North Shore Connector: Positives (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: refrigerator, safe, transport)

[Impala26]

Originally Posted by pman

and there you go. That's what I'm saying. I can see a proposal for it bypassing the neighborhoods entirely. If the city moves on it first by adding a stop or two it will serve neighborhoods. Not just PR but the downtown interests are probably for it.

I see only a few alignments that could work, and most are predominantly dependent on the Ohio Valley. That said, it would be a matter of crossing the river at some point, AGAIN, finding a sufficiently shallow-sloped creek valley to run along to rise up to the airport's elevation, and then loosely follow the I-376 Business corridor to the Landside Terminal.

I think that such a run could be done primarily at-grade and could avoid existing buildings fairly easily compared to say the Spine Line. However, it would have to cross the Ohio at least once (possibly two small additional crossings if it went from McKees Rocks to Neville Island) and it could contend with numerous other small tributary crossings and there's the whole roughly 400-500 vertical foot elevation change issue over a short distance.

Surface LRT costs per mile have a wide range of anywhere from $15 million to well over $100 million according to a U.S. Survey. The rough mileage of this route is anywhere from 14 to 17 miles. Let's just assume a cost of $50 million/mile and a length of 15 miles, both conservative estimates given the topography and the nature of labor in Western PA... That comes to $750 million, or roughly 50% MORE EXPENSIVE than the North Shore Connector! The only additional stops aside from an airport terminus I could see would be Manchester, McKees Rocks, Neville Island, Coraopolis, Moon Township all in various incarnations and combinations. Towns/suburbs on the north shore of the Ohio would be ignored because of the greater difficulty of terrain and trouble finding an adequate ROW through residential areas.

Blargh engineering... but do the pros really weigh the cons for such a line at the expense of making a new one within the city itself? Would there be enough ridership to justify the cost? I just can't think there would be...

[pman]

Fyi I'm not advocating the city push for the airport extension. But extd the t one or two stops into manchester to ensure the extension benefits a neighborhood. The cost should be considerably less than the nsc and would Mai.ly benefit 18 riders I'd think.

[ferraris]

Traffic isn't heavy in Manchester itself, so even running at street level wouldn't be that much of a disadvantage. Building low platform stops like those in Beechview would require very little space aside from the street itself (if any extra space is needed at all). The problem would be the temptation to extended it down north or up Brighton, where sharing the right of way can be more of an issue. There's also the temptation to operate like the T in Beechview, with very frequent stops, which would give very little advantage over buses in the end.

It would be kind of neat if they had a Manchester Stop, and a Federal and North Stop and formed a full loop on the north side back towards Gateway Center. Maybe throw in an intermediary stop at Brighton and North, or widen the loop a bit to E. Ohio and Cedar, too. That would really help the north side out a lot in connecting the neighborhoods and their amenities.

Or even taking that idea one step further, it could work it's way over the 16th street bridge and connect to the future Strip-Lawrenceville light rail line.

[BrianTH]

After the Spine Line was morphed into the NSC, there was actually a study that looked at extending the T to the airport (the Airport Multimodal Corridor Study, available here):

Publications: Transportation Studies (Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission)

In 2002 dollars, LRT to the airport was estimated to cost around $1.3 billion in capital expenses including ROW. Obviously it would be a lot more now. At this time, blowing that kind of money on a project with such limited value would be crazy, and so it won't happen anytime soon. Call that having a "cow", but it truly is silly to keep highlighting this idea when it is nowhere close to one of the better ideas for transit projects in the region.

On the other hand, I like the idea of extending the NSC to Manchester. That should be doable at a reasonable cost, and there is lots of potential there for TOD.

[Blackbeauty212]

I like the Manchester idea more than the Airport in this current climate.....I would extend it straight up Chateau, parallel to 65....this way Manchester residents have access from the East and the business and schools along Beaver and Reedsdale have access from the West.

[ferraris]

I would really love to see an extension to Manchester or Allegheny Center/Central Northside. Those are both relatively cheap, and provide a high return on investment in terms of usage. Manchester is probably cheaper to do both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of keeping the routing simple. A spur from North Side station would mean that red and blue would have to split, or a third line would have to be created -- A spur to Manchester could just be a further extension of both the red and blue lines.

Realistically though, I think the best T "extension" we can hope for is that the Brown Line could be opened again one day.

Also, what is TOD, brian?

[airwave09]

TOD stands for Transit Oriented Development.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by airwave09

TOD stands for Transit Oriented Development.

Yep, and my apologies for the jargon.

[pman]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

I would really love to see an extension to Manchester or Allegheny Center/Central Northside. Those are both relatively cheap, and provide a high return on investment in terms of usage. Manchester is probably cheaper to do both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of keeping the routing simple. A spur from North Side station would mean that red and blue would have to split, or a third line would have to be created -- A spur to Manchester could just be a further extension of both the red and blue lines.
...
Also, what is TOD, brian?

I actually think that a restoration of the fineview street running trolley via allegheny ctr might be enough. extending the T, whether at grade (cheaper, but not without issues) or one/two stops underground (or some combination of the two)does provide a fair amount of bang. I think that so long as the extension does not preclude the eventual extension to the airport, it might have a shot at getting political support. from the city's perspective it would have added utility, guarantee the future proposals incorporate the north side, and from a regional perspective it takes one small step toward what has been identified as a regional goal (for better or worse). perhaps the key is room for new TOD, which certainly makes it more attractive. more people would be within walking distance rather than the forced transfer and perhaps the transfer could happen further north, meaning buses would not get caught up in event traffic (among other things). I'd also add that if a suitable location for a second park n ride were found on this short extension, transit capacity to the north shore would double.

[WestLibertyAve]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

Realistically though, I think the best T "extension" we can hope for is that the Brown Line could be opened again one day.

What kind of ridership did that line get? Since I started riding the T, it was always a limited service only at rush hour, and I rarely saw anyone getting on that train when it did roll through Steel Plaza for it's once-an-hr trek up Arlington.

I would like to see it reopened though...Allentown could have an awesome main street if they'd do some infrastructure upgrades along with the reopening (coincidentally, I believe Warrington is in line for a repaving soon).

Or what about extending it to 18th St and down to the South Side? I know as a former commuter from the South Hills to Oakland, I'd rather transfer to a new bus in the SS as opposed to downtown, which can take a half hour in itself to get in and out of via public transit w/a transfer.