After more than a year of talking about it, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato yesterday announced a plan to merge the city and county under one government, calling it a “significant and bold” step for the region.

The plan was formally set in motion in October 2006 when both leaders asked University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and a 13-member committee to study the two governments and the results of such mergers elsewhere.

After 17 months of study, looking at places like Louisville, Ky., where the city merged with Jefferson County in 2000, Chancellor Nordenberg issued his report yesterday and concluded that city-county consolidation “is an idea from which good things will flow.”