Home >  Local News

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Plans for Light Rail Transit extensions to the North Shore and the new Downtown convention center are back on track.

	Online .pdf: Click here to download a 60.1 KB graphic showing the possible LRT extensions in .pdf format. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file.

Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas, his staff and county Chief Executive Jim Roddey have convinced the Federal Transit Administration that the $400 million project meets the agency's criteria for funding and its status should not have been downgraded to "not recommended."

The downgrade more than a month ago not only caught local officials by surprise but forced the authority to postpone signing contracts with consulting firms for $18 million of final design work, including twin tunnels beneath the Allegheny River.

Federal Transit Administrator Jennifer L. Dorn and several assistants visited Pittsburgh recently at Skoutelas' urging to resolve questions and view the light rail layout.

Skoutelas and Roddey also went to Washington, D.C., to lobby Dorn to restore the "recommended" status held by the project from its birth in the late 1990s.

The FTA called Skoutelas last week, giving verbal approval to move forward.

The Port Authority expects to receive written confirmation of the endorsement this week, enabling the consultants to start final design and prepare construction bid documents.

"We'll now have all of the money we need for final design," Skoutelas said. "This set our schedule back about three months, but it still should take no more than 12 months to complete this phase."

By mid-2004, Skoutelas hopes to enter into what's called a "full funding agreement" with the FTA, guaranteeing the federal agency will put up 60 percent of the money for construction and for more light rail vehicles.

What's difficult, he said, is explaining how the Port Authority can prepare for a $400 million project while talking about raising fares and cutting service for the third straight year, largely because of state subsidies that have been cut again.

"They're two separate budgets -- a capital improvement budget and an operating budget -- and they're funded out of separate pots of money," Skoutelas said. "We can't take capital money and use it to subsidize day-to-day service."

The FTA's decision came just in time. The consultants were planning to disassemble teams of engineers, architects and other specialists they put together for the Port Authority project.

Skoutelas also said the final design is important in view of development taking place on the North Shore and near the convention center, where plans were recently announced for a new Greyhound bus terminal and parking garage.

The FTA downgraded the rail extension for several reasons, including questions about its financial plan, cost estimates, impact on development and a new measure called "transit user benefits."

Because the FTA does not have a method of quantifying economic development touted in transit planning, the authority's project will now serve as a pilot project to establish criteria.

And because "transit user benefits" is new, Skoutlas had to convince federal officials that the extension will carry people to sports events, entertainment venues, restaurants, new housing and parking on the North Shore. "There was no place in the equation for fringe parking but everybody knows how much commuters utilize those lots every day," he said.

In addition, the authority's long-range plans call for using the North Shore extension as part of a possible future line to Pittsburgh International Airport and the convention center extension for a line to the Strip District and eastern suburbs.