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Friday, March 15, 2002

By Judy Laurinatis

Five alternatives for an eastern region transit plan, including a light rail system between Westmoreland County and Downtown Pittsburgh, were unveiled yesterday in Monroeville.

David E. Wohlwill, transit planner for the Port Authority, told Monroeville Chamber of Commerce members, community leaders and officials that the $1 million Eastern Corridor Transit Study will look at transportation needs from "the Golden Triangle all the way to Greensburg." It should take a year.

Among the new plans getting a look by Port Authority, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission are a light rail or busway line along the CSX railroad corridor that would follow the Monongahela River and extend to Irwin, and an extension of the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway from Rankin that would curve counterclockwise around Turtle Creek and Monroeville and end in Penn Hills.

The latter improvement would also follow a rail line, the Union Railroad line.

Port Authority contractors are in the last year of a $63 million extension of the busway from Wilkinsburg through Edgewood and Swissvale to the Rankin border.

The study is confined to the area between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.

Other projects under consideration include the proposed Allegheny Valley Railroad commuter line along the Allegheny River and an improved bus line or light rail system between Downtown and Oakland.

Improvements to the Parkway East are also on the table.

Officials say the wild card in all of the planning is the possibility of adding a high-speed magnetic levitation train between Pittsburgh International Airport and Greensburg. Federal transportation officials are expected to decide next year whether to fund the local project or one between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

The corridor study will go ahead with one scenario including the high-speed train and another excluding it.

Definitely included in the planning is the proposed Mon-Fayette Expressway, Wohlwill said.

The toll road and the newly energized Mon Valley have put a new perspective on transit planning in the Pittsburgh area, he said.

"[The new retail/residential development] The Waterfront changed the picture," Wohlwill said, referring to the multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the former Homestead Works.

Richard Amodel, project manager with Port Authority's consulting firm, STV Inc., said the study will take a needs assessment and look at patterns of travel in the east.

The aim will be to answer transportation needs through 2030.

The only immediate comment on the study came from Bruce Light, manager of Penn Township, who urged planners to make sure Westmoreland County officials participate in the discussions.

Three rounds of public meetings, beginning in May, will be held in the communities involved in the study. The first will be held in Downtown Pittsburgh, Westmoreland County and eastern Allegheny County.

Through these community hearings, planners hope to eliminate unwanted alternatives and narrow down popular choices. They will look at patterns, assess problems and estimate costs, Amodel said.

Similar studies completed in the 1960s resulted in the East, South and Airport busways and the Downtown subway system.

Judy Laurinatis is a free-lance writer.