The PRT 25 year plan describes options they are looking into. They are considering a trolly extension to Bellevue or Ross. They are also considering a train from new Kensington to downtown using existing AVRR tracks. The Bellevue trolly extension is a phased approach for extension to the airport but given state and federal funding constraints that’s a long long way off. Given the limited funding, an incremental approach to expanding busways is more practical than building long light rail lines because buses can use existing roads beyond the end of the busways while trains can’t. PRT is investing in bus only lanes and traffic signal priority in Oakland as a lower cost effective improvement to the system. There is not a good right of way to use through Oakland and tunneling is very expensive. Light rail needs high density neighborhoods to justify the cost and a lot of neighborhoods dense enough in Pittsburgh already have good transit service. There is already a high volume of buses to Oakland and PRT is looking into more routes that bypass the downtown hub and go directly from suburbs to Oakland. They are also looking into extending the west busway at both ends to improve the speed of the bus from oakland to the airport. I encourage anybody who has an opinion on what Pittsburgh needs should read the report first

https://nextransitdraftplan.blob.core.windows.net/finalplan/NEXTransit%20-%20FINAL-web%209-16-21.pdf