Monongahela Incline reopens

The Monongahela Incline will be open for Pittsburgh’s Light Up Night on Saturday.

Pittsburgh Regional Transit announced Friday the funicular between Station Square on the city’s South Side and Grandview Avenue on Mount Washington passed an inspection by the state Department of Labor & Industry and reopened for the evening rush hour.

The incline had been closed since Nov. 1 after the parallel cars stopped with one car about 20 feet from the top station and the other about 50 feet from the bottom station, trapping 27 people. No one was injured, but it took more than three hours to rescue all of the passengers.

The agency determined the system stopped because a motor controller that regulates the speed, start and stop of the motor failed. Crews quickly replaced the motor controller, but the system remained closed while PRT prepared reports about the incident and the inspection was completed.

The agency had a deficit of more than $100 million this year, and the incline has had numerous operational problems since an $8.1 million mechanical and aesthetic overhaul was completed in March 2023. The system opened in 1870 and is expensive to keep in operation, but CEO Katharine Kelleman said Friday that PRT has not considered closing it or turning the operation over to someone else.

“The incline is part and parcel of Pittsburgh,” she said in an interview Friday, adding that the only time she has received hate mail since she started at PRT in 2018 came when she previously mentioned the agency could stop operating the incline. About 600,000 passengers a year use the system, half of them tourists.

“All safety systems, mechanical components and operating procedures have been reviewed, tested, and cleared for service in coordination with state agencies,” the agency said in a news release.

On its normal schedule, the incline is open from 5:30 a.m. to 12:45 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 8:45 a.m. to midnight on Sundays and holidays.