What Happens Next? COMMUNITY PARTNERS

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1 COMMUNITY PARTNERS Allegheny Conference on Community Development Allegheny County Department of Economic Development Allegheny County Transportation Action Partnership Allegheny County Transit Council Bike Pittsburgh Carnegie Mellon University Carlow University City of Pittsburgh Dept. of City Planning Duquesne University Local Government Academy Hill District Community Development Corporation NAIOP, Pittsburgh Chapter Oakland Planning & Development Corporation Oakland Transportation Management Association Oakland Task Force PA Department of Transportation Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group Pittsburgh Downtown Neighborhood Association Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network Pittsburgh Parking Authority Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development Pittsburgh Penguins Pittsburgh Sports & Exhibition Authority Pittsburgh United Port Authority of Allegheny County Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission Sustainable Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh UPMC Uptown Partners of Pittsburgh Urban Land Institute What Happens Next? A series of community meetings will be held during the last week of September and first two weeks of October. These meetings will include a detailed discussion of the refined alternatives with particular attention to stations and street configurations. See the front page for more information. Using public and stakeholder input from these meetings, the project team will rate and further refine the options using the evaluation measures. With greater detail on street configurations, bus stop/station locations and types, vehicle types and service plans, the project team will compare the alternatives. The alternatives will then undergo a second-level screening process that will take into consideration environmental, community and traffic impacts as well as ridership projections, cost estimates and cost-effectiveness calculations. The cost information will also be used to develop financial plans. By spring 2013, the final milestone in the planning process will occur with the selection of a Community Preferred Alternative. Based on the results of a second screening, evaluation measures and public/stakeholder input, the project team will determine the configuration that best addresses the needs of the Downtown-Oakland-East End Corridor. Documentation describing the Community Preferred Alternative and the rationale for its selection can then be submitted to the Federal Transit Administration for approval to advance the project into the engineering and design phases. For more information, go to GetTherePgh.org or call

2 Downtown-Oakland-East End Bus Rapid Transit COMMUNITY MEETINGS Oakland Thursday, September 27 6:00 8:00 pm University of Pittsburgh Alumni Hall, First Floor Ballroom 4227 Fifth Avenue, Oakland Hosted by Oakland Planning & Development Corp. & Oakland Transportation Management Assoc. East End Monday, October 1 5:30 7:30 pm Carnegie Library East Liberty (across from the East Liberty Presbyterian Church) 130 South Whitfield St., East Liberty Hosted by East Liberty Development, Inc. Uptown Thursday, October 4 6:00 8:00 pm UPMC Mercy Hospital Sr. Ferdinand Clark Auditorium 1400 Locust Street, Uptown Hosted by Uptown Partners T his newsletter begins with three scenarios for you to imagine Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in your life. A more vivid demonstration of these scenarios will be shown at four public meetings through a visualization of BRT in the DowntownOakland-East End Corridor. This visualization includes real footage dramatization of these scenarios with animation explaining how BRT can provide better bus service, even in heavy traffic. The meetings will also feature a BRT simulation, an interactive computer tool to illustrate station types and amenities as well as options for placing bus lanes, auto lanes, bike lanes and parking along sample street segments. The simulation will allow meeting participants to explore different scenarios for stations and streets, and record which options they prefer. Hill District Hill District Community Meeting Thursday, October 11 5:30 7:30 pm Elsie H. Hillman Auditorium at Kaufmann Center (next to the Hill House) 1825 Centre Avenue, Hill District Can t attend? Information on alternatives, the BRT visualization & simulation plus a comment form, is available at GetTherePgh.org.

3 Imagine Bus Rapid Transit Imagine you re a nurse at one of Oakland s hospitals. It s 3:00 pm. You just finished your shift and made plans to see your friends after work. Oakland s streets begin to fill with cars and you don t want to be stuck in traffic when you could be with your friends instead. With the money you saved on parking and gas through commuting on the fast and reliable BRT, you can go shopping and treat your friends to an early dinner in Uptown. You head to the BRT station, where you check the real-time display. Your bus will be there soon, so you text your friends that you ll see them in a few minutes. You get there with time to spare as your bus zips past congestion in a dedicated bus lane. Imagine finishing up a long day at the office in Downtown Pittsburgh. You rush out to the BRT station. The station is easy to spot, well-lit and marked with BRT in big letters. It s already 7:16 pm and your spouse has just sent you a text please don t be late for dinner. You pull up the BRT app on your smartphone. The next bus leaves at 7:17! You dash to the station there s no mistaking it for a regular bus stop just in time to catch the bus. 7:17 on the dot. As you settle into your seat, you text back no problem, honey. Imagine that you and your spouse have recently retired. You ve moved into an Uptown loft to enjoy all the city has to offer including convenient access to Bus Rapid Transit. You want to enjoy a night on the town to celebrate your 40 th wedding anniversary, but don t want to worry about parking. Luckily, the BRT station is just steps from your apartment. At the station, you buy two tickets from the vending machine and then have a seat on the bench. Only a few minutes pass and the bus arrives at the station. You re in Downtown before you know it; queue jump lanes enable your bus to bypass auto traffic. You get off just a couple of blocks from the O Reilly Theater, where you ll be seeing an August Wilson play. The Region s Core

4 Transforming Neighborhoods The Downtown Oakland East End Corridor includes Southwestern Pennsylvania s top two activity centers and some of Pittsburgh s most distinctive neighborhoods. These neighborhoods have many qualities which make them great places to work and live as well as to attend universities, visit museums, libraries and other cultural and entertainment facilities and to receive medical services. The combination of tree-lined streets, small green spaces and architecturally distinctive and historic buildings provide these neighborhoods with a high aesthetic appeal, further enhancing their attractiveness to residents, workers, students and visitors. Vibrant & Growing Nevertheless, even with all of their current assets, additional improvements are being planned for these neighborhoods. Major new development is envisioned for the Corridor. This includes new offices to be built for both institutional uses (university and medical) and private companies desiring convenient access to research facilities in Oakland and the professional services in Downtown. Additionally, new condominiums, apartments and town homes as well as new hotels, restaurants and retail development is also expected to take place in the Corridor to serve the needs of the residential and office population and the needs of the surrounding neighborhoods. New Challenges In order to improve the quality of life within these neighborhoods as well as ensure that new development does not overwhelm the Corridor s neighborhoods with more traffic, transit service to and within the Corridor must be improved. Currently, local roadways are frequently congested and the transit system is often hard-pressed to meet demand. The intense level of development in Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland limits the amount of land available for parking which results in high parking rates. Transit already serves nearly 68,000 trips per day in the Corridor, accounting for nearly a third of the total Port Authority ridership and 25% - 30% of the total trips in the Corridor. BRT is a Solution BRT will provide faster, more reliable and more evenly-spaced transit service within the Corridor, attracting more riders, reducing the number of automobile trips and attracting new economic growth. The BRT Corridor is being designed with a complete streets approach, which will serve all modes of transportation including pedestrians and bicycles. BRT will tie the Corridor together, supporting Oakland s role as an economic center, spurring new development in Uptown, and enhancing opportunities in adjacent neighborhoods such as the Hill District, Bloomfield, Shadyside, Friendship, East Liberty and Squirrel Hill. With unique branding and high-quality transit service, BRT will transform our city and our region!

5 We Have Options! I n early 2012, a set of alternatives were developed for the Hill District, Uptown, Oakland and other East End neighborhoods. These include various routings in neighborhoods, one- and two-way street operation and even use of the Martin Luther King Jr., East Busway. Various placement options for exclusive bus lanes, bike lanes and auto traffic lanes along Fifth and Forbes Avenue are also included in the set of alternatives. These alignments will be modified based on input from the community. Parking, bicycle and transit all need to be balanced in the limited street width. Uptown In the Uptown area, BRT options are proposed along Fifth Avenue. Exclusive bus lanes would be established in both directions on Fifth Avenue, with a single travel lane remaining for westbound auto traffic. On Forbes Avenue, a single eastbound lane will be provided for eastbound automobile traffic and a two-way bicycle path separated from the travel lanes. One of the alternatives consists of an eastbound reverse-flow bus lane along the south curb of Fifth Avenue and a westbound bus lane along the north curb of Fifth Avenue. The other alignment consists of an eastbound contra-flow bus lane along the south curb of Fifth Avenue with an adjacent westbound bus lane and an auto traffic lane along the north curb. This would require widening Fifth Avenue at station locations to construct islands adjacent to the westbound bus lane. On Forbes Avenue, a single eastbound lane will be provided for eastbound automotive traffic and a two-way bicycle path separated from the travel lanes. Hill District The service plan would examine ways to improve connections between the Hill, Downtown and Oakland, as well as restore or improve connections between the Hill and Uptown. These connections could include enhancements to the existing 81 Oak Hill and 83 Webster bus routes, rerouting the 82 Lincoln route to connect to Uptown via Dinwiddie Street or creating a new loop service connecting the Hill to Uptown. Transit service serving the Hill District would connect directly to BRT in Downtown and Oakland. Oakland Four alignments are under consideration for Oakland. The first two are similar to the two options proposed in Uptown, with exclusive bus lanes established in both directions

6 on Fifth Avenue. In these alternatives, westbound general traffic would remain on Fifth Avenue, with eastbound auto traffic and a parking lane remaining on Forbes Avenue. Bicycle lanes would be provided on both Fifth and Forbes Avenues, although this may require widening of the roadway at some locations. One of the alignments consists of an eastbound contra-flow bus lane along the south curb of Fifth Avenue and a westbound bus lane along the north curb of Fifth Avenue. Another alignment consists of an eastbound contra-flow bus lane along the south curb of Fifth Avenue with an adjacent westbound bus lane and auto lane against the north curb. This would require widening Fifth Avenue at station locations to construct islands adjacent to the westbound bus lane. The third alignment under consideration for Oakland retains the existing eastbound contra-flow bus lane on Fifth Avenue and establishes a westbound contra-flow bus lane on Forbes Avenue. In a variation, exclusive bus lanes in the same direction as general traffic will be evaluated as an alternative to contra-flow lanes. In this alignment, bus lanes are included on both streets, but parking will be removed from Forbes Avenue. In the last option, both Forbes Avenue and Fifth Avenue would be converted back to two-way operation, with Fifth Avenue accommodating through traffic and Forbes Avenue accommodating buses, bicycles and local retail traffic. service would operate in mixed traffic. The service plan would evaluate extending bus service to The Waterfront, as well as maintaining direct connections from Oakland to Regent Square and other communities. Shadyside Bloomfield East Liberty East of Oakland, BRT buses would use the same routing as the current P3 East Busway-Oakland route. From Fifth Avenue (or Forbes Avenue), buses would travel north on Neville Street, crossing Centre Avenue and entering the East Busway. From there, buses would turn east toward Shadyside and serve all stations from Negley to Swissvale. As part of the BRT service, frequency of operation would be increased and service would be extended later into the night and provided on weekends. To improve service for residents living along Baum Boulevard and Centre Avenue, two new stations along the East Busway will be considered. Squirrel Hill BRT service would extend from Oakland to Squirrel Hill via Forbes Avenue, with stations at Morewood and Murray Avenues as well as at some existing stops. Due to Forbes Avenue s narrow width, it would not be possible to separate bus lanes and the

7 Background The Downtown Oakland East End Corridor is the busiest transit corridor in the Pittsburgh region. Although bus service is frequent and operates throughout the day and much of the night, it is not as reliable, efficient, visible and effective as needed to serve a corridor linking the region s two largest activity centers. Beginning in 2009, area stakeholders began exploring the possibility of using Bus Rapid Transit to improve transportation in this Corridor. Bus Rapid Transit is an enhanced bus system that operates on bus lanes or other transitways in order to combine the flexibility of buses with the efficiency of rail. BRT operates at faster speeds, provides greater service reliability and increased customer convenience. It uses a combination of advanced technologies, infrastructure and operational investments that provide significantly better service than traditional bus service Port Authority s Transit Development Plan, undertaken to determine how the agency could most effectively operate service within existing financial resources, recommends a rapid bus concept between Downtown and Oakland and communities to the east. Fall 2010 Sustainable Pittsburgh hosts a forum at Duquesne University to present BRT to the public, elected officials and stakeholders and discuss its potential for the Downtown Oakland East End Corridor. Continuing the momentum from that forum, more than 30 different groups from community organizations to major businesses form the BRT Stakeholder Advisory Committee, facilitated by Sustainable Pittsburgh, to guide a study to evaluate the potential for BRT in the Downtown Oakland East End Corridor. August 2011 The BRT study begins under management from Port Authority. The project team meets with citizens, community groups, transportation advocates and representatives of major institutions (such as Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, UPMC, Sports & Exhibition Authority and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh) to discuss Bus Rapid Transit and its potential for improving travel between Downtown, Oakland and other East End neighborhoods. January 2012 The project team convened informational public meetings to review early insights and gain citizen input. The GetTherePgh.org website, hosted by Sustainable Pittsburgh, launches as a portal for Bus Rapid Transit information, including economic and environmental benefits, a public meeting calendar and list of project partners. February-March 2012 The project team developed a set of initial alternatives to propose various alignments and street/sidewalk configurations to accommodate buses, bicycles, pedestrians, auto traffic and parking. Options have been considered for the Uptown, Hill District, Oakland and neighborhoods east of Oakland.

8 April-May 2012 The BRT Stakeholder Advisory Committee hosts meetings in the Hill District, Uptown, Oakland and East Liberty to present various alternatives to the public and discuss how BRT would function in the neighborhoods, including issues for further consideration. Those who attended the meetings had a lot to say. Here s a sample of what we heard: Hill District needs better bus service. Make Forbes Avenue a bus street. Improve bike connections hospitals and universities are key destinations. Install bike racks or lockers at stations. Fifth and Forbes street space is too precious to dedicate to bike lanes. Parking is needed. Having real-time passenger information at stations would be great. Stations need to be well lit. Change how people enter and exit buses. There are too many stops. Have far-side [of intersection] stops. Have buses one way on Forbes Avenue and the opposite direction on Fifth Avenue. Current bus routes serve students, not residents. Uptown being used as a pass-through. We are a neighborhood, not a corridor. Summer 2012 A separate analysis of Downtown bus routing has begun. This will identify how BRT and all of the other Downtown bus routes can operate most efficiently and effectively in the Golden Triangle. The goal is to improve traffic flow for both bus riders and motorists, create more convenient transfer connections between buses and other forms of transit and to encourage the continued growth and vitality of Downtown Pittsburgh. Based on public input and technical evaluation, the longer list of alternatives has been shortened to a reduced number of options. This will focus the public and technical evaluation of the alternatives as well as allow for more detailed community, economic, environmental, and transportation analyses of the alternatives. Evaluation measures have been developed to rank the alternatives.