More than $1.3 million in additional funding has been made available to complete the section of the Sheepskin Trail through the city of Uniontown.

“We’re continuing to add to the trail as quickly as we can and get this thing built,” said Fayette County Commissioner Vince Vicites.

Vicites said $1,300,832 came through his involvement with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) as the secretary/treasurer, his fellow commissioners, Uniontown Mayor Bill Gerke and the state Department of Transportation to obtain funds to finish the Uniontown leg.

“After the initial discussion, PennDOT approached us about funding, as we qualified for TIP funds,” Vicites said of Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) funds through the state agency.

Vicites said PennDOT suggested those involved in the project do a wal- through in the city to identify the future project areas and how much money would be needed to complete the Uniontown portion.

“Once we figured it out, we submitted a funding request, and PennDOT awarded the funds,” Vicites said.

The completed section of the trail in Uniontown runs from South Union Township to Beeson Avenue in the city. The remaining portion, which follows the path of an abandoned railroad line, runs just under half a mile from Beeson to North Union Township.

The project is in the final design phase with Gibson Thomas Engineering in Lemont Furnace.

Clayton VanVerth, project manager with Gibson Thomas, said three railroad bridges will be paved and transformed for bicycles and pedestrians to cross.

“The bridges are structurally sound, already inspected, and we’ll look into putting on concrete decks and rails on them,” VanVerth said.

VanVerth added that once the design phase is completed, and after months of reviews and permitting – as the bike trail will cross two state roads – actual construction could begin sometime in 2025.

Gerke said an earlier agreement with the railroad company calls for the city to be responsible for removing the existing railroad tracks through the city belonging to Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad, which provided the city with $220,000 for the track removal.

Gerke is eager for the Uniontown portion to be completed.

“People have asked me about each phase, and then they are asking about the next phase,” Gerke said, adding that even in the colder months, he’s seen people walking on portions of the trail. “That’s our goal, to get the trail in the city and get people into the city. It’s a social and economic boom.”

Gerke said the commissioners have worked diligently on the project, and Vicites said it has been a team effort.

“We’re one step closer in getting it done,” said Commissioner Dave Lohr. “This is another link to get this accomplished and get to the next level.”

“We’re so excited to see this money coming in,” said Commissioner Scott Dunn. “This will be a big plus for the Sheepskin Trail and the city of Uniontown. This satisfies everyone and builds our trail.”

“This is a huge win for the county and the city,” VanVerth said.

Vicites said they’re trying to have multiple sections of the trail being worked on simultaneously, and continue to seek more funding opportunities to finish the trail.

Once completed, the 34-mile Sheepskin Trail will run from Dunbar Township to Point Marion, passing through a number of communities, including Mount Braddock, Lemont Furnace, Uniontown, Hopwood, Fairchance, Smithfield, Outcrop, Gans, Lake Lynn and Point Marion.

The finished trail will link to the Great Allegheny Passage and the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail to the north, and the West Virginia Mon River Rail-Trail System to the south.

For more information on the Sheepskin Trail, visit sheepskintrail.org/.

View the full article at heraldstandard.com.

To say last week was good for the passenger train industry would be a massive understatement.

At the national level, President Joe Biden released $8.2 billion to fund 10 major projects, including the first high-speed rail line in the U.S. and $34 million to study 69 corridors across the country for new or expanded service.

In this region, the Federal Railroad Administration agreed to pay Pennsylvania $143.6 million toward railroad upgrades to allow a second daily Amtrak trip between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg and funded a handful of corridor studies in this area, including a completely new route that would link Pittsburgh; Columbus, Ohio; and Chicago.

In a briefing for news media on Thursday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last week’s announcements are the first steps in the Biden administration’s effort to rebuild the nation’s passenger rail system. Biden’s economic stimulus program has earmarked $66 billion for rail improvements over five years.

Buttigieg noted that 150 years ago, the U.S. was a world leader in rail development when the Transcontinental Railroad was completed to allow passengers to ride from east to west across the country. Today, he said, Americans who travel to Japan or Europe come home asking why they can’t have the type of rail service here that that they find overseas.

“Despite that history, America has lagged behind for years now,” the secretary said. “We think Americans should have those same opportunities [they find overseas]. That’s what they ought to be able to expect here.”

Biden announced the first 10 projects Friday at a news conference in Las Vegas, where the gambling and entertainment mecca will be linked by a new 218-mile high-speed rail line with Rancho Cucamonga, California, just outside of Los Angeles. That $3 billion project is expected to make the trip in just over two hours, twice as fast as driving.

But that isn’t the fastest project to be funded. That distinction goes to the 171-mile, $3.07 billion project in central California linking Bakersfield and Merced that will reach speeds of up to 220 miles an hour, the fastest in the U.S.

Other projects would link Richmond, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Carolina ($1.1 billion), and replace the Long Bridge over the Potomac River between Washington, D.C., and Richmond to increase capacity ($729 million).

Buttigieg stressed that the passenger rail expansion will provide other benefits as well. For example, the Las Vegas project is expected to create 35,000 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent positions, serve 11 million passengers a year, take thousands of cars off the road, and eliminate 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide pollution by using electric trains.

The corridor studies, which will cost as much as $500,000 each, are key because they will establish blueprints for the future, Buttigieg said.

Regional projects

For the Pennsylvania area, the immediate benefit will be the FRA’s 80% funding for track and station improvements for the second daily trip between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. The state had reached agreement in September with Norfolk Southern Railroad to allow additional passenger service and had been prepared to pay for the $180 million in track and station improvements itself if the federal funds didn’t come through.

“The people in Johnstown, Altoona and Greensburg have been pushing for more rail service for a long time,” Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll said in an interview. “Their advocacy had really pushed this forward, and now it’s happening.”

Norfolk Southern is designing the work, which will include side tracks for freight trains to get out of the way for passenger service and more control signals. Service is expected to start in 2026.

But again, Carroll said he is “excited” about the studies to return service eliminated decades ago and establish new corridors.

The proposed corridor to link Scranton with Penn Station in New York City is the most promising, Carroll said, because existing dormant tracks are already publicly owned. There is no need to make arrangements with freight carriers to accommodate passenger service along that line, but some abandoned track would have to be rebuilt.

That proposal includes three daily trips with stops in Stroudsburg and Mount Pocono in Pennsylvania and Blairstown, Dover, Montclair, Morristown and Newark in New Jersey.

The Reading-to-Philadelphia corridor, which would return service that ended in 1983, is a little more complicated because Norfolk Southern owns the tracks and would have to provide room for passenger service. If it could be arranged, that service would include four to eight daily trips with stops at Pottstown, Phoenixville and potentially Norristown, with connections in Philadelphia to New York City.

Although those projects potentially could require the state to pay hundreds of millions of dollars as its 20% share plus some operating costs, Carroll said, “yes, positively yes” the state would find the money to pay for expanded service.

Mark Spada, president of Western Pennsylvanians for Passenger Rail, said he’s encouraged by the possibilities the corridor studies could create.

“That’s all good news for those corridors,” he said. “If nothing else, it puts those corridors on the map for the future.”

Ohio connections

Several projects in Ohio are a focal point of the corridor studies, and Pittsburgh could be a major benefactor of one of those projects.

For more than two decades, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission based in Columbus has been pushing to reestablish passenger service through what it calls the Midwest Connector. That corridor would link Pittsburgh with Chicago by way of Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, returning passenger service to the two Ohio cities for the first time since 1979.

Columbus is one of the fastest growing urban areas of the country, and returning passenger rail has been a top priority for MORPC Executive Director William Murdock. The agency has gone through a series of studies, even studying innovative hyperloop service using pressurized air pods for that corridor before Virgin Hyperloop decided to concentrate on freight service, so plans are much further along than other projects.

“This is really a transformative process from the FRA,” Murdock said of the money for corridor studies. “This is the last step we need to move forward.”

As soon as the federal money arrives, MORPC will be ready to hire consultants to put together specific plans for the corridor over the next 18 to 36 months. Murdock said the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, which oversees transportation planning over a 10-county region that includes Allegheny County, has been “a key partner” to planning the rail corridor.

Murdock said he’s “encouraged” the project will qualify for construction funding because it will be new service and the region already has done most of the preliminary work. Initial plans call for maximum rail speeds of 79 miles an hour in the new corridor but that could be pushed to 110 if there is enough interest, he said.

“We feel really confident this is a great opportunity for Pittsburgh, Columbus and Chicago and the points along the way,” he said.

At least two other corridor studies could have major implications for rail service in Ohio. One will review new service to link the state’s largest cities — Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton — while the other will look at a route from Cleveland to Detroit by way of Toledo.

Future blueprint

The $66 billion set aside for rail expansion may not cover all of the costs for projects that come out of the corridor studies, said Mitch Landrieu, Biden’s special assistant overseeing the economic stimulus program.

“With this investment, we’re creating history,” he said, noting the first American high-speed rail that is among the projects funded last week.

Buttigieg said the goal is to establish longer-term investment in rail projects. He expects the early successes will increase interest in additional projects developed through the corridor studies.

“What we are doing is creating a platform for future investment,” he said. “I think there will be more appetite for funding projects in the future.”

How soon can the public expect to see expanded service?

“Within a few years, you’re going to see some exciting changes,” he said.

View the full article at unionprogress.com.

Outgoing Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has a new role for the organization leading growth in this region.

Fitzgerald was named recently as the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission’s new executive director by its board.

Fitzgerald will assume this role on Jan. 2 when his tenure as Allegheny County Executive concludes.

The SPC is the federally certified metropolitan planning organization and local development district serving 10 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, including Lawrence County.

“While I’ve always had a regional focus, I look forward to putting my skills and relationships to work for all 10 of our counties,” Fitzgerald said.

“Together, we will continue to concentrate on infrastructure, communication, economic development, workforce and quality of life issues for our region,” he added.

Fitzgerald served as Allegheny County executive since 2012 and was term-limited. Before that, he was a city councilman for 11 years and was elected council president four times.

He will lead an SPC staff of 50 members across seven departments, including economic and workforce development, transportation planning, strategic initiatives and policy, information and data, finance, human resources and communications and public relations.

“The board is grateful to Vincent Valdes for positioning SPC to be the region’s leading agent of support to local governments for transportation, broadband, and economic development,” said Leslie Osche, SPC’s board chair and Butler County Commissioner.

“He laid the groundwork for Mr. Fitzgerald to carry the commission and our region to the next level. We are excited about the future of our region under Rich’s leadership,” Osche said.

Valdes is retiring at the end of the year.

Before entering public service, Fitzgerald spent many years in the private sector. He grew up in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield-Garfield neighborhood before attending Carnegie Mellon University, earning degrees in mechanical engineering with a minor in business.

He and his wife live in Squirrel Hill and are the parents of eight adult children.

The SPC board will welcome Fitzgerald at its Tuesday meeting.

View the full article at ncnewsonline.com.

Every two years, the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission, the metropolitan planning organization for the area that includes Butler County, updates its Transportation Improvement Plan, which is in effect for a three-year period. While the plan for 2023-26 is still in effect, the commission is working on putting together the plan for 2025-28, which comes into effect October 2024.

The commission held a public meeting at the Middlesex Township municipal building on Wednesday evening, Dec. 6, to gather feedback from Butler County residents.

Rob Vigue, Valencia Borough Council member, attended because he wanted to know how infrastructure developments around him would affect his neck of the woods.

“All this affects us directly, because Valencia’s right at the bottom, and a lot of people use Valencia to get to (Route) 228,” Vigue said. “So we always have our concerns because these can cause problems with the roads in our area, to back up and stuff like that.”

The Transportation Improvement Plan is a short-term plan for transportation projects in 10 counties and the city of Pittsburgh. Although the commission does help to procure funding through grants, it is up to agencies such as the state Department of Transportation to make sure that the plan is actually fulfilled.

“Our role is to facilitate the process of developing the TIP,” said Ryan Gordon, transportation program development manager for the commission. “And then from that point on, we turn it over to the sponsors of those projects. Most of them are PennDOT. It could be a transit agency, or it could be a local entity.”

“We have a very good relationship,” said Chad Mosco, portfolio engineer for PennDOT. “We’re very open to each other for suggestions. Ryan’s great. He communicates to us very well.”

Many of the “big-ticket” items that are expected to appear on the draft 2025-28 TIP are “carry-over items” — projects included on the current or previous improvement plans that haven’t been finished yet. These include the Three Degree Road intersection, as well as the replacement of the Karns Crossing Bridge.

“They’re already in the pipeline,” Gordon said. “They’ve already been started, ‘cause there’s many phases, many years to do some of these bigger projects.”

Another major item, the Balls Bend Safety Improvement Project, is expected to finish in January 2025 at a cost of $29.7 million. It promises to ease congestion and improve safety along a section of Route 228 by adding new travel lanes, two “jug handles,” and a new signal.

Gordon said some “candidate projects” suggested by the public are under consideration for the plan. However, he admitted the commission isn’t likely to include many of them, due to the high number of carry-over projects from past plans.

“We may not get too far down on this list, because of the carry-over and cost increases,” Gordon said. “But we always are constantly looking at needs. We’re constantly talking about projects. You never know when we’re going to free up some money and we can get one of these in there.”

During the meeting, Gordon touted the commission’s progress toward achieving its goals on the “Gateway 228” improvement plan, a series of improvement projects along Route 228 in the District 10 area. Out of the 11 projects listed, six have been finished, four are currently under construction, and one is in the engineering phase.

“Other counties would just be jealous of this, because this is a lot of investment in a corridor,” Gordon said. “We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars here in this corridor.”

The 2025-28 TIP is scheduled to enter its formal 30-day comment period in May, before the commission adopts it the following month.

View the full article at butlereagle.com.

Amid a national push to boost (and fund) digital access, the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County are on a mission to close the digital divide by 2030.

To make this hope a reality, city and county leaders tasked the Pittsburgh Digital Equity Coalition, a group of nonprofits and institutional partners, with gathering feedback from residents and devising a plan to ensure all county residents have digital access. Roughly a year after the coalition and its members were introduced to the public, the coalition has settled on a plan.

On Wednesday afternoon, city and county officials explained that the new plan includes expanding access to broadband internet, offering access to digital skills training, and providing technical access to residents in need.

Residents in Allegheny County have both some of the highest internet speeds in the region, and areas with inadequate internet speeds or few service options, according to a 2022 report from the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission. Moving forward, the officials feel the best approach is to focus on narrowing the gaps most prominent in the communities and neighborhoods where many residents have the least digital access.

County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said that addressing the disparity is imperative because in today’s world, without digital access, obtaining equity in areas such as housing and education becomes much more challenging.

“If we were here decades ago or a century ago, we would be talking about people that weren’t connected with electricity,” Fitzgerald said during the Wednesday press conference. “That’s where we are right now. We need to make sure that everybody in the city, everybody in the county and quite frankly, in my next job, everybody in the region is connected digitally.” (Fitzgerald will become executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission when Sara Innamorato takes over as county executive in January.)

The Digital Equity Coalition includes entities such as the Greater Pittsburgh Digital Inclusion Alliance, Computer Reach, University of Pittsburgh and Community Internet Solutions. By combining the government’s influence and these organizations’ understanding of how to get low-cost, reliable broadband internet access to those who need it, coalition members are aiming to eliminate digital inequity by the end of 2030. The original goal was 2027, meant to be completed five years from the coalition’s fall 2022 launch.

After conducting community listening sessions this year — and after some delays — the coalition developed a strategic plan with goals centered on expanding access and building residents’ skills.

The first goal, per the report: accessible and affordable internet. The coalition recommends that to bring greater access, the city and county establish a free, regional Wi-Fi network; invest in publicly owned IT infrastructure; bolster the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center’s work via an open data repository; and “facilitate more open ISP markets.”

The second goal is to boost digital literacy skills by providing county residents of all ages and skill levels with a curriculum that leaves them with the skills they need to use current forms of technology.

Lastly, the coalition aims to increase access to computing devices and technical support.

“This community strategic plan that we’re sharing with you today represents the best ideas of our organizations to take concrete steps in ensuring that no one gets left behind,” Pittsburgh Department of Innovation & Performance Director Heidi Norman said during the press conference. ”All students should be able to get the online education and training that they need without worrying that the cost of their internet connection may be too high to afford next month.”

View the full article at technical.ly.

Every two years, the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission, the metropolitan planning organization for the area that includes Butler County, updates its Transportation Improvement Plan, which is in effect for a three-year period. While the plan for 2023-26 is still in effect, the commission is working on putting together the plan for 2025-28, which comes into effect October 2024.

The commission held a public meeting at the Middlesex Township municipal building on Wednesday evening, Dec. 6, to gather feedback from Butler County residents.

Rob Vigue, Valencia Borough Council member, attended because he wanted to know how infrastructure developments around him would affect his neck of the woods.

“All this affects us directly, because Valencia’s right at the bottom, and a lot of people use Valencia to get to (Route) 228,” Vigue said. “So we always have our concerns because these can cause problems with the roads in our area, to back up and stuff like that.”

The Transportation Improvement Plan is a short-term plan for transportation projects in 10 counties and the city of Pittsburgh. Although the commission does help to procure funding through grants, it is up to agencies such as the state Department of Transportation to make sure that the plan is actually fulfilled.

“Our role is to facilitate the process of developing the TIP,” said Ryan Gordon, transportation program development manager for the commission. “And then from that point on, we turn it over to the sponsors of those projects. Most of them are PennDOT. It could be a transit agency, or it could be a local entity.”

“We have a very good relationship,” said Chad Mosco, portfolio engineer for PennDOT. “We’re very open to each other for suggestions. Ryan’s great. He communicates to us very well.”

Many of the “big-ticket” items that are expected to appear on the draft 2025-28 TIP are “carry-over items” — projects included on the current or previous improvement plans that haven’t been finished yet. These include the Three Degree Road intersection, as well as the replacement of the Karns Crossing Bridge.

“They’re already in the pipeline,” Gordon said. “They’ve already been started, ‘cause there’s many phases, many years to do some of these bigger projects.”

Another major item, the Balls Bend Safety Improvement Project, is expected to finish in January 2025 at a cost of $29.7 million. It promises to ease congestion and improve safety along a section of Route 228 by adding new travel lanes, two “jug handles,” and a new signal.

Gordon said some “candidate projects” suggested by the public are under consideration for the plan. However, he admitted the commission isn’t likely to include many of them, due to the high number of carry-over projects from past plans.

“We may not get too far down on this list, because of the carry-over and cost increases,” Gordon said. “But we always are constantly looking at needs. We’re constantly talking about projects. You never know when we’re going to free up some money and we can get one of these in there.”

During the meeting, Gordon touted the commission’s progress toward achieving its goals on the “Gateway 228” improvement plan, a series of improvement projects along Route 228 in the District 10 area. Out of the 11 projects listed, six have been finished, four are currently under construction, and one is in the engineering phase.

“Other counties would just be jealous of this, because this is a lot of investment in a corridor,” Gordon said. “We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars here in this corridor.”

The 2025-28 TIP is scheduled to enter its formal 30-day comment period in May, before the commission adopts it the following month.

View the full article at cranberryeagle.com.

People gathered to hear the proposed transportation projects in Butler County.

State, regional, and local officials got together Wednesday night to discuss the future of transportation projects in Butler County.

Representatives of PennDOT and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission joined Butler County Commissioners, municipal administrators and the Butler County Public Participation Panel for information about the Transportation Improvement Program that is being developed for 2025-2028.

The initiative outlines specific transportation projects and infrastructure planning across a 10 county region that includes Butler County. The SPC seeks funding from the state as well as nationwide competitive grant programs but construction costs remain high so projects have to be prioritized carefully.

Another meeting will be held somewhere in the county sometime in May as part of a formal comment period on the draft of the plan before a vote for approval in June of 2024.

View the full article at butlerradio.com.

A meeting Wednesday night will look at the future of transportation projects in Butler County.

The program is put together by the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission and the Butler County Public Participation Panel.

It will discuss the Transportation Improvement Program that is being developed for 2025-2028.

The initiative will outline specific transportation projects and infrastructure planning in Butler County.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the Middlesex Township Municipal Building on Browns Hill Road. Light refreshments will be served.

View the full story at butlerradio.com.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission and Butler County Public Participation Panel will host an informational in-person public meeting starting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday Dec. 6.

The meeting will be held at the Middlesex Township Municipal Building, 133 Browns Hill Road in Valencia.

This meeting will begin with a short presentation of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission’s Transportation Improvement Program with a display of Butler County transportation projects.

View the full story at butlereagle.com.

A high-speed internet expansion study of Lawrence County elicited input from a Shenango Township resident because their household is paying $100 a month for unstable internet service.

Reports of spotty service and connection issues also were reported in Enon Valley Borough, Plain Grove Township, North Beaver Township, and in Volant and Ellwood City boroughs, among other areas, as shown on an accompanying detailed map.

The broadband expansion study, “Link Up Lawrence,” was initiated more than a year ago by the commissioners and county planning office. The study was conducted by the engineering firm of Michael Baker International Inc. and seeks to identify areas of weak high-speed internet access countywide. It also contains recommendations on how to improve connectivity.{p class=”p1”}Broadband is determined by megabits per second and refers to the upload and download speeds. Broadband is internet service that is 25 megabits per second, or 25/3 — high-speed internet that is faster than the traditional dial-up. If a service is less than that, it is not considered broadband. The minimum definition of broadband is 25/3, and deal is 100/20 or greater.

The county commissioners formally approved the study Tuesday, which recommends that internet should be reframed as a public necessity.

Michael Baker’s report identifies four areas, in Plain Grove and Washington townships, as “early action areas” for more immediate focus on remedying some of the problems.

Plain Grove Township Supervisor Jeffrey Bishop, an active member of a task force formed as part of the study, told the commissioners that COVID awakened the residents of his township and eastern Lawrence County to internet communication deficiencies there.

“A number of students who had to work from home did not have communication,” he explained. “The library and I got in touch with each other, and they had units they could loan to kids. After COVID let up, we had a lot of communications with people at Comcast and Armstrong about what was needed out there.

“It isn’t just about running the cable and fiberoptics down the road, it also has to do with power, power poles, telephone poles and right of ways,” Bishop pointed out. “It’s a pretty in-depth project to get that done.”

He added Michael Baker and Amy McKinney, the county planning director, have been asking the right questions and listening to the information given to them.

“Lawrence County has done a fantastic job, getting as far as it has, as quickly as it has,” said Bishop, who has been an elected supervisor for 34 years.

He noted he also is part of a northwest study group “that’s not having near the success that Lawrence County is.”

Courtney Accurti of Michael Baker told the commissioners several nonprofit organizations and key departments in the county were helpful in the study.

“We developed an approach to reach all areas of the county and Jeff Bishop was a significant part of that,” she said. The company also conducted industry interviews with internet service providers.

The study outlines all that has been done and links around what you can do in the future, identifies a number of priorities for the county and pinpoints connectivity opportunity areas,” Accurti said. “There are spots where we know access is needed in the county.

“The expansion project is a snapshot of work that’s been done and what can be done in the future,” she said.

With federal funding being made available, there will be immense opportunities in the next couple years to help those expansion projects become a reality, she said, adding that “It won’t happen overnight.”

Commissioner Dan Vogler suggested the county send copies of the document to state legislators.

“We’ve been told we have to have a plan in place, and we have to work with areas and service providers. We need to be ready, because it’s going to go,” he said.

Joe Bzorek of Michael Baker added that “through these processes, your vision is a missing piece of the puzzle. These programs bridge those gaps and open lines of communications to express needs and partner with internet providers. It is a big help.”

Lawrence County hired Michael Baker more than a year ago to conduct an in-depth look at the high-speed internet connectivity here. The company, in partnership with the county planning staff, initiated countywide survey of residents to determine how effective their residential and business internet connections are.

A key part of the study was that public survey, along with speed tests.

Lawrence County’s broadband study task force members, in addition to Bishop, are: Andy Waple, Southwest Pennsylvania Commission; Andrew Henley, director of New Castle Public Library; Lisa Bekoski, Challenges Options on Aging; David Richards, director, New Area Castle Transit Authority; Erin Smith, Westminster College; Jennifer Elliott, Lawrence County Community Action Partnership; Chad Strobel, county public safety director; Drita Crawford, New Beaver Borough secretary/treasurer; Chris Frye, city administrator of New Castle; Paul Bucciarelli, Forward Lawrence; Jesse Putnam, Lawrence County Veterans Affairs director; Jess Carroll, Northwest Pennsylvania Commission; Tom McKinley, New Wilmington Area Chamber of Commerce; Albert Burick III, Shenango Township supervisor; Gayle Young, United Way director; and Kevin Swogger, Ellwood City Borough manager.

The cost of the county’s study, between $244,000 and $287,000, was funded by the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funding does not involve local tax dollars.

The study pinpoints areas of the county that are weakest for internet services or where internet availability is nonexistent.

The study could enable the county to pursue, and qualify for, federal dollars to boost high-speed internet service countywide.

The Southwest Pennsylvania Commission in 2019 identified broadband connectivity as a high priority for southwestern Pennsylvania’s long-range plan. It worked with a coalition of stakeholders to develop a regional connectivity roadmap — spcregion.org/connected/#roadmap — to identify and guide the deployment of high-speed connectivity programs and projects regionally.

On a wider basis, the state in December of 2021 created a Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority that is seeking input from Pennsylvanians statewide about the accessibility of broadband — high-speed internet access — in their areas. The authority is charged with creating a statewide broadband plan and distributing federal and state monies for broadband expansion projects in unserved and underserved areas of the commonwealth, including in Lawrence County.

The state Department of Community and Economic Development last year approved the grant guidelines for the Pennsylvania Broadband Infrastructure Program, which will provide $200 million statewide to businesses, nonprofits, local government, and economic development organizations to enhance broadband connectivity statewide. The money is part of a U.S. Department of the Treasury allocation of $10 billion to states nationwide through the Capital Projects Fund program.

View the full article at ncnewsonline.com.