After over two years of on and off closures and detours, all T light rail stations in Downtown returned to normal service on Feb. 28.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) started repair work on concrete beams which hold the tracks for light rail vehicles, known as plinths, on weekends in late 2022. The work on these concrete beams closed the Wood Street T station and required detours to Penn Station after passing Steel Plaza station, utilizing a stop that is normally out of service besides for detours.
Andrew Carr, communications manager of transit projects at PRT, hailed the construction as a necessary process to keep the quality of rides on the T light rail line high and safe.
“With the completion of the project that began in 2022, the safety of PRT’s service has been significantly increased after the replacement of the concrete beams that support the light-rail tracks in the Downtown subway,” Carr said.
Additional work on the plinths was announced to start in April 2024, extending throughout the rest of the year, and was not finished until Feb. 28. During the same time, PRT replaced 10,000 feet worth of concrete pillars, which it described as essential to keep the more than 40-year-old subway system working efficiently and safely.
The Wood Street T station has not been open as normal since 2022 due to the plinth project and track replacement as well as a complete replacement of escalators in the station.
While the stations Downtown are operating normally again, the T system still has some detours and changes underway. The Mount Washington transit tunnel, which is immediately after the Station Square station and leads to South Hills Junction near Allentown, closed on Feb. 23 and will stay closed for at least eight months due to a separate construction project. During that time, trains will use the train tracks on Warrington Avenue and Arlington Avenue, according to PRT.
All trains will detour around the tunnel on weekdays except for silver line trains. On weekends, every T route will utilize the detour through Allentown. Additionally, a “subway local” route will run from Station Square Station to Allegheny Station in the Northside.
Students will also not need to use their university bus pass at Station Square Station because it will temporarily be added to the free fare zone until construction in the Mount Washington transit tunnel is complete.
While Penn Station returns to inactivity, the tracks that go through Allentown make another previously unused piece of the T system temporarily come back. With this and the creation of a temporary stop at Warrington Avenue and Allen Street, discussion of the return of regular light-rail service to Allentown has also returned.
It’s one of the last pieces of the system that has train tracks in the road, sharing it with cars and other wheeled vehicles much like the streetcars of Pittsburgh’s past did. Allentown used to get regular service from the T on what was known as the Brown Line until 2011. PRT has mentioned potentially bringing service back to the neighborhood in its 25-year plan released in 2021 but notes the temporary T stop in Allentown is unrelated to any proposal that may bring regular service back to the neighborhood which otherwise has bus service as the only public transit options traveling through it.
For now, no other major construction projects are planned for the Downtown section of the T subway system. However, the Panhandle Bridge, which leads to Station Square Station, is planned to have a revitalization project starting in late 2025, according to PRT. PRT says the future project would only cause intermittent closures and single-track operation on the bridge.
