Pittsburgh Regional Transit reveals first draft of bus route overhaul

Pittsburgh Regional Transit on Monday revealed a sweeping redesign of the region’s bus routes. This first draft of a new bus system would cut the total number of routes, but it would add routes that come more often and into more neighborhoods.

“It is extremely significant,” said Adam Brandolph, deputy chief communications officer for PRT. “It's the first time that we've done a redesign of our bus network in more than a decade. It touches almost every single bus route in some way, shape or form. Some changes are bigger for certain routes than others.”

About 60% of current bus routes will have some sort of change from moving bus stops over a few streets to making the route longer or shorter. Current route numbers will stay the same, but add a letter like D for downtown to signal its destination.

The current system is designed with downtown as the hub. Riders trying to get from one side of the city to the other must travel downtown and often transfer to another bus to get there. In the new design, there’s nine more routes that go across the city, like one that goes from the city’s East End to Millvale. There’s also 20 new transit hubs outside of downtown, to allow for bus transfers in the suburbs.

There are more direct routes to Oakland without having to go through downtown and out to the airport without stopping at Robinson Town Centre. Buses will come more frequently during the week and the weekend but not during the late evening. And places like Wexford will get bus service for the first time.

PRT prioritized routes that traveled to places like hospitals, grocery stores and shopping centers. Buses will stop at more regular intervals and buses on popular routes will come more often. For example, the P1 is scheduled to arrive every three minutes. They also added more buses to low-income neighborhoods throughout the county that will arrive at least every 30 minutes.

The agency has been working on the plan for the past year, which included asking riders what they’d want from a new bus system. It is a central part of the agency’s long-term NEXTransit plan from 2021, which also included a bus rapid transit route between Oakland and downtown.

PRT said this redesign is about making transit more efficient — getting rid of some routes but still reaching the same neighborhoods and having buses come more often. Since the pandemic, fewer office workers commute downtown, so the agency reduced the number of routes aimed at accommodating commuters. In their place, they added more direct routes to Oakland and crosstown routes out to the North or South Hills.

According to PRT, this new system wouldn’t cost the agency more money, buses or drivers than the current one. The plan includes a proposal for a 20% expansion in the future with more frequent service and routes that reach neighborhoods without bus access, provided PRT secures more funding in the coming years. But money will be tight for the agency in the near future. Their 2024 budget warned of a “fiscal cliff” unless they were able to find new funding sources. And Pennsylvania lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro dealt the agency a tough blow with a final state budget that allocated only $11 million for the agency, instead of the $39 million proposed in the governor’s initial budget proposal.

Pittsburghers can tell PRT what they think about the new plan in a series of public meetings over the next few months, starting with one on Oct. 16 in Schenley Plaza. PRT will use that feedback to create a final proposal expected next spring and plan to get it up and running in 2026.