The Southwestern Pennsylvania (SWPA) Connected initiative is asking community members to take a brief survey online or by phone to provide information about their current internet access and experience.

Eligible participants can win a $50 Visa gift card for completing the survey.

SWPA Connected is a regional consortium that includes the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Allies for Children, and a diverse group of regional partners to develop an equitable Connectivity Improvement Plan to provide affordable, reliable broadband internet access across the region. This initiative is not affiliated with any internet provider and is not intended to sell any internet services. Rather, it seeks to guide the region’s future internet investments that can be made now that the historic infrastructure bill has passed, which includes $65 billion for broadband.

As a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that passed the House on Friday awaits signature by President Joe Biden, the Pittsburgh business community offered their thoughts on what it could mean for the region.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald was quick to herald the good news.

He noted how the bill is “going to put a lot of people to work” and when asked where it might help the most, he said, “it’s really all of the above.”

That includes the prospect for expanding transit, specifically referencing the potential to expand the East Busway and widen Bates Street into Oakland, as well as providing a major new source of funding to help ALCOSAN meet the demands of the federal consent decree over Allegheny County’s stormwater management issues, a multi-billion-dollar project in the coming years for the county.

Join SPC’s Public Participation Panels for a virtual update on developing the draft Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). The draft TIP is the implementation mechanism for SmartMoves for a Changing Region, the region’s official transportation and development plan. Hear about the progress of major transportation projects, submit questions to SPC and PennDOT, and give your ideas and feedback for the draft TIP. 

SPC’s Public Participation Panels encourage you to attend a virtual public meeting to learn more about the draft documents. Meetings will be open house in format. There will be opportunities to view maps, hear from representatives from SPC, PennDOT, transit operators, and planning departments, and submit comments and questions.

The Federal Highway Administration is celebrating National Roundabouts Week this week!

Did you know that roundabouts can improve safety and mobility?

Learn more at safety.fhwa.dot.gov/NRW/ !

There are over 7000 completed roundabouts in the US with 72 in Pennsylvania and 15 in the SPC region. More are being planned. SPC is currently working on a Regional Roundabout Screening Study to help identify more candidate locations for roundabouts.

SPC’s Business Finance Assistance program works with entrepreneurs to assist them in starting, developing and expanding their businesses. SPC can make loans and provide assistance to high tech, oil and gas, agricultural, tourism, recycling, manufactures, many additional types of for profit companies.

If you are interested in financing your business’s expansion project through SPC, we would encourage you to visit https://spcregion.portfol.com/Workflow/, register your business for a free account, and complete our pre-application questionnaire. Once complete, SPC staff will review your questionnaire, and reach out to you to discuss your project in further detail.

Visit SPC’s Business Assistance page to learn more!

The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program provides funds for transportation projects and programs that will contribute to attainment or maintenance of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone, carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM).

The CMAQ program supports two important goals of the federal Department of Transportation: improving air quality and relieving congestion. These goals were strengthened in provisions added to the CMAQ Program by the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP‑21; Pub. L. 112-141) and continued in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act; Pub. L. 114-94). These provisions emphasize cost-effective emission reduction and congestion mitigation activities when using CMAQ funding.

Every September, SPC’s export assistance program collaborates with the PA Office of International Business Development (OIBD) to bring its team of authorized trade representatives from around the world to Pennsylvania for meeting 1-on-1 with local companies to discuss international business strategies and export opportunities.

However, due to the pandemic, we remain committed to connecting Pennsylvania exporters with people and resources that can help them increase their international sales. This September, we will provide another virtual edition of Bringing the World to PA to continue creating and building global business connections. Bringing the World to PA 2021 will run from September 13-24 and will include a series of online presentations and panels on a range of international business and trade topics.

SPC has developed a series of online mapping tools to assess the regional broadband-related coverage, speeds, resources, gaps and needs in relation to the region’s demographic and socioeconomic conditions. It also examines connectivity and resources in relation to the region’s businesses, and educational and medical facilities.

These tools will be used as a baseline to further build upon SPC’s Strategic Plan of developing a Connectivity Roadmap (SWPA Connected) for the 10-county SWPA region. This future strategic plan will examine the current and true state of the region’s broadband connectivity in relation to the region’s demographic and socioeconomic composition. It will deploy connectivity programs and projects to enable the region’s communities that lack adequate high-speed internet access to be better connected to jobs, education, and health care.

SPC and PennDOT staff are hosting a virtual workshop to assist local sponsors in the SPC region in understanding their roles, responsibilities, and requirements in delivering a transportation project.

If you are considering applying to any programs in the future, this workshop will introduce you to funding programs and the regulatory requirements sponsors must meet to use federal or state transportation funds. This workshop will provide details regarding the SPC Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside (TA) Program and the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ), both of which have open/upcoming application periods.

With SmartMoves Connections, SPC presents a new approach to regional transit planning—one based on locating the Transit Supportive Land Uses already present in our region. Using a Machine Learning analysis of aerial photography and travel data, SmartMoves Connections maps the clusters of land with multimodal potential. These are put into six categories where Multimodal Hubs and Multimodal Corridors could be good mobility options.

A Multimodal Hub is a facility where mobility services can connect together—such as Park-and-Ride, bike lockers, scooter-share or paratransit—along with public transit service. These Hubs allow seamless connections between the parts of a person’s trip and enable new kinds of trips, even across county borders or on multiple transit services.