University Line bus lanes open Sunday with temporary stops until stations are ready

Buses on Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s University Line will start using dedicated bus lanes Sunday, but riders will have to use temporary stops because five new shelters aren’t complete yet.

The Bus Rapid Transit project is designed to put buses on some of the agency’s busiest routes between Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland on dedicated lanes so their schedules can be more reliable. During rush hours, the buses have bunched up because of other traffic on the road, but now they will begin operating on exclusive lanes that bring them inbound on Fifth Avenue to Liberty Avenue, Sixth Avenue and outbound to Oakland on Forbes Avenue.

The lanes, traffic lights and stations in the Downtown area have been under construction since September 2023. The road work has progressed enough that four main bus routes – 61A, B and C and 71B — can begin using the new lanes in the Downtown area starting Sunday, one of the three times a year routes change and operators can bid on them under the agency’s contract with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 65.

Two other routes, G2 and P1, also will be using the Downtown lanes.

Five new stations Downtown that are part of the $291 million project — 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 — aren’t quite finished yet. The stations were expected to be available Sunday without all of their amenities, but they aren’t complete enough for riders to begin using them to get on and off buses yet, said spokeswoman Melissa Rubin.

“The shelter frames are nearly fully installed, and installation of the glass panels is underway,” she said in a statement Friday. “Over the next few weeks, station amenities will be installed and tested. The new stations are expected to open before the end of the summer.”

Until then, riders will use the following temporary stops:

• Fifth Avenue at Grant Street (61A, 61B, 61C, 71B, G2). 
• Fifth Avenue at Smithfield Street (61A, 61B, 61C, 71B, G2, P1).
• Liberty Avenue at Market Street (61A, 61B, 61C, 71B, G2, P1). 
• Liberty Avenue at Sixth Avenue (61A, 61B, 61C, 71B, G2, P1). 
• Sixth Avenue at Smithfield Street (61A, 61B, 61C, 71B, G2, P1). 
• Sixth Avenue at Fifth Avenue (61A, 61B, 61C, 71B, G2).

In January crews began work on the second phase of the project that includes dedicated lanes, new traffic signals and stations in Uptown and Oakland. The full system isn’t expected to be completed until 2027.