Pittsburgh Regional Transit wants to ‘hear from the community’ on proposed Busway stations

Residents in Wilkinsburg and Homewood will have an opportunity to weigh in on two concepts that Pittsburgh Regional Transit is considering for each of two proposed new stations along the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway.

In Wilkinsburg, the agency is considering relocating the station from the center of the site near North Avenue to the eastern corner near Penn and Wallace avenues. It also is looking at whether to add a station at Brushton Avenue in Homewood, near the western end of the Wilkinsburg site.

The agency will hold an online meeting from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesday that requires registration. On Friday, there will be an in-person meeting where no registration is required from 4 to 7 p.m. at the former Wilkinsburg train station, 901 Hay St., right next to the busway.

At each meeting, staff and consultants will present two possible options for each site.

Although PRT has a $5.4 million grant to help pay for a potential $8 million project at Wilkinsburg, spokesman Adam Brandolph said the agency isn’t committed to making changes.

“We will be presenting two different options at each location,” he said. “We’re not necessarily tied to one or the other. We’re still in the exploratory stage and want to hear from the community.”

The purpose of these meetings is to confirm if the public wants changes and which concept riders prefer if the agency moves ahead. Designs for the stations would follow later and involve more public input.

“We’re still in the preplanning stages,” Brandolph said. “Once we set the locations, we still have to go through and design what they will look like.”

Any changes are probably three to five years away.

The agency is considering changes at Wilkinsburg for several reasons.

The existing station was designed for drivers, but the 700-space park-and-ride lot hasn’t returned to overflowing capacity since the pandemic. Any new station likely would have fewer parking spaces but better access to the site for pedestrians and people with physical limitations.

The proposed new location also would be closer to the Wilkinsburg business district. The agency also needs space there for charging stations for electric buses that will be part of the Bus Rapid Transit system that will primarily operate between Oakland and Downtown Pittsburgh but also include routes that use the busway.

Reducing the size of the parking lot also could create space for transit-oriented development such as housing or small businesses.

The possible Brushton Avenue station is on flat land that also would have easier access.

That agency doesn’t have funding for that site yet.

These proposals are the first steps in the agency’s Build on the East Busway plan to consider adding stations along the busway, which carries many of the agency’s routes with the highest ridership. It is considering additional stops at Baum Boulevard and Centre Avenue in Shadyside and near East Liberty Boulevard in Larimer.