Allegheny County, followed by Indiana and Fayette counties, had the highest number of homes and businesses with internet connections in a 10-county region with connections so slow they didn’t even qualify as broadband, according to a new study by a Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission-led coalition of nonprofits.

At the same time, the study named Allegheny, Beaver and Armstrong as counties as places with remarkably fast online speeds as well.

Although Allegheny County had among the fastest internet speeds in the 10-county region, the study identified pockets of the county where internet access lagged — in municipalities along the Monongahela River, for example. Western Washington County, Greene County and much of Indiana County, traditionally Amish country, also lacked the fiber cables, towers and other gear necessary for speedy connections.

“Rural areas were frustrated by the complete lack of access,” Laura Stephany, health policy director, Allies for Children, said during a briefing Monday about the study. “This is an issue of equity. It’s also an economic development issue.”

Included in the 10-county region were Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission defines “well served” by download and upload broadband speeds greater than or equal to 100/100 megabits per second; “underserved” is slower than 50/10 megabits per second; and “unserved” is speeds less than 25/3 megabits per second, or barely fast enough to support a Zoom call.

Megabit is a measurement of network speed, with the higher numbers being faster download and upload speeds.

Some 36,000 homes and 15,000 businesses in Pittsburgh and surrounding 10-county region were unserved or underserved by broadband while 12% of the population relied on cell phones for internet access, which can be too slow for some internet applications.

The study will determine the amount of federal dollars the region will receive to expand access and boost connectivity speeds to 100/20 megabits per second, far faster than the 25/3 megabit per second speed the Federal Communications Commission now uses to define high-speed broadband.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, Allies for Children, and the Metro21 and Traffic21 initiatives at Carnegie Mellon University, collaborated to form Southwest Pennsylvania Connected, a group to advise applicants for funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Through the law, some $65 billion will be available to broadband installation and expansion projects in the U.S., with priority given to areas with slow speeds and high poverty recipients without access.

Read the full story at post-gazette.com

CommuteInfo is hosting a “Commuter Challenge” to encourage people to try transit, vanpool, carpool, biking, walking and telework for their commuting trips during the week of May 16 – 22, 2022.

Overview of the CommuteInfo Commuter Challenge 2022

• The CommuteInfo Commuter Challenge is a friendly competition for anyone 18 years old or older, who live, work or go to school in one of these 10 counties: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Greene, Fayette, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland.
• The CommuteInfo Commuter Challenge will be held May 16-22, 2022.
• Commuters can try transit, vanpooling, carpooling, biking or walking to their jobsite or school or telework.

Rewards will be given by a random drawing for those who participate, such as public transit, vanpooling, carpooling, biking, walking or telework and submit their activity log by Noon on May 23, 2022.

Visit commuteinfo.org to learn more!

SPC is excited to announce our Regional Data Center web presence has received a complete overhaul and re-design!

Data-driven and casual users alike will now find a wealth of on-demand and fully customizable options to access a variety of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources for information focused on the Southwestern Pennsylvania Region.

Auto-generated PDF, excel, csv, and html file export options offer complete flexibility on how our users want their data delivered.

Regional data is presented in detailed, interactive Census profiles, a series of prebuilt tables, and a Data Navigator tool that allows the user to build customized data tables.

Visualizations are also included in the form of Tableau dashboards and Data Tidbits content that highlight key data for the SPC region.

View the new RDC at: www.spcregion.org/resources-tools/regional-data-center/

The
Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission has developed a corridor plan for Brodhead
Road (State Route 3007/State Route 18) between Old Brodhead Road and the
Allegheny County/Beaver County border. The corridor plan includes short,
medium, and long term recommendations that will improve the transportation
operations and safety for all users and serve as an investment plan that will
guide the planning and programming of transportation projects in the study
area.

The study makes recommendations that improve regional mobility and accessibility for all, enhance the quality of life and livability of the community, and advance economic and community development goals.

Learn more about Operations and Safety at SPC.

Washington County has begun a three-year, $30 million project to expand internet access in the rural county, which is located about 35 miles south of Pittsburgh. The first baby steps in the project will bring service to about 50 homes in Avella, home to fewer than 1,000 people, and also to the nearby Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village. Meadowcroft, a National Historic Landmark operated by the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, was a campsite used 19,000 years ago by hunters and gatherers who left behind traces of ice age fire pits, stone and bone tools and pottery fragments.

Getting every home and business in Washington County online will depend on funding, which the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission is exploring in a 10-county connectivity plan being developed with Carnegie Mellon University and Allies for Children, a North Side-based advocacy group. The plan is expected to launch by March.

Money that Washington County Commissioners earmarked for broadband expansion is separate from the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which contains $65 billion for erecting towers and installing the fiber-optic cable needed to upgrade internet service. Pennsylvania and other states will receive broadband funding payments of $100 million — and potentially much more, depending on need — over several years under the new law.

Read the full article at www.govtech.com

Pennsylvania will pay $23.5 million to replace the collapsed Fern Hollow Bridge, officials at the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission announced Monday afternoon. Even as they welcomed the news, many noted that the process to fund needed infrastructure repairs has historically taken much longer, and shouldn’t.

“The state has really stepped up in helping out the region and financing the cost for the new bridge,” said Andy Waple, SPC’s director of transportation.

The SPC is a metropolitan planning organization, which helps to coordinate the use of federal, state, and local funds to improve transportation and economic development in the 10-county region. All of the money to replace the Fern Hollow Bridge is federal, and will not require a match from local sources; that means the region won’t have to pull funding from other key projects.

Waple said the collapse has reinforced the need for sustainable transportation funding at state and federal levels.

“Had we had this boost in federal funding years ago, you know, that bridge might have been one of the ones that — it may still be standing today.”

In the last decade,the SPC has spent nearly half of its annual transportation improvement funding to fix bridges, and has reduced the number of bridges in poor condition from 1,917 in 2010 to 968 in 2020. However, Waple said there’s a long way to go.

PennDOT can fund the project in part because of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, said Deputy Secretary Larry Shifflety. For 2022, the federal law allocated an additional $31 million to the secretary’s discretionary reserve fund at the agency — known as Spike — which allowed PennDOT to make this commitment.

“Not necessarily the way we’d like to have it received,” he said, referring to the collapse hastening the decision, “but certainly happy that we’re able to have that money coming our way and be able to help the region out.”

Read the full story at WESA.fm

A grant from the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission will provide $450,492 in funding for a sidewalk and dedicated bike path along Saltsburg Avenue, White Township officials announced at a meeting Wednesday.

Communication specialist Chauncey Ross said the township will be responsible for $60,000 in engineering costs for design fees.

The grant will fund a project that will be developed this year, with ground likely being broken in 2023, Ross said.

It will provide a continuation of bike lanes that run down Rose Street beginning near Hoss’s restaurant and ending at Saltsburg Avenue. The bike lane would be extended to Rustic Lodge Road, and a sidewalk would also be constructed along Saltsburg Avenue.

The project promotes safe walking and the use of alternative transportation, Ross said.

Read the full story at www.indianagazette.com

The U.S. Department of Transportation will announce a five-step program Thursday to reduce an unexpected spike in traffic deaths during the pandemic with a goal of eliminating them in the future.

The program, called the National Roadway Safety Strategy, marks a major shift in the department’s approach by recognizing that drivers make mistakes and will supplement educational efforts with safer roadway designs, vehicle technology improvements and better care for accident victims. Department officials briefed the news media Wednesday on the strategy that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to announce in Washington, D.C., at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

Mr. Buttigieg announced in October his department would spend the rest of the year developing a strategy to reduce traffic deaths after estimates through the second quarter of 2021 showed the highest percentage increase since the Fatality Analysis Reporting System began in 1975. An estimated 20,160 died in the first half of 2021, an 18.4% increase over the previous year, and the fatality rate increased to 1.34 fatalities per 100 million miles driven from 1.28.

That continued a trend that began with the start of the pandemic in early 2020 when reduced traffic apparently led some drivers to increase their speed substantially, resulting in more accidents. As the pandemic has worn on, officials say there also has been an increase in dangerous behavior such as impaired and distracted driving and reduced use of seat belts.

The higher speeds have resulted in more deaths and more serious injuries from unbelted drivers being thrown from vehicles.

The department said the 42-page strategy takes what it calls a “safe system approach” that tries to improve driver performance but builds in design and other safety improvements when drivers come up short.

Read the full story at https://www.post-gazette.com/

Pennsylvania is preparing for an influx of broadband funding expected from the federal infrastructure bill.

The new funding follows a pandemic that pushed many people online and revealed widespread challenges with broadband access. Federal legislators answered the call with $65 billion in the infrastructure bill, in addition to some broadband funding in pandemic relief packages. But this isn’t the first time large amounts of money have been pumped into broadband.

For many years, Federal Communications Commission programs have offered funding for broadband expansion. But many places still lack access, or affordable access, and in some cases, it’s not entirely clear where the money went. This time, states are hoping to make sure the dollars translate into access.

The key to getting that access out there is outreach and accurate data, according to the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission. The commission, which is a regional organization that focuses on metropolitan planning for Pittsburgh and the surrounding counties, launched its Connected Initiative with several other partners in the region during the pandemic.

“It was a natural evolution for us,” said Vincent Valdes, executive director of the commission. “Really, if you think about it, connectivity and virtual access is the new transportation mode, so why not treat it and plan for it as you would any other?”

And, Valdes told Farm and Dairy, it makes sense for the commission to take that on in the region — it has a lot of experience with long-range planning and managing infrastructure funding.

The commission already has a long-range transportation plan, in addition to a shorter-range, five-year transportation improvement program. It decided to mirror that by developing a connectivity improvement plan that will include details on the region’s current connectivity situation and recommendations for projects to prioritize.

Broadband came up as an issue organically, through conversations with communities in the region. Communities know they need access, but getting funding and making projects happen can be a challenge. That’s what the commission is addressing with its connectivity improvement plan.

Read the full article at www.farmanddairy.com

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced that the Southwestern Pennsylvania New Economy Coalition is one of 60 finalists out of 529 entrants for Phase 1 of the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) $1 billion “Build Back Better Regional Challenge”. The Build Back Better Regional Challenge provides transformative investments, up to $100 million per grantee, to develop and strengthen regional industry clusters across the country, all while embracing economic equity, creating good-paying jobs, and enhancing U.S. competitiveness globally.

“We’re proud to be partnering with the Allegheny Conference on Community Development in creating the Southwestern Pennsylvania New Economy Coalition and working together on these important projects. This new coalition will help leverage our region’s first-class and growing robotics and information technology sector into providing more economic development and job creation throughout all of Southwestern Pennsylvania,” said Vincent Valdes, Executive Director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania New Economy Coalition will receive a Phase 1 grant of approximately $500,000 to further develop their proposed projects and strengthen their regional growth clusters in advance of submitting a Phase 2 application. The projects are as follows:

• Project 1: Support small, medium, and family-owned enterprises (SMEs) in designing and deploying robotics and AI solutions in their operations through technical assistance programs.
• Project 2: Provide capital to nonprofit centers of excellence to make facilities and support available for SMEs to develop, test, adopt robotics and AI technologies.
• Project 3: Establish inclusive career pathways from high school and beyond, preparing new workers to thrive in robotics and AI and providing them with upskilling opportunities.
• Project 4: Develop robotics and AI accelerators that provide wraparound business support and development services.

The two-phase competition will ultimately award 20-30 regional coalitions between $25 and $100 million to implement 3-8 projects that support an industry sector.