Alliance to support regional economy through transportation improvements
Public officials and business leaders from 10 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania launched Wednesday an initiative to improve transportation throughout the region.
The Allegheny Conference on Community Development announced the creation of the Regional Transportation Alliance (RTA) of Southwestern Pennsylvania, a coalition of public and private sector partners developed to open a regionwide discussion for the planning and implementation of transportation projects.
Led by a 22-member steering committee that includes Fayette County Commissioner Al Ambrosini, the new organization hopes such projects will enhance regional connectivity, economic competitiveness and quality of life, officials said.
The plan is to appeal to more than 700 “community stakeholder groups” throughout the region over the next eight weeks to identify transportation issues and receive suggestions for improvements, said Allegheny Conference senior vice president of energy and infrastructure Ken Zapinski.
“We want to find out from voices across the region what their most pressing transportation issues are and what they see is the solution to those problems,” Zapinski said.
The groups contacted will consist of various organizations and businesses, such as chambers of commerce, colleges and universities, labor unions, private employers, tourism organizations and workforce investment boards, among numerous others.
The steering committee, comprised of a public sector and private sector representative from each of Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties and the City of Pittsburgh, will analyze and discuss feedback from the surveys in January, said Zapinski.
The committee will then consult with transportation experts and present potential projects to the public sometime next year.
Many of the groups surveyed for input will be from Fayette County, Ambrosini said following Wednesday’s event, adding that the steering committee has no predetermined improvement ideas and will depend completely on survey input.
“We need to gather information on what different businesses and organizations want and why they want them,” said Ambrosini, who was asked to sit on the steering committee due to his involvement with several Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission boards. “We’re looking for ways to improve how we provide transportation…to promote business and industry.”
Ambrosini said businesses might have the need to transport their products quicker and cheaper, or senior citizens might have difficulty attending appointments because of a lack of reliable public transportation. These are issues the RTA wants to hear about, he said.
Zapinksi said examples of transportation improvements include the construction of new highways or tunnels, the addition of hiking and biking trails or the improvement of intersections and traffic light configurations.
“People can think in terms of projects, but really what we want them to think about is in terms of what problem are they trying to solve,” Zapinski said.
The creation of the RTA stemmed from the Allegheny Conference’s triennial meetings with private sector partners last spring — many of whom voiced a desire for transportation improvements — as well as a trip made last year by dozens of area community leaders to Denver, where an initiative was underway to develop a regional, integrated, multi-level transportation system, said Allegheny Conference CEO Dennis Yablonsky
“One of the major issues that all of these private sector people raised with us is the need for better transportation connectivity throughout the region — an integrated, connected regional network to be able to get people to and from work and goods and services to be able to move throughout our economy,” said Yablonsky.
Funding for future transportation projects that the RTA determines to undertake should be available with the passage of the state transportation bill, Act 89, in 2013, Yablonsky added.
“We want this (initiative) to be long-term, something that is truly, if implemented properly, transformative for our region from a competitiveness perspective,” he said.
Ambrosini called the initiative a “massive team effort” of which Fayette County is an integral part and from which the county can greatly benefit.
“We have a lot of tourism attraction, business, commerce. We want to build on those things as we go forward,” he said. “It’s going to fit nicely with the growth and development in Fayette County.
“We’re going to be looking at everything from bikes to trains to improve and better enhance our business industry and jobs.”
The private sector representative for Fayette County will be named at a later date, Ambrosini said.