I’ve got some good news and some bad news this Transit Talk Tuesday.
The bad first: Pennsylvania still faces a transit funding cliff. For the fourth year in a row, lawmakers have blown past the deadline for an annual budget as negotiations continue, imperiling transit, foster care, school funding, and more. Closed-door wrangling over issues including cannabis and taxation of skill games continue. Even as new University Line bus stops opened downtown, Pittsburgh Regional Transit brass continued to warn of “irreversible” service cuts as transit users rallied to save the system. I’ve already said my piece about this unfortunate development (tl;dr FUND IT).
The good news? A better way to get to the airport may be staring us in the face.
I continue to believe more trolleys along existing rail corridors would be a huge boon for Pittsburgh — even as I will acknowledge that our dedicated busways are incredible assets worth preserving. Before diving into a newer idea, I’ll re-up on an older one and say that busway extensions east and west would be amazing. There’s a real opportunity to serve a growing West Hills community with dedicated lanes down the middle or sides of Parkway West, saving the 28X and other westward lines the hassle of sharing the road with commuter traffic. Busway extensions are usually cheaper to build than rail, too.
Yet the long-hyped Esplanade development opens the door to studying an extension of the T along Pittsburgh’s North Shore and up into the Ohio Valley. That, in turn, would unlock a whole rapid transit corridor partly through an area with some of Greater Pittsburgh’s fastest population growth. If we finally get our Ferris wheel, we could also get more trolleys!
The North Shore Connector was constructed with this outcome in mind. The Allegheny station of the T stands as a challenge — the elevated station, towering over Steeler fans and science center visitors, has become a kind of public transit “Bridge to Nowhere” à la Ft. Duquesne Bridge in the ’60s. Located at the front door to the Ohio Valley, the station is uniquely positioned to serve two neighborhoods “on the verge of great change” — Manchester and Chateau — and right the historic wrong of the destruction of the Beaver Avenue business district.
As constructed, Allegheny station is basically pointed at Pa. Route 65, the elevated highway that essentially severed these two neighborhoods. Riverlife already plans a reconfiguration of traffic patterns around the West End Bridge. This is one potential opportunity to figure out a way to snake a rail line through. It could then be combined with the elevated portion of 65 or brought down to ground level, as some groups have proposed.
Trolley tracks could share the roadway or occupy their own trackage essentially all the way up to Glen Osborne or Sewickley. There’s also some space parallel to Norfolk Southern’s line along the shore that includes an empty railbed. Park and ride stations in Ohio Valley communities could serve commuters and even school groups heading into the city.
From there, an Ohio Valley T extension could serve as a second PRT University Line by crossing the Ohio near Coraopolis, following Pa. Route 51 for a short distance, and turning along University Boulevard toward Robert Morris University and Pittsburgh International Airport. University Boulevard is already a hub of activity for the area, with shopping, dining, and hotels along much of its length.
It’s likely that a T diversion would then need to either use existing tunnels under the airport’s northern runway or make a loop around the airport to enter from the west. The median in I-376 Business is easily big enough for parallel tracks. Almost all of this new line could run at grade, significantly lowering the potential expense (this would still be a much better use of $1 billion than a new highway, IMHO).
In a magical reality with infinite transit funding, I don’t see this as either/or when it comes to busway extensions. Extend the West Busway to the airport, too! Add dedicated bus lanes all the way up McKnight Road! Run a T line from Library to PIT! Send the East Busway all the way to McKeesport!
What you’d get as a result is stronger links between some of the region’s largest employers, including Dick’s Sporting Goods (whose headquarters sits next to I-376 Business), RMU, Ohio Valley manufacturing facilities, ALCOSAN, Rivers Casino, and the airport itself. No more waiting anxiously while your 28X bus sits in standstill traffic near IKEA. No more transfers for South Hills passengers flying out of PIT. No more convoluted trips for RMU students stranded among the stroads of Moon Township. A potential rail link would also complement the airport’s existing connections to local car and bicycle infrastructure.
I’m not going to let funding shortfalls stop me from dreaming big about better ways to navigate our region. If anything, a little imagination lets us see not just reasons for funding current service levels, but also helps us advocate for more ambitious, more equitable ways to get around as Pittsburgh continues to grow and change. Let’s keep our public transit funded — and let’s keep pushing for ways to make it bigger and better.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2025.
