Lawrence County Commissioner Steve Craig has briefcases, folders and other office items stacked inside of his office door, free to any taker who wants them.

Craig is cleaning out his office in anticipation of his last day of work Jan. 3, 2020, which is also his 66th birthday. Having served the county 31 years, first as a planner and planning director and later as an elected commissioner for 16 years, he opted to not seek re-election this year.

He’s ready to be done with it all, he said.

Craig, who typically sports a casual and relaxed professional look, began his career as a planner for a consulting firm, then as a project planner in the governor’s office in the Virgin Islands in Charles County, St. Croix. He also worked for a company that did re-use planning for old school buildings.

He joined the Lawrence County planning staff in 1981.

“Tony Mottle hired me,” he said. Mottle was the director of planning then, and when Mottle left to take a state government job in 1985, Craig advanced into his position.

“Without Tony, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “He was a really good mentor and he’s still a good friend. I learned the ropes from him.”

Craig was the planning director for 16 years, and he traveled to Russia for five weeks in 1995 as a consultant for the city of Rostov on Don.

Read the full story at ncnewsonline.com

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has started the phaseout of a downtown Indiana traffic signal.

District 10 officials in White Township said that the traffic signal at Philadelphia and 11th streets will begin operating on flash mode on Monday at 10 a.m.

A spokeswoman said the signal will flash yellow on Philadelphia Street and red on 11th Street, while stop signs will be placed on the 11th Street approaches.

A flashing yellow light means caution, while a flashing red light has the same meaning as a stop sign.

PennDOT said it will study and monitor the intersection during the flashing operation, in preparation for the removal of the traffic signal in the spring as part of the Philadelphia Street Bridge Replacement Project.

It is a planned $3.9 million replacement of two bridges or culverts, one of which carries Philadelphia Street over Whites Run. The other carries Philadelphia Street, where it is part of state Route 286, over Marsh Run.

Read the full story at indianagazette.com

Before the newly elected Butler County commissioners took office in 2016, they met to agree upon priorities and goals — not only for their local municipalities, but also to elevate the strengths that the rural county brought to the region.

That initial meeting “set the tone” for years of collaboration, said Republican Commissioner Leslie Osche — who works alongside her fellow Commissioners Kevin Boozel, a Democrat, and Kim Geyer, a Republican — and also across county and party lines with Allegheny County’s Democratic executive, Rich Fitzgerald.

“Any one of us could pick up the phone and call Rich,” Mr. Boozel said.

That bipartisan behavior has earned the four elected officials the inaugural Moe Coleman Award, named after the late social worker, public servant and founder of the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute of Politics, who was known for bringing minds together.

Morton “Moe” Coleman died in January at age 86.

“Moe, in his leadership, created a safe space, if you will, where people could have frank discussions and come to agreement and find some common ground,” said Mr. Fitzgerald.

The four leaders will be given the award at a reception Monday in Pittsburgh.

Read the full story at post-gazette.com

Planners have identified 123 road, bridge and transportation improvements needed in southwestern Pennsylvania, and said a list of priority projects — including a handful in Westmoreland County — will be adopted by next summer.

The Southwest Pennsylvania Commission, or SPC, and PennDOT on Wednesday afternoon outlined proposals that could be part of the next four-year transportation improvement plan for the 10-county region.

Among the projects considered are construction of a new ramps to the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Penn and Mt. Pleasant townships, continuation of the long-discussed Laurel Valley connector and major road improvements along Route 30.

Read the full story at Trib Live

Plans were laid out Wednesday for a Hyperloop route between Pittsburgh and Chicago through Cleveland.

The route presented Wednesday is being proposed by Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which has a test track in France and is working on a passenger system between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Most of the proposed route between Cleveland and Pittsburgh would be built 6 to 12 feet underground and mostly on public rights of way near highways.

It would rely on solar energy power and it could move up to 6 million passengers a year. There would be two stations in Pittsburgh — one downtown and the other at the airport. 

The plan is to get a passenger route up and running in India during the next decade, and a route in the United States will likely follow after that.

View the full story at  WPXI.com

We have received an Appalachian Regional Commission POWER Grant worth over $1.4million for the Shale Power project. The project will develop a regional center to provide technical assistance to manufacturers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio that are seeking to expand into the regions burgeoning shale energy sector.

https://www.arc.gov/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=678

Shale Power Project Briefing Sheet

Shady Avenue in Pittsburgh will undergo nearly a year of scrutiny and planning to improve safety on the busy corridor. City officials partnered with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, a regional planning body, to analyze crash data, traffic and amenities along the road.

“It’s a very long corridor, there’s a lot of things that are going on,” said Katy Sawyer, a senior project manager with the city’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure.

Read the full article at wesa.fm

SmartMoves for a Changing Region is the Long Range Plan (LRP) for the 10 county Southwestern Pennsylvania region. SmartMoves establishes the Vision, Goals, and Strategies for the region and also lays out actions and potential implementation partners to advance the goals and strategies, to ultimately achieve the vision. The Regional Vision is a world-class, safe and well maintained, integrated transportation system that provides mobility for all, enables resilient communities, and supports a globally competitive economy. To achieve this vision, the LRP includes a list of projects currently within fiscal capacity and projects beyond the fiscal capacity. Scroll through this application to view the LRP transportation projects.

• SmartMoves Story Map

“Planning for operations” encompasses a variety of activities that planners and transportation system operators collaborate on in order to maximize the efficiency of the transportation system and to ensure that transportation services are delivered in as safe, reliable, and secure a manner as possible. In addition to having many congestion mitigation and system efficiency benefits, planning for operations is required under Federal law.

SPC developed the region’s first Regional Operations Plan (ROP) in
2007. This plan documents the region’s approach to operational
activities and seeks to identify how to optimize the existing
transportation system. SPC provided updates to this plan in 2011 and
2015 and has subsequently mainstreamed the ROP into its Long Range
Transportation Plan (LRTP) process each time.

Statewide operational planning has evolved based on federal guidelines and knowledge development. In 2018, PennDOT developed the Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Guidebook which is the statewide approach used to optimize the operational performance of existing infrastructure. Utilizing this new guideline, SPC updated the ROP in 2019. The seven priority areas identified in previous ROP versions remain in the 2019 update. They are:

• Traffic Signals
• Incident and Emergency Management
• Traveler Information
• Operational Teamwork/Institutional Coordination
• Multimodal Connectivity
• Freeway and Arterial Operations
• Freight Management

With assistance from SPC’s member Planning Departments, PennDOT’s Engineering Districts, the PennDOT Bureau of Maintenance and Operations (BOMO), the ten regional transit operators and other regional stakeholders, the 2019 ROP was completed utilizing a series of workshops over a six month period. Through this collaborative process, the 2019 ROP developed over 60 proposed projects, studies, and initiatives.

This ROP recognizes that three important ways to optimize the existing transportation network are to incorporate intelligent systems, improve management of incidents and events, and encourage modal shift.

• 2019 Regional Operations Plan

It’s not flashy and it doesn’t have any one big employer driving its economy any more, but the Pittsburgh region continues its modest but steady growth, according to newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The data, from the bureau’s latest edition of the American Community Survey, shows that generally in 2018 poverty was down, median incomes were up, and people here continued to have health insurance.

“Obviously it’s good news if poverty is falling and median incomes are growing,” said Guy Faucher, chief economist for PNC Financial Services. “But it’s not dramatic. It’s not like there’s going to be a big driver [of job growth] like they have in tech centers like Seattle or Denver.”

Read the full article at post-gazette.com