Pittsburgh Regional Transit is hitting the brakes on its plan to shutter both of Shaler\u2019s bus routes after locals and lawmakers teamed up to push back against the changes.<\/p>\n
While the agency will still discontinue Route 2 Mt. Royal, the P13 Flyer will live on as a shortened route under the modified plan.<\/p>\n
PRT had announced in the spring that it intended to discontinue the routes as part of its Bus Line Refresh, an initiative to streamline bus routes to focus on frequency and reliability within the confines of its budget.<\/p>\n
The Refresh plan calls for wide-ranging cuts, including eliminating 20 routes and \u201cmajor service changes\u201d to 56 routes. Only 19 routes face few or no changes.<\/p>\n
Shaler\u2019s more than 28,000 residents would have had to travel several miles to Etna or Ross to reach a bus stop under the original plan, according to Shaler Commissioner Josh Fleitman.<\/p>\n
That setup would have isolated Shaler\u2019s \u201cspine of the community\u201d on Mt. Royal Boulevard, which houses Shaler Area Middle School, the Shaler North Hills Library, and the Shaler Oaks senior center, Fleitman said. Both bus routes currently serve the road.<\/p>\n
Fleitman said the township\u2019s seven-member Board of Commissioners unanimously signed a letter to PRT opposing the changes. The board reached out to the public, who showed up to board meetings and sent hundreds of online comments and emails, Fleitman said.<\/p>\n
PRT relented and partially reversed its decision last week.<\/p>\n
The Flyer currently extends from Penn Station Downtown to the Best Buy at the North Hills Village shopping complex on McKnight Road. The revised Flyer would no longer operate beyond Ferguson Road to McKnight Road \u2014 more than 30% of its length \u2014 due to low ridership, PRT said.<\/p>\n
An average of 3.3 commuters boarded the bus at Best Buy on weekdays in May, and an average of 6.7 departed, according to PRT\u2019s tracking <\/a>tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n The route will now turn right via Duncan Avenue and terminate at Allison Park\u2019s park-and-ride on Route 8. In exchange, the agency wants to increase the route\u2019s trips by 30% and add service hours, although it has yet to offer more details, Fleitman said.<\/p>\n Despite the shortened Flyer route losing access to McKnight Road, Fleitman called the news \u201ca big step forward\u201d in the township\u2019s fight to protect bus service along Mt. Royal Boulevard.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was only possible because the entire Shaler community and our elected officials \u2014 from the whole Shaler Township Board of Commissioners to state Sen. Lindsey Williams \u2014 spoke with one voice to make sure all our neighbors can get where they need to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n PRT\u2019s board will vote on Friday whether to hold a public comment period for the Bus Line Refresh.<\/p>\n If approved, the comment period would run from Aug. 17 to Sept. 30, with an informational session on Aug. 18 and public hearings on Aug. 25 and Sept. 10, according to PRT spokesman Adam Brandolph. The board\u2019s final vote is expected in November, he said.<\/p>\n Fleitman encouraged Shaler residents to stay motivated.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the coming months, we\u2019ll need Shaler residents to once again speak up and seal the deal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Regional Transit is hitting the brakes on its plan to shutter both of Shaler\u2019s bus routes after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-250634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}