We’re thrilled to hear that West Virginia University will receive $6.4 million in congressionally directed spending to refurbish the PRT guideway and stations.
The PRT is as much a part of Morgantown’s landscape as WVU itself or the Monongahela River, with its guideways winding around and parallel to the city’s roads. It has been a transportation staple for students and members of the public alike since it first came online in the 1970s. Despite its reputation for constantly being stuck or broken down, as of spring 2023, the PRT was running over 98% of the time. (Likely thanks to a major overhaul to the PRT’s outdated systems in 2018.)
Being an aboveground transit system, though, the PRT is constantly exposed to the elements, and it transports 12,000 on average per day throughout the school year. That’s a lot of wear and tear. So we’re glad to see there will be dedicated work on the system’s structural components to make sure everything is safe and in good shape and the PRT can continue to serve the community for years to come.
