Pittsburgh Regional Transit will begin using the exclusive lanes for the Bus Rapid Transit system in June, but the five stations for the system won’t have all their amenities when they open.
Amy Silbermann, PRT’s chief development officer, told the board’s Planning & Stakeholder Relations Committee last week that schedules for the five main routes that will use the $291 million system will change June 22. The stations are scheduled to be finished by June 30, but she said Independence Excavating Inc. could have them operational when routes change.
The system, dubbed the University Line, will have buses operate on exclusive lanes with red light priority between Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland, inbound on Fifth Avenue and outbound on Forbes Avenue. The goal is to provide a more reliable schedule for the five primary routes that use it — 61A, B and C, 71B and P3 — by preventing them from bunching up in rush-hour traffic.
When the system opens, those buses will follow a loop inbound on Fifth Avenue to Liberty, Liberty to Sixth Avenue, and Sixth to Forbes. The five Downtown Pittsburgh stations, which are in various stages of construction, will be located at Fifth Avenue and Ross Street, Fifth and William Penn Place, Fifth and Market Square, the Wood Street T Station on Liberty Avenue, and Steel Plaza at Sixth Avenue and Grant Street.
Silbermann said the stations will provide shelter for riders when they open, but some amenities such as ticket vending machines likely won’t be available until later this year or early next year. That’s because PRT is in the process of buying new machines under a separate contract, and the agency doesn’t want to use old machines that are scheduled to be replaced.
Existing Downtown stations don’t currently offer ride tickets.
Although the Downtown part of the University Line will finish soon, construction in Uptown and Oakland only began in the past few months. Work on 18 new stations and improvements at 39 intersections is expected to continue until 2027.
In future years, the University Line is expected to be extended to Squirrel Hill and Greenfield.
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.