Politicians, environmentalists, engineers and outdoor enthusiasts gathered Friday to kayak through the Highland Park Lock and Dam, a nearly century-old structure on the Allegheny River. Employees with the Pittsburgh District Army Corps of Engineers were on hand to operate the system and answer questions.

“So as you’ll see as you go through, our infrastructure is getting a little bit older,” said the deputy chief of the Pittsburgh district’s operations, Greg Turko. “The locks that you’re about to go through were built in the ‘30s.

Rich Fitzgerald, fresh from a two-hour kayak trip from Springdale to Harmar on the Allegheny River, reflected on the river’s importance for business and recreation.

“It’s important to the whole region,” said the former Allegheny County executive who became executive director of the 10-county Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission at the beginning of the year.

On Friday, three regional organizations and two state agencies — Friends of the Riverfront (Friends), the Port of Pittsburgh Commission (Port of Pitt) and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC), along with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PA Fish and Boat) — jointly hosted an on-river outing for regional elected officials aimed at raising awareness around the Allegheny River’s economic and recreational impact on the region.

Advocates of the Allegheny River hope getting state and federal officials into the water will emphasize the need for more attention and funding for recreation and commercial use on the waterway.

Local, state and federal officials paddled kayaks Friday morning from the Springdale to Harmar marinas, through Lock 3 on the Allegheny River in Plum, in an effort to raise awareness of the river’s economic and recreational impacts in the region.

Elected officials and their staff members paddled their way through Allegheny River Locks and Dams on Friday.

The event was organized by the Friends of the Riverfront, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission and the Port of Pittsburgh.

Some of the elected officials that participated were:

Executive Director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, Rich Fitzgerald, joins Larry Richert in the KDKA radio studio each Wednesday morning.

On this week’s show, Beaver County Commissioner Jack Manning was on to talk about the Hookstown Fair and Big Knob Grange Fair. Westmoreland County Commissioner Doug Chew dialed in to promote the Westmoreland County Fair.

The following is a first-person account from Armstrong County Commissioner Anthony Shea regarding his recent bike trip from Washington D.C. to Pittsburgh:

Shortly after I took office as Armstrong County Commissioner on Jan 2, 2024, I received the news of Armstrong Trails Executive Director Chris Ziegler’s plans to inaugurate a new 10-mile section of the Armstrong Trails from Schenley to Rosston on April 1st.

Despite artificial intelligence rapidly changing the world, one sector has struggled to keep pace — healthcare. A symposium hosted at the University of Pittsburgh today by the Biotechnology Board discussed extensively how the sector can catch up.

Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Anantha Shekhar said that “the pace at which [AI] transforms consumer products versus healthcare is completely different” because of multiple reasons, including higher regulatory standards and data access.

For the past few years, Clark Haynes has been strapping sensors onto bicycles to keep riders safe.

Using some of the same technology that powers driverless cars, the AI-enabled sensors, called Copilot, can detect a potential collision with a vehicle and thwart it by flashing a light or blasting a sound.

The City of Fort Wayne, in partnership with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, recently retained HNTB Corporation to assist with implementing the Midwest Connect Corridor Identification and Development grant.

A collaborative effort to connect Chicago, Fort Wayne, Columbus and Pittsburgh with passenger rail service is gaining momentum with the addition of HNTB Corporation’s expertise.