here, and there’s a real concern that disruption itself will lead to lower ridership and greater harm than what the outcomes might be.”
She sees a redesign as an opportunity to expand transit access and improve services.
“If we’re doing a bus line redesign and reconsidering how service is provided in the county,” Chu Weins said, “we need the agency to really advertise and talk about what it would look like if more resources were put toward transit.”
Mike Cook, a 74-year-old Squirrel Hill native and self-described transit advocate, has worked at PRT and Philadelphia’s transit authority for more than 50 years combined, and said the restructuring toward transit hubs is necessary to adjust to riders’ post-COVID commutes.
“People’s commuting habits have changed, not just in Pittsburgh, but everywhere. Back in the day, 90% of everybody went from their house in the community or the suburbs into Downtown to work,” Cook said. “Now a lot of people are working in the suburbs and in other communities.”
Cook, however, criticized the proposal to rename routes because they could be confusing for riders who have ridden the routes for decades and memorized their markings. Under the proposal, routes to and from Downtown and Oakland would include a ‘D’ or ‘O’ prefix in the name, and routes between other neighborhoods would have an ‘N.’
“I don’t really see why they need these Ds and these Os and these Ns,” Cook said. “I think it’s much ado about nothing.”
Push for feedback moves ahead
Since the redesign was introduced, PRT has held more than 40 informational events, primarily through pop-up stands at bus stops throughout the county. Informational signs, advertisement and social media have also brought awareness to the impending redesign.
Chu Weins said the amount of change included in the redesign requires a thorough public feedback process with riders and non-riders alike.
“Whether you’re a transit rider or not … it’s going to affect municipalities and economies and healthcare access and business access,” Chu Weins said. “There’s something about the scope of this proposal that requires a lot of time and investment into hearing from the public.”
During a Nov. 14 public feedback meeting, PRT leaders said they have collected more than 1,200 comments through pop-ups and online, as well as nearly 6,000 survey responses from riders. Derek Dauphin, director of planning and service development at PRT, told attendees that “this is not a perfect proposal.”
“We know it has flaws, but we need to hear what those flaws are,” Dauphin said. “This is mostly a draft that allows us to get a reaction.”
Faith Muse, a 24-year-old in the film industry, attended the meeting because they were “disgruntled” by changes to the 44 route to Knoxville. Muse said their friends in the Churchview Garden Apartments, where the 44 terminates, would lose bus service and would have to rely on newly proposed microtransit options to travel more than two miles to the nearest bus route. According to PRT data, the stop at the apartment complex averages 13 daily boardings.
“I have friends there that fought for that access,” Muse said. “Their proposal to eliminate it would essentially screw over people who need that busing.”
Following the presentation, Dauphin said PRT’s philosophy behind the “massive” redesign is to benefit the most riders while disadvantaging the least.
“Maybe 99% of people are benefiting, but if you’re in that 1% it’s still very painful,” Dauphin said. “Nobody at PRT wants to leave somebody by the side of the road.”
After attending two pop-ups, Falba said she felt unsure about how much PRT would take her and other riders’ feedback into account. That’s a sentiment that took the redesign team “a little bit by surprise,” Dauphin said.
“There’s a big concern that this is all a done deal,” Dauphin said. “There is a technical analysis, but this feedback is key. … We don’t always have the opportunity to talk to 7,000 riders that often, so it’s really important data that we’re collecting and using for this.”
He said the redesign team will look at all comments and feedback to create the second draft network, regardless of how many people comment on a specific issue.
“It’s not like one comment doesn’t matter,” Dauphin said.
“We can only prove that we’re worthy of your trust,” Dauphin added. “There’s gonna be people who come out of this and still don’t trust us. That’s just unfortunately a part of working in government sometimes … but I would say we have to earn that trust by the way we carry out the rest of the project.”
Correction (12/18/24): PRT’s timeline for releasing a second draft and then a final draft of the bus route redesign plan was misstated in a prior version of this article.
Spencer Levering is an editorial intern and studies communications and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. He can be reached at [email protected].
This story was fact-checked by Amber Frantz.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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