Pittsburg, PA
PRT calling for feedback from riders on bus line updates
Pittsburgh Regional Transit will hold a public meeting on Tuesday to hear from riders on the proposed Bus Line Refresh. According to PRT, the Bus Line Refresh is an update to the bus network and is designed to improve reliability, frequency, seven-day service, and connectivity. “We have some new routes proposed, a North Hills to Oakland connection, a South Hills Oakland connection, that don’t exist today. We also are proposing to increase service on off-peak hours,” said Jake Stockman, a senior planner for PRT. “And then also wanting to make sure that throughout this process, we’re centering equity, to make sure that the communities where the service is needed the most aren’t being left behind.”The Bus Line Refresh is the second draft of the Bus Line Redesign, which Stockman said prompted more than 90 public engagement events and garnered more than 12,000 public comments. However, this time, the proposed updates will not be as drastic. “We’ve called it the ‘Refresh’ because we want the second draft to reflect that we’re reducing the volume of change so the system will look a little bit more familiar to our existing riders compared to what we previously presented in 1.0,” Stockman told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 Reporter Jordan Cioppa. PRT staff will continue to gather public feedback on the new proposal through a number of ways, such as attending community meetings and popping up at bus stops. Stockman presented the plan to West End neighbors Monday night. “The increased frequency sounds great, later on Sunday night for people. There used to be service after midnight. Some people do work past 11 p.m.,” said John McNulty, a West End resident and PRT rider. Public comment started in March and will last through May. PRT will then host public hearings this summer before presenting a final plan to the PRT board in the fall. Stockman said the goal is to implement the changes in 2027. Riders are encouraged to attend the main public comment meeting on April 7 at the August Wilson Center from 5 to 7 p.m.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit will hold a public meeting on Tuesday to hear from riders on the proposed Bus Line Refresh.
According to PRT, the Bus Line Refresh is an update to the bus network and is designed to improve reliability, frequency, seven-day service, and connectivity.
“We have some new routes proposed, a North Hills to Oakland connection, a South Hills Oakland connection, that don’t exist today. We also are proposing to increase service on off-peak hours,” said Jake Stockman, a senior planner for PRT. “And then also wanting to make sure that throughout this process, we’re centering equity, to make sure that the communities where the service is needed the most aren’t being left behind.”
The Bus Line Refresh is the second draft of the Bus Line Redesign, which Stockman said prompted more than 90 public engagement events and garnered more than 12,000 public comments.
However, this time, the proposed updates will not be as drastic.
“We’ve called it the ‘Refresh’ because we want the second draft to reflect that we’re reducing the volume of change so the system will look a little bit more familiar to our existing riders compared to what we previously presented in 1.0,” Stockman told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 Reporter Jordan Cioppa.
PRT staff will continue to gather public feedback on the new proposal through a number of ways, such as attending community meetings and popping up at bus stops. Stockman presented the plan to West End neighbors Monday night.
“The increased frequency sounds great, later on Sunday night for people. There used to be service after midnight. Some people do work past 11 p.m.,” said John McNulty, a West End resident and PRT rider.
Public comment started in March and will last through May. PRT will then host public hearings this summer before presenting a final plan to the PRT board in the fall.
Stockman said the goal is to implement the changes in 2027.
Riders are encouraged to attend the main public comment meeting on April 7 at the August Wilson Center from 5 to 7 p.m.
Pittsburg, PA
Pittsburgh’s air quality considered “unhealthy for everyone” on Friday due to wildfire smoke
The air quality will remain poor today. Officially, the air quality will be in the “very unhealthy” to “hazardous” range.
Friday’s forecast and air quality warnings
How hazardous are things? Wildfire smoke, like what we are dealing with today, really gives you a double whammy when it comes to impacting your health. The first is that you may notice when talking about air quality that we label it with a number, and then we put behind it PM2.5 or maybe 10.
The 2.5 is important because it is talking about the size of the particles that we are describing as parts per million. The unit for 2.5 is microns. 1 micron is the same as 0.00003937 inches or 0.001 mm. So 2.5 microns is around a fourth the width of a single wool fiber or around 1/7th the width of a human hair. It’s tiny and grating.
It’s small enough to get deep into your lungs but hard enough to irritate, like very fine sandpaper. For those with respiratory issues already in place, this increased irritation causes shortness of breath and frequent coughing spells. Not good.
The good news is that our air quality will rapidly improve overnight, with us returning to more normal air quality on Saturday morning. The bad news is that another plume of smoke is expected to roll in on Sunday, but that plume is not expected to be as bad as this current one.
Getting to today’s forecast, it is going to be hot with highs in the mid-80s today. There will be a haze sitting over the city all day long. I have noon temperatures near 80 degrees with light winds of around 5 mph.
Kennywood and Sandcastle close due to air quality
Both Kennywood and Sandcastle announced on Friday morning that the parks will be closed due to the air quality alert issued by the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection.
According to both parks, patrons who purchased tickets for July 17 will be valid on one operating day throughout the rest of the season.
A Westmoreland County family wants to warn others after they said they found a large void beneath the garage in their house built by Ryan Homes.
“More than anything, we just want folks to know that there is potential that other homes could be built like this and just to be aware,” said homeowner Nicole Holderfield.
Beneath their seemingly normal front-facing two-car garage in the Altman Farms neighborhood in North Huntingdon is a lot of dead space that the Holderfield family just found out about. They said having a secret room is not as cool as it sounds when you realize the structural integrity of the 30-year-old home is at risk.
“I hate to say shocking, but it’s not something that we really wanted to be the first one on the street to find out,” Holderfield said.
Holderfield said there are leftover cinder blocks and even a Lowe’s bucket down there.
“You can actually stand all the way down here on this side, a lot of backfill, and then we did see it was weatherproofed on some of the walls,” Holderfield said.
This all started because Holderfield wanted to fix the growing number of large cracks popping up across her garage floor.
“We were starting the cosmetic fix, and our contractor was here. And with a sledgehammer, he wanted to see what he was working with, so he simply pounded down the sledgehammer,” Holderfield said.
The large void directly underneath the garage is not accessible from their finished basement. Only one wall appears to be weatherproofed, so the family believes moisture rusted away the single support column and the steel rebar attempting to carry the weight of the entire two-car garage.
“A couple different companies did stop by, and they were in awe of what they found. Even the North Huntingdon inspector came out, took a look, and it was not something he was familiar with seeing,” said Holderfield.
That inspector encouraged the family to hire a structural engineer. They did, and received a report that concluded the issue was the result of “poor workmanship and faulty construction,” Holderfield said.
The family’s homeowner’s insurance denied the claim, saying defects from faulty construction are excluded from coverage.
“Knowing that we were parking our cars in here up until we found this problem — we have children and animals, and knowing that a catastrophe could come, I think that’s our biggest concern,” Holderfield said.
That’s why the family called the builder, Ryan Homes, and alerted all of their neighbors with similar builds and floorplans.
“They really just took a look and took pictures. When we did speak to the one gentleman at Ryan Homes, he said this was 30 years ago, there were different laws back then,” Holderfield said.
KDKA Investigates reached out to Ryan Homes for comment to ask if building these dead spaces is still its practice. And if so, should other homeowners who live in Ryan Homes inspect further?
Ryan Homes said they do not comment on news stories.
In an update on Thursday, the Holderfields told KDKA Ryan Homes reached out and said it’s willing to work with them on this, share the cost of the fix, and manage the project to ensure it is fixed as they would expect.
The family feels that’s a valid attempt to make it right.
KDKA Investigates talked to a Cranberry homeowner who also lives in a Ryan Home built around the same time. She sent photos showing the wet tire marks where her car drove over and broke through the concrete last year. When the garage floor failed, she said it revealed a 9-foot void. She said it took four triaxle trucks of fill and $20,000 to fix.
Holderfield says that makes her wonder who else could find this.
“I would love people to be held accountable, but I also understand the laws and that we could potentially be out of the warranty period is what they say. I do wish we could have them stand behind their work or help us get this fixed,” Holderfield said.
More than anything, the Holderfield family says it wants people to know there is potential that other homes could be built like this and to be aware.
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