transportation

Hazelwoodians Tell PRT, ‘We Need the 93!’

Posted on December 4, 2024 by Special Reports 0
The inbound 93 bus stopped at Second and Flowers avenues. Photo by Juliet Martinez

After Pittsburgh Regional Transit released the first draft of its Bus Line Redesign project on Sept. 30, Hazelwood resident Tiffany Taulton had one top concern: How will her son and his classmates get to school at Allderdice? The plan eliminates the 93 bus line and replaces it with routes that don’t have stops in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside or Lawrenceville.

“Without the 93 bus, there is no connection to Squirrel Hill that gets [students] to school on time and safely,” Ms. Taulton said on Nov. 13.

On Nov. 12, the agency formerly called Port Authority, now known as PRT, gave a presentation on their new plan to the Hazelwood community meeting — where they heard many similar concerns from Hazelwood residents.

Proposed Hazelwood changes

About 35 people attended November’s monthly meeting in person and, another 20 used Zoom. Emily Provonsha, PRT’s manager of service development, said PRT is in its first phase of getting feedback about the proposed plan. As the weather gets colder, she said, they are planning fewer “pop-up” events in different neighborhoods. But people can still comment online until at least Jan. 31, 2025.

PRT will share another draft of proposed changes they are calling “draft 2.0” with the public sometime this spring. The new draft will incorporate the feedback they are hearing at events and meetings like this one. Stops for the new routes have not been proposed yet.

“One of the changes proposed in the first draft that reflects changes in transit demand after the pandemic is the proposal to discontinue many of the commuter flyer routes,” Ms. Provonsha wrote in a Nov. 14 email. “The ridership on many of the commuter flyer routes remains very low and has not recovered after the pandemic. That being said, we will take another look at this based on public feedback we receive and refer to more recent ridership data as well. In the first draft, given our constraint of having the same operating budget and number of bus operators, we redistributed service hours from the commuter flyer routes and put them into standard bus routes that operate all day, 7-days a week, and this increased trips throughout the midday and on weekends for many of our local bus routes.”

Ben Nicklow, a senior planner at PRT, listed and explained the new routes that would go through Hazelwood: D44, D52, and O53. A fourth route, N94, skirts the edge of Hazelwood. He also mentioned X50, which follows the route of the existing 61C route; and O50, which follows the route of the existing 61D. Those two routes do not go through Hazelwood, but they have stops near Hazelwood and could be reached by transfer.

“You will be able to connect to [X50] through the Waterfront,” Mr. Nicklow explained. “When you need to go somewhere in that service area, even if it looks like it’s not quite in the same travel corridor you do currently, it may come so often that even if you have to transfer it’s a quicker trip.”

Where Hazelwoodians are going

The team from PRT seems to have thought that Hazelwoodians travel to the Waterfront a lot more and to Squirrel Hill (along with other uphill neighborhoods) a lot less than they actually do.

When they took questions from meeting attendees, the questions centered mostly around the need for a direct connection between Hazelwood or Glen Hazel and Squirrel Hill. Attendees wanted one-seat rides to places other than Oakland and the Waterfront. Parents were concerned about their children getting to Allderdice.

Ms. Provonsha told me, “PRT recently held a stakeholder meeting in which we invited school Transportation Directors from all schools throughout the County to discuss their proposed changes and ask them to share data with us on where their students travel from to go to each school, so that we can compare those trips with the transit network.”

“I think they were surprised,” Ms. Taulton commented about the meeting. “I don’t think they realized the 93 was so critical, that people were using it to get to Squirrel Hill so much.”

She uses the 93 to get to work, do light grocery shopping, and get to her mom’s eye doctor, among other places. Hazelwood residents are going to Squirrel Hill not only for the necessities they lack in their own neighborhood, but for connections to the larger community.

Besides grocery stores and banks, Ms. Taulton and several other meeting attendees mentioned Zone 4 safety meetings in Greenfield and the JCC in Squirrel Hill. The JCC has the only pool nearby and offers activities for seniors. They also hold public meetings there.

Mary Bartol, who lives in Hazelwood, commented about the 93 at the Nov. 12 meeting.

“It satisfies every need we have because you can get off in Squirrel Hill to Schenley Park, then into Oakland — then you can go into Shadyside, get off anywhere there.” She said she sometimes visits Bloomfield and Lawrenceville and mentioned the new grocery store being built on Butler Street.

“We’d be lost without it,” Ms. Bartol said.

Lincoln Place PRT riders

Because PRT’s proposed changes are so complex and far-reaching, this article is one in a series. The next article planned is about Lincoln Place. Please email us at junctioncoalition@gmail.com if you want to be interviewed about how the bus line redesign would affect you.

You can review the Bus Line Redesign proposal, comment to PRT, and get the latest on meetings at PRT’s Bus Line Redesign website.

This article originally appeared in The Homepage.

15207 May Be Hit Hard by PRT Bus Line Redesign per Current Proposal

Posted on November 1, 2024 by Special Reports 0
A feedback sheet at the Oct. 21 PRT pop-up event at the Giant Eagle on Murray Avenue shows thumbs-down and mind-blown stickers along with rider comments like, “Less options for the children to get to school in this city!!!”

On Sept. 30, Pittsburgh Regional Transit (formerly Port Authority, now known as PRT) released the first draft of its Bus Line Redesign project.

Their proposal completely reroutes many transit lines. It also includes new schedules and new names for all the routes in the system. Because the changes are so complex and far-reaching, this article is the first in a planned series.

As it stands, PRT’s plan contains grim surprises for residents of Greenfield, Greater Hazelwood, and Lincoln Place. Future installments will focus on each of these areas.

Service cuts in parts of Greenfield

PRT’s interactive map shows a hole on Greenfield Avenue, where the 58 bus line now connects Second Avenue with Greenfield and other communities at the top of the steep hill. The redesign appears to merge the 58 with the 65, which now runs between Squirrel Hill and downtown.

As a result, people who live in upper Greenfield and work downtown would be redirected through Oakland. People who live in lower Greenfield and can’t walk up the hill would be cut off from the rest of the neighborhood. Greenfielders, who have long enjoyed the benefits of the neighborhood’s central location, could see their bus commute time double.

“I don’t understand it, why you just keep cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting,” said transit rider William Shorter at an Oct. 21 PRT pop-up event at the Giant Eagle on Murray Avenue. “People need these buses.”

“It would suck,” said Patrick Hassett, who has lived in Greenfield since 1989. “It would suck for me, my elderly buddies, and businesses that depend on transit for their employees and customers.”

Mr. Hassett said he has spoken with proprietors along Greenfield Avenue who are concerned that the route changes will make it difficult or impossible for people to get to their business.

Although Mr. Hassett considers himself a Greenfielder first since his retirement, he earned degrees in planning and transportation and worked for the City of Pittsburgh for 26 years in transportation and development.

When we met on Oct. 9 to review the map, Mr. Hassett identified Greenfield and Murray avenues as the two main commercial corridors that serve Greenfield.

“The most important transit spine is Greenfield Avenue,” he said. “Murray Avenue doesn’t penetrate the neighborhood like Greenfield Avenue does, although its commercial district is important.”

Pittsburghers for Public Transit’s director of communications and development, Dan Yablonsky, said the organization is holding meetings about the Bus Line Redesign every week to better understand what is being proposed and to shape their response.

Prioritizing bus rapid transit

The proposed plan’s effect on Greenfield is the opposite of PRT’s stated goal to “prioritize equitable investment by aligning service with land use and socio-economic changes.”

The source of the disconnect in PRT’s plan may be two-fold: the bus rapid transit model around which the plan is designed, and its “cost-neutral” funding scenario.

Mr. Hassett said bus rapid transit is not a new idea, and other cities like Kansas City and Indianapolis have been using it for more than a decade. Bus rapid transit focuses on connecting employment centers — in Pittsburgh’s case, downtown and Oakland.

“That system requires you to adjust the transit network so that service to the corridor is maximized. What suffers is local service,” he said.

“Right now, the buses filter through Pittsburgh’s many neighborhoods and smaller centers of employment,” he said. “The effect on Greenfield is obvious, but similar problems could occur with Lawrenceville, Squirrel Hill, and South Side [with this plan]. You still get local service, but it is less effective and more tuned to commuter needs. Many of the routes are redesigned to get you to Oakland.”

Mr. Hassett said discussions of bus rapid transit, or BRT, have been percolating in Pittsburgh for over a decade, too, but were previously shelved for competing transit priorities, plus a lack of funding and political support. He questioned whether the model of redirecting commuters to key job centers is an appropriate response to the effects of COVID-19 on transit demand.

“How have they modified the BRT model since the pandemic?” he asked. “You’d think people working from home would require more diffuse neighborhood service, not less.”

PRT’s cost-neutral plan means that the bus rapid transit investments would come at the expense of existing community services. In their Allegheny County Visionary Service report, Pittsburghers for Public Transit encouraged PRT to also consider versions of the Bus Line Redesign where service can grow with funding increases.

The Bus Line Redesign website includes a section imagining they will have 20% more funds. But those funds would not restore eliminated routes in neighborhoods. Instead, they are earmarked for increasing service on the proposed routes and establishing new “microtransit zones” in several neighborhoods including Oakland.

Mr. Yablonsky said, “We didn’t know what to expect, just that the framework they set up was cost-neutral. And like Laura [Wiens, executive director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit] always says, any redesign that doesn’t look at a growth scenario is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Help turn this bus around

PRT says they are in the process of gathering feedback from transit users. At the time of this writing, they had scheduled several “pop-up” meetings for mid-October. You can review the Bus Line Redesign proposal and get the latest on meetings at engage.rideprt.org/buslineredesign/buslineredesign-home.

Mr. Hassett encouraged Greenfield transit users to ask themselves how the new routes would affect their ability to get to the Greenfield Giant Eagle, Magee Rec Center, St. Rosalia’s church, and other Greenfield destinations they need to visit. How much longer would the trip take, and how much more walking would be involved to get to the bus stop?

Pittsburghers for Public Transit says their organization is approaching the Bus Line Redesign with caution because of concerns like these. According to their website, their focus is “that PRT should ‘Do No Harm’ with the new design, at the least.”

Mr. Yablonsky invited residents of hard-hit neighborhoods to “organize with their neighbors and join up with [Pittsburghers for Public Transit].” He said the group will hold a Zoom organizing meeting on Nov. 13 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. where they will discuss the proposal and decide what changes to push for. Email info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org for details.

PRT will address the Greater Hazelwood community meeting on Nov. 12.

This article originally appeared in The Homepage.

Transit Report Urges Local Riders to Dream Big and Campaign Hard

Posted on September 7, 2024 by Special Reports 0
Protester holding up sign that reads "Transit funding now!"

Advocates set 2020 transit levels as first milestone but aim to restore 20 years of service cuts

Big changes are coming to public transit in Allegheny County with Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s Bus Line Redesign project. As the public transit agency (formerly Port Authority, now known as PRT) prepares to release a draft of its plans in the coming weeks, Pittsburghers for Public Transit is encouraging riders to advocate for the service they need—and the funding to make it happen.

A vision for better transit

In August, Pittsburghers for Public Transit published a report titled Allegheny County Visionary Service that views the Bus Line Redesign planning period as an “opportunity to reverse the trend of budget and service cuts.”

The Bus Line Redesign will propose four versions of a revamped bus network. They will differ based on levels of funding: cost-neutral, 15% decrease, 10% increase and 20% increase.

According to the transit advocacy group’s report, our region has seen a more than 37% cut in public transportation service over the past 20 years. “That has led to a transit system that doesn’t go where we need it to go, long wait times between buses, and service that doesn’t always run at the times we need it,” the report states.

Against this dismal backdrop, it makes sense that PRT would prepare for more cuts, even though they would be catastrophic for an already gutted system. Redesigning the network with no change in funding would present problems of its own, because some communities would have to lose service to allow others to gain service.

Pittsburghers for Public Transit encouraged PRT to also consider versions of the Bus Line Redesign where the bus network can grow with funding increases. This would still leave much work to be done. Even a 20% increase in service would merely restore the amount of service provided before 2020. Although 2020 levels of transit service fell short of meeting community needs, the report calls for getting back to that level as an important first step.

‘Transit champions’ can help

The Allegheny County Visionary Service report identifies local, state and federal officials pushing to expand funding for public transit including the PRT.

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s transition team in 2022 recommended that the city work with PRT to “make its use easier and more attractive to encourage ridership” (p. 103). Their transition report showed an understanding of the need to improve transit service frequency and expand its hours.

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato built her 2023 campaign partly on a platform of improving public transit.

In his 2024 budget address, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called for increasing the state’s public transit funding by $282 million without levying new state taxes. PRT would receive $40 million of these state funds, which would increase their operating budget by more than 7%. In July, an $80 million stopgap was passed from the state’s surplus to the Public Transportation Trust Fund.

Reps. Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio are co-sponsoring the “Stronger Communities through Better Transit Act,” a federal bill that would provide funds to transit agencies of PRT’s size and larger. Allegheny County would receive an additional $175,586,810 in transit operating funding, allowing for up to 37% more service.

These funds could make a huge difference to riders and the whole region.

“It’s not just PRT that needs to hear from people, but also legislators,” Pittsburghers for Public Transit executive director Laura Chu Wiens said during a July 31 phone call.

Another bus line for Hazelwood?

In 2019, residents and organizations in Greenfield, Hazelwood and other communities worked with Pittsburghers for Public Transit to draft Our Money, Our Solutions, an alternative plan listing needed improvements that cost less than the Mon-Oakland Connector’s original $23 million budget.

The Mon-Oakland Connector envisioned a privately-run shuttle from Oakland through Schenley Park, Four Mile Run and Hazelwood to Hazelwood Green. The project, designed to serve university and research interests, was scrapped by Mayor Ed Gainey in early 2022 after years of community outcry.

The city and PRT adopted some items from Our Money, Our Solutions, like additional weekend service on the 93 bus line. Another top transit item, extending the 75 line across the Hot Metal Bridge into Hazelwood, has been under discussion. More transit funds and renewed local support could make the extended 75 line a reality.

It’s an example of what Pittsburghers for Public Transit would like to see happening throughout Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods.

“We hope people will be galvanized by the opportunities from getting more funding and what that would look like, how it could benefit their communities,” Ms. Wiens said.

Lawmakers Focus on Railroad Safety After East Palestine Derailment

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Special Reports 0
Map showing distance between E Palestine, OH, and Allegheny County, PA

Continuing fallout from a February 3 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, of a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying toxic chemicals is drawing concern from nearby communities and beyond. On March 7, Mayor Ed Gainey issued a joint statement with five other western Pennsylvania mayors that emphasized continued monitoring of the situation “for any potential short-term or long-term impacts we may see in order to do all we can to protect our air and water for our residents and the region’s wildlife.”

Trying to reassure constituents in a “potential blast zone”

The mayors’ statement also pledged to work with Pittsburgh City Council to “gain a clear picture of the state of rail infrastructure so we can safeguard our communities and hold the railroad companies accountable for any repairs that may need to be made.”

City Council released its own statement on March 7, noting that “as many as 176,000 Pittsburghers live within the potential blast zone of a similar derailment.” They called for stricter regulation of rail carriers and harsher penalties for safety violations.

The council also expressed support for new federal legislation that tightens the rules around trains carrying hazardous materials and expands the “high-hazard flammable” category.

The U.S. Senate’s Railway Safety Act of 2023, introduced on March 1, includes provisions that seem aimed at reversing a trend toward poor working conditions at rail companies. For instance, it would set minimum time requirements for rail car or locomotive inspections.

These reforms push back against an industry laser-focused on speed. Over the past decade, rail companies slashed 30% of their workforce, including safety inspectors, while running longer and heavier trains.

The high price of efficiency

Matt Weaver, a union member and Ohio legislative director of Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, said in a February interview on the Working People podcast, “It goes back to precision scheduled railroading —the business model of the railroad industry for doing more with less.”

Mr. Weaver said his friends who inspect cars have told him standards changed “from two guys inspecting a car and having four or five minutes to do so; now it’s down to one guy pushing for…less than 90 seconds, as little as a minute.”

In addition, rail companies have opposed updating trains’ braking systems to electronic controlled pneumatic brakes (ECB). While most trains have air braking systems that stop individual cars, ECB systems use electronic signals to stop the entire train.

ECB brakes slow and stop trains up to 70% faster, but in 2018 the rail industry lobbied to repeal a Department of Transportation train safety rule requiring ECB installation on trains carrying flammable and hazardous materials.

After the East Palestine derailment, residents near the Pennsylvania border were evacuated while Norfolk Southern executed a “controlled burn” of hazardous chemicals from some of the derailed cars on February 6.

The resulting black cloud towered hundreds of feet into the air; passengers on a commercial flight spotted it. Within 48 hours, the evacuation order was lifted and Ohio governor Mike DeWine announced, “Air quality samples in the area of the wreckage and in nearby residential neighborhoods have consistently showed readings at points below safety screening levels for contaminants of concern.” But some East Palestine residents who returned home began to report symptoms like sore throats, burning eyes, nausea, and rashes. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources said the chemical spill had killed about 3,500 fish in nearby streams.

Pittsburgh has been lucky so far

Pittsburgh has had its share of derailments in recent years. In 2018, seven double-stacked Norfolk Southern railroad cars derailed near Station Square. No injuries were reported, and the spilled cargo consisted of consumer goods including mouthwash and diapers.

In 2015, 13 hopper cars went off the rails in Hazelwood near Irvine Street. Police officers and firefighters responded to the derailment as a possible hazard, but soon determined the cars were empty.

This same rail line travels through The Run and a tunnel on Neville Street in Oakland, which runs directly beneath one of the densest neighborhoods in the city. A 2015 report from PennEnvironment lists the 15213 Oakland ZIP code among its “top 25 PA zip codes with the largest populations living in the possible evacuation zone.”

In early 2016, a train carrying oil products decoupled along these tracks just before entering the tunnel. Observers recorded several cars marked with hazard placards identifying flammable cargo. Fortunately, the coupling broke as the train headed uphill and the disconnected cars’ brakes worked properly. Had the brakes failed, this portion of the train could have rolled backward and derailed at the first turn in Junction Hollow. A similar decoupling in 2013 caused an explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that killed 47 people and destroyed the town.

Train derailments are not inevitable

Derailments are more common than people might think, although they rarely involve fatalities. The Department of Transportation has recorded more than 12,400 train derailments over the past decade; of these accidents, around 6,600 tank cars were carrying hazardous materials and 348 cars released their contents, according to the Associated Press.

But as PennEnvironment’s report points out, “[T]rains carrying hazardous materials like crude oil often travel through highly populated cities, counties and neighborhoods—as well as near major drinking water sources.”

The combination of eroded safety regulations and close proximity is a recipe for a disaster like the one in East Palestine.

At a February 23 news conference, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy called the derailment “100% preventable” and said, “We call things accidents—there are no accidents. Every single event we investigate is preventable.”

Hazelwood Families Organize to Get Kids to School Safely

Posted on December 27, 2022 by Special Reports 0
A photo of the FaceBook post from Mifflin K-8 that announced the reinstatement of the Hazelwood route and advised families, “Please advise the students that transportation is a privilege and safe, kind and respectful behavior is paramount to continue riding.”

The 2022-2023 school year has brought transportation and safety challenges to Hazelwood students. Their families, along with community organizations, are stepping in to fill the gaps created by canceled bus routes and unsafe streets.

Filling in for a school bus

In late October, Pittsburgh Public Schools informed the families of about 40 students who are bused from Hazelwood to Pittsburgh Mifflin Pre K-8 that the route was canceled until further notice. The district blamed the national bus driver shortage for cancellation.

Amber Adkins, whose child rides the bus, told Channel 11/WPXI in an October 31 interview that service had become unreliable over the previous month.

The school district offered mileage reimbursement and bus tickets for Pittsburgh Regional Transit. But these didn’t help caregivers without their own vehicle or children too young to ride public transit alone.

Community organizations POORLAW and Praise Temple Deliverance Church teamed up with affected families and volunteers to organize carpools for Mifflin students.

“The most important part of Hazelwood is our children,” said POORLAW co-founder and CEO Saundra Cole McKamey during a November 7 phone call. She said the lack of transportation was “causing additional financial hardship and creating a burden for families.”

On November 9, Mifflin posted on its Facebook page that the bus route would resume the next day through a new carrier.

“Please advise the students that transportation is a privilege and safe, kind and respectful behavior is paramount to continue riding,” the post continued.

James Cole, who runs the Hazelwood Cobras youth football program, said during a November 11 call that parents told him it seemed like “they’re saying if kids don’t act right on the bus, they will discontinue the route again.”

Mr. Cole said the problem of unruly students is not unique to Hazelwood, and there are other ways to deal with it, such as hiring bus monitors from the community.

Ms. Cole McKamey noted that Hazelwood has no public non-charter school within walking distance because of the school district’s past decisions.

“It seems so disrespectful to me,” Ms. Cole McKamey said. “They closed our community school [Burgwin Elementary] to make all those kids go to Mifflin and get their enrollment numbers up.”

Burgwin shuttered in 2006. Pittsburgh Public Schools sold the building in 2014 to reopen as a Propel charter. Although students at Propel Hazelwood can walk to classes, they face their own safety concerns.

Navigating busy intersections

For years, residents along Johnston Avenue have been requesting traffic-calming measures such as speed humps and crossing guards during the school year. After her grandson, Jamel Austin, was hit and killed by a car in Glen Hazel in July, Desheiba Wilder made it her mission to keep his friends safe. She took on the crossing guard role herself, and a network of around 10 volunteer crossing guards has formed around her.

Mr. Cole is one of those volunteers. He said people have reached out with offers of help, including some from other neighborhoods.

“It was a beautiful thing to see people recognizing the problem and wanting to be part of the solution,” he said.

Ms. Cole McKamey reported improved lighting for night visibility in the area where Jamel was hit. She thanked Christina Spearman of MMS Group, the management company for Glen Hazel RAD’s nearby apartment building, for quickly arranging repairs to its lights.

Mayor Gainey promises safety improvements

On October 20, Mayor Ed Gainey announced neighborhood safety commitments stemming from the October 5 community meeting in Glen Hazel. These include eliminating the requirement for city-employed crossing guards to have a driver’s license. The mayor’s press release mentioned that two lights on Rivermont Drive were fixed. Mayor Gainey also promised the following:

  • Speed humps on Johnston Avenue, Mansion Street, and Glenwood Avenue.
  • Signing and pavement marking improvements including newly painted crosswalks and curb-painted bump-outs on Johnston Avenue, Mansion Street, and Glenwood Avenue. Marking improvements to Johnston Ave. have been completed.
  • Installation of a flashing school zone sign at Propel School.

No date was given for uncompleted items on the list. During the October 5 meeting, municipal traffic engineer Mike Maloch said of the speed humps, “Weather is turning so we are not going to have any more time to install this project. When weather breaks in 2023, it will be implemented quickly.”

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