Onorato appoints panel to develop transit plan
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Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato said yesterday he's formed a team of "serious players" to develop a regional transportation plan by fall, focusing on modernizing transit between Oakland, Downtown and the airport area.
The 14 appointees to the Transportation Action Team, including business leaders, Port Authority board members, economic development officials and engineering executives, will consider more than a dozen studies dating back at least a decade. Among them is a proposal Mr. Onorato advanced last year.
"This will not be a study that goes on a shelf. This will be an action plan that I have to make a decision on," Mr. Onorato said.
"What we don't want to do is perpetuate the paralysis by studying it further," said Dave Hickton, a transportation attorney who is heading the committee.
The 2005 plan the team will use as its starting point called for an elevated transit system between Oakland and Downtown and between Downtown and the airport, although Mr. Hickton did not wish to specify what mode of "elevated transit" would be used.
The plan also recommended using existing freight rail lines for commuter service from Pittsburgh along the Allegheny Valley and Route 8 corridors, west to Carnegie and Bridgeville, and east to Greensburg.
It proposed developing retail space at park-n-ride areas and Port Authority transit stops and opening up Port Authority busways to cabs, commercial delivery vehicles and trucking companies in exchange for a fee.
Separately, Mr. Onorato will push for a broader transportation authority through the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, which could include authorities from Washington, Westmoreland, Beaver and Butler counties.
He asked the team to devise short-term, midrange and long-term plans. The long-range plans might not come to fruition for another decade.
Mr. Hickton said his goal was to complete the team's proposal by Labor Day.
"I just don't think there's anything you can do [for the region] that's more important," he said.
First Published March 16, 2006 12:00 am
