Pittsburgh Regional Transit said it plans to permanently close the Wabash Tunnel to traffic on Dec. 1, citing an estimate $43 million in costs to rehabilitate the 123-year-old conduit bisecting Mount Washington and connecting the South Side and South Hills.
In a statement Thursday, PRT officials said they are recommending that the agency board approve the closure plan at its meeting Oct. 23, because of its findings in an evaluation of the tunnel’s condition, safety, and long-term viability. Keeping the tunnel open would require significant work and costs to bring it up to current safety standards, they said.
PRT said the condition of the tunnel itself is in fair condition, but its lighting, ventilation and electrical systems are in “poor to critical condition” and have exceeded their expected life span. Also, the two-lane tunnel serves primarily private — rather than public — transportation vehicles, and that use does not align with the agency’s financial priorities, they said.
“The Wabash Tunnel has a long history in Pittsburgh, but today it primarily serves private vehicle traffic rather than public transit,” said PRT CEO Katharine Kelleman in the statement. “With an estimated $43 million needed to rehabilitate the tunnel, we have a responsibility to focus our limited resources on the infrastructure that is most critical to delivering safe, reliable transit service.”
About 1,500 vehicles use the tunnel daily. PRT said it no longer schedules transit service through the tunnel and uses it only for detours when regular bus routes are disrupted by road construction or heavy traffic for special events.
Originally constructed in 1903 as part of the Wabash-Pittsburg Terminal Railroad, the tunnel runs between West Carson Street at Station Square on the South Side and Woodruff Street near Saw Mill Run Boulevard, on the border between the Mount Washington and Beechview neighborhoods. The Port Authority of Allegheny County — PRT’s predecessor — acquired the tunnel in 1996 and used federal funding to turn it into a road.
Motorists used the tunnel as an alternative route to avoid traffic congestion on the Parkway West, Routes 19 and 51, and the Fort Pitt and Liberty Bridges, particularly during a massive, 11-year project to rehabilitate the Fort Pitt bridge in the 1990s and early 2000s. PRT reopened it in 2004 as a High Occupancy Vehicle facility but later opened it to all traffic in 2017.
The closure will not affect the Wabash Park and Ride in the West End, which will remain open and continue to serve customers, PRT said in its statement.
PRT said it sought and received approval from the Federal Transit Administration to close the tunnel and retain $848,238 in remaining federal funding value associated with it, which will be applied to a future PRT project.