An engineering firm with offices in Columbus has been tapped to join the team trying to restore Amtrak service in the city.

HNTB Corporation will be tasked with planning and development services for the Midwest Connect route, a potential route connecting Pittsburgh to Chicago via Columbus and Fort Wayne, Indiana. The route would include stops in Marysville, Columbus and Newark.

1 Can you elaborate on engineering consultant HNTB’s specific role in the Midwest Connect Corridor ID Grant? How close does this bring us to passenger rail service?

A: The role of HNTB is to help the City of Fort Wayne as the primary applicant and its partners, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) and Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, set up and prepare the scope of work for the Service Development Plan for the Midwest Connect project.

The City has a new partner in efforts to bring a passenger rail service to Fort Wayne.  The project would get federal funds but now has the experience of the HNTB Corporation – a Kansas City-based engineering company to help in the planning work of bringing back passenger railway to Fort Wayne.

Current plans are for the rail service to run from Chicago to Pittsburgh through Columbus and Fort Wayne.

The city of Fort Wayne announced it has gained another partner to try and bring a passenger rail to the community. The city is already partnered with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC.)

The city has now retained HNTB Corporation to assist in executing the Midwest Connect Corridor ID Grant to bring the Midwest Connect Passenger Rail Project to life. The rail would provide passenger rail between Pittsburgh and Chicago, through Fort Wayne and Columbus.

Lower Burrell officials have outlined a plan to make Leechburg Road safer for students, pedestrians, bicyclists and people with disabilities.

The city soon will start projects geared toward pedestrian safety and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance along the city’s main business artery, Mayor Chris Fabry said.

Jarod Trunzo, Executive Director of the Latrobe Community Revitalization Program, joins the Big K Morning Show with Larry Richert to discuss the economic impact of the Steelers Training Camp in Latrobe. Also, Armstrong County Commissioner Anthony Shea dials in from the Great Allegheny Passage on his journey to Washington D.C..

View the full story at audacy.com.

This week, the nonprofit Heritage Community Initiatives celebrated a quarter-century of providing bus service for dozens of eastern Allegheny County communities — and now, its leadership is using a recently completed analysis to make the service better.

Heritage’s bus service currently consists of three main routes covering just over 81 miles, serving several municipalities in the Mon Valley, spanning from Swissvale, Liberty, Wilkins, Monroeville and many places in between. There are 81 stops, and the nonprofit has an annual budget of just over $1 million to operate the system, according to Heritage President and CEO Paula McWilliams.

In the event of a major flood, do you know what to do?

That was a question posed at the Extreme Event Workshop led by the Pennsylvania Silver Jackets on Thursday. Community leaders and stakeholders took part in an hour-long game that challenged them to budget for resources and work with other teams to solve hypothetical problems that could appear during a flooding scenario.

Indiana County’s board of commissioners voted Wednesday to approve a grant agreement and resolution dealing with the future of the Indiana County-Jimmy Stewart Airport in White Township.

The resolution will start the process of turning up to 50 vacant acres into an “Airport Land Development Zone,” while the grant agreement opens up state funding for what Airport Authority Manager Rick Fuellner described as “a big hangar out there (that is) going to attract a lot of business.”

In a continuation of last year’s “Link Up Lawrence” broadband study, Lawrence County is spending $8,400 for a regional funding application with Pennsylvania’s Northwestern Commission.

Federal American Rescue Plan Act funds totaling $244,750 were also previously spent by the county to continue the partnership with Michael Baker International, the engineering firm responsible for “Link Up Lawrence.”