T extension north to Ross Park Mall: Good idea? (Lebanon: chapel, home)

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by pman

the question is that a cost effective transit extension when sewickley is on an existing rail line that could be used. I'd guess your proposal is in the billions rather than hundreds of millions.

I did not know about the existing rail line. Perhaps my proposed T line wouldn't have to extend that far, then.

There's only three big obstacles in that proposal

1. Getting from Allegheny Station to California-Kirkbride across the railroad tracks. It could be elevated the whole way, or go underground at the tracks, or go to street level at Allegheny and have a bridge over the tracks by California.

2. Getting from California back to Ohio River Blvd may involve some land acquisition and grading issues.

3. Getting across the Ohio to the Airport (this segment could be skipped in favor of another rail line to the airport possibly).

How much does basic LRT cost per mile? For the bulk of that route it would just be repaving streets (which need to be repaved anyway), laying rails, adding power supply lines. Not cheap, but it seems like it should be feasible without costing billions and billions.

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by ferraris

3. Getting across the Ohio to the Airport (this segment could be skipped in favor of another rail line to the airport possibly).

I still stand by my airport line proposal for a heavily beefed up "28X" that drops all of the robinson stops, increases frequencies to every 20 minutes, and gets it's own dedicated buses that are wrapped and branded as the airport line. Something different than just 28X. PAT could theoretically implement that THIS year if they wanted to.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

I still stand by my airport line proposal for a heavily beefed up "28X" that drops all of the robinson stops, increases frequencies to every 20 minutes, and gets it's own dedicated buses that are wrapped and branded as the airport line. Something different than just 28X. PAT could theoretically implement that THIS year if they wanted to.

You'd see no argument from me on that. I think rail is still best though; lots of travelers won't even consider buses but would consider rail.

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by ferraris

You'd see no argument from me on that. I think rail is still best though; lots of travelers won't even consider buses but would consider rail.

For sure. We could at least put that airport rail line at the very bottom of the to-do list if they did a proper airport BRT first. You could probably get the travel time down to 40 minutes, which is nothing to sneeze at. Especially during rush hour.

[pman]

Originally Posted by ferraris

I did not know about the existing rail line. Perhaps my proposed T line wouldn't have to extend that far, then.

There's only three big obstacles in that proposal

1. Getting from Allegheny Station to California-Kirkbride across the railroad tracks. It could be elevated the whole way, or go underground at the tracks, or go to street level at Allegheny and have a bridge over the tracks by California.

2. Getting from California back to Ohio River Blvd may involve some land acquisition and grading issues.

3. Getting across the Ohio to the Airport (this segment could be skipped in favor of another rail line to the airport possibly).

How much does basic LRT cost per mile? For the bulk of that route it would just be repaving streets (which need to be repaved anyway), laying rails, adding power supply lines. Not cheap, but it seems like it should be feasible without costing billions and billions.

shortening the T extension and using commuter rail over long distances makes a lot of sense and plays to the strengths of each one. Indeed, there might be some utility in just extending the T one more station north into manchester. I think Aaron's airport idea should be done immediately and any airport rail should be contingent on the performance of that routing.
edited to add: costs per mile would vary a lot depending on bridge, tuennel, at grade. id also point out that part of tge problem is the disjointed nature of investment. a lot of money was spent burying rail downtown but the money that was spent on feeder networks was in the form of busways. so now you have busways feeding downtown with light rail underground which limits the iverall utility

[UKyank]

Now would be a great time to consider a connection up Oakland from Downtown as they former civic arena area is not devoloped which could isn't much of a distanced (about half a mile) but about a quarter of the distance you would be covering & should significantly reduce cost then if you want until that area is built up.

[pantin23]

"T" extension Ideas
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/ed...I.kDhdVTy9XH8k

[Blackbeauty212]

Just like Gnutella Wet Dreams of wider Parkways, Light Rail expansion just is NOT going to happen..... Every can draw Maps on where they want it to go... No One has any ideas on how we pay for these Multi-Billion Dollar projects.

[gg]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

One thing I've been brainstorming is the possibility of a T extension up to Ross Park Mall.

1. When I think of the "North Hills", I think of a massive car centric area with people living there that wouldn't give up driving anywhere no matter what.

2. I am against anything going to a Mall. That would further the decay of downtown shopping and I think we need to keep some of that in place. People are slowly moving back to downtown and at some point shopping will be needed more, so lets not rush its demise by making it easier to shop at Ross Park.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

1. When I think of the "North Hills", I think of a massive car centric area with people living there that wouldn't give up driving anywhere no matter what.

Honey, you live in the "North Hills." And you're missing that a T from downtown to Ross Park or North Park would serve city residents, not people in the suburbs, who want to go to these suburban locations. People who live in the suburbs wouldn't be able to use it to go to the mall or the park. They'd have to get downtown first when many don't even have bus service to work downtown. Before adding infrastructure for the entertainment of city residents, improve commuter service to suburban residents who are the majority of the residents in the county.