PA: Pittsburgh Regional Transit to study future ridership on light rail service

The next step in rebuilding Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s ridership will be studying three specific aspects of the light rail system, the part of the system that has been slowest to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The agency announced plans Monday to refresh its bus route system by improving frequency on its most popular routes, establishing nine new routes and improving connections to Oakland and Pittsburgh International Airport as well as between neighboring communities. It plans to hold 60 public meetings through early summer, present a final plan to its board in September and make changes beginning next year.

It will follow up that work later this year with a study to determine whether it should keep the Silver Line to Library, reopen light rail service through the Allentown neighborhood on a permanent basis and begin regular service to Penn Station at the end of Grant Street in Downtown Pittsburgh.

The work is all part of PRT’s efforts to bump up ridership that has been slow to recover from the pandemic, when many people were told to work from home to avoid human interaction. Transit ridership here and across the country changed dramatically in cities that had relied heavily on riders commuting to daytime jobs when many of those riders didn’t return to the office five days a week.

Through the end of 2025, daily bus ridership of 94,123 remains down just over 40% compared to 2019. On the light rail system, the numbers are worse with daily ridership of 8,423, down just under 63% below the peak in 2019.

The agency is projecting a 1% ridership increase in 2026. With bus route changes next year and a possible light rail jump after that, the agency is hoping for more substantial increases in future years.

Part of the problem with the light rail system has seen a series of construction projects that have caused delays or rerouting to avoid closures. Most of last year, subway cars were rerouted through Allentown due to construction in the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel and there were weekend closures the past three years in Downtown Pittsburgh due to work on the plinth, the concrete base that supports light rail tracks.

With most of that disruptive work ending, the agency wants to analyze where it can grow ridership on the system, Amy Silbermann, chief development officer, told a board committee last month. That work will begin later this year, she said, but major changes are likely several years away.

The most productive change, reactivating the Red Line through Allentown, also would be the most challenging, Ms. Silbermann said. The agency regularly shifts trains through Allentown when construction interrupts service between Pittsburgh’s South Side and South Hills Junction.

One major concern is that many of the stations in Allentown don’t meet ADA requirements for passenger boarding and exiting. The agency has grant funds to upgrade stations through the regular service areas in Beechview and Brookline, but not Allentown.

Businesses and residents in Allentown would welcome full-time rail service, said Ben Prisbylla, director of operations for real estate developer RE 360. The company rents and refurbishes dozens of properties in that area and recently circulated a petition that has drawn more than 2,000 signatures calling for returning service to Allentown.

That service was eliminated when PRT had financial problems about 15 years ago.

“We are absolutely in favor of that,” Mr. Prisbylla said Monday. “We have been a champion for restoring service, and a lot of other businesses agree.”

The business district saw the difference when there was regular service for more than eight months during last year’s tunnel work, he said.

“It exposed this neighborhood to so many new people,” he said.

What to do about service to the far end of the light rail system in Library has been a concern for the agency for more than five years. That portion of the system has the lowest ridership and the agency could be facing substantial costs to make upgrades to continue going there.

This week, shuttle buses are moving riders between the Library and Lytle stations while the agency makes improvements to the electrical lines that power the light rail cars.

On a broader scale, the agency also is trying to figure out how to pay for the replacement of about 80 light rail trains, many of which are several years past their life expectancy. New cars would cost more than $500 million and take five to seven years to manufacture.

The easiest change, Ms. Silbermann said, would be to make regular use of the Penn Station stop for the first time since it was built as part of subway construction in Downtown Pittsburgh. The station at the end of Grant Street was built as part of regular construction of the underground system in the late 1980s to provide service to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, but it never had regular service.

In recent years, it has been used temporarily when construction interrupts service between Steel Plaza and Gateway Center stations. Trains go to Penn Station, then shuttle buses take passengers to Gateway.

Ms. Silberemann said the agency will look at whether sending several trains a day to that station would increase overall ridership.

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