Watch this video to discover a hidden Pittsburgh gem, The Run—and learn about two serious threats it faces. Our neighborhood needs flood relief, not a new roadway running through it and the neighboring public park. 8-10 million roadway dollars are better spent on infrastructure needs left unaddressed for decades in Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Read the alternative plan and sign the petition!
‘Without the 56, I’m at home 24/7’
Cutting the 56 bus would strand some Lincoln Place residents
Editor’s note: This article is the third in a series on how changes proposed in the first draft of the Bus Line Redesign project for Pittsburgh Regional Transit (known as PRT) would affect riders in neighborhoods The Homepage serves.
Most of the Lincoln Place residents interviewed for this article said they no longer ride the bus, either because they work from home or because they found other forms of transportation. But others said they depend on the bus so much, the proposed redesign would change every aspect of their lives for the worse.
A bus line can be a lifeline
Tom Weber, 68, catches the 56 bus on Mifflin Road north of Interboro Avenue.
“Thankfully, the city has a pretty decent bus system that serves 90–95% of my transportation needs,” he said on Dec. 18.
But in the current version of the Pittsburgh Regional Transit redesign plan, the 56 would be eliminated and replacement routes would not serve this part of Lincoln Place. This spring, PRT will publicize a new draft of proposed changes they are calling “draft 2.0.”
Mr. Weber does not own a car and lives on a fixed income. He already walks a steep road to and from the bus stop. The proposed plan would leave him with only one transit option: Walk farther to catch a bus that would not take him to the places he needs to go.
Mr. Weber is always on the move, often riding the bus seven days a week. He volunteers at a church in Homestead. He is deeply involved at the Hazelwood Healthy Active Living Center and spends most weekdays there.
“The only time I don’t come in here [the Hazelwood Healthy Active Living Center] is when I have a doctor’s appointment,” he said. Mr. Weber sees specialists in places as far away as Elizabeth and Jefferson Hills. The 56 allows him to transfer to the routes he needs to get to all his appointments.
“These things are an integral part of my life,” he told me. “Without the 56, I’m at home 24/7.”
Mr. Weber, who said he has a history of depression, credits his busy schedule with keeping him healthy and happy during his retirement. “My involvement here at the center has basically saved my life. I’m able to do so much because my mental health has been so good from being active. It’s a circle.”
The devil is in the data
Laura Wiens, executive director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit, says one reason for the apparent disconnect between PRT’s plan and riders’ needs is the way PRT collected data for its first draft. In a Dec. 16 phone call, Ms. Wiens described the approach as “total amnesia about the system that exists, that people use it — and we have data based on that system.”
Instead of using trips taken on existing bus lines as a starting point for their plan, PRT used cell phone travel data to find the top destinations and origins in Allegheny County. This approach overlooks how people use public transit and cars for different purposes.
“Transit is not a shuttle service,” Ms. Wiens said. “It’s not just drawing a line between places, it’s about connecting people to as many destinations and origins as possible.”
Pittsburghers for Public Transit has been analyzing PRT’s current proposal and has identified changes needed to make a Bus Line Redesign that works for everyone, she said.
First, the changes should increase ridership while recognizing that the people who need public transit most are those who already use it.
“Non-disruption of existing riders needs to be a priority,” Ms. Wiens stressed. That includes avoiding adding transfers to current trips as much as possible. Transfers make trips longer and less reliable, no matter how well-appointed the transit hub is. And for cash users, transfers are more expensive.
In addition, PRT should make the transition simpler for riders by doing less and slowing down.
“It’s impossible for riders to respond [to the plan] because they are doing so much at one time,” Ms. Wiens said. “Since the routes, bus line names, frequencies, and number of transfers are all changing, it’s hard to answer the question, ‘What’s going to happen to my ride?’”
Mr. Weber echoed Ms. Wiens’ comments. “The main reason it’s so confusing is that they’re trying to change everything at once.”
Mr. Weber said he has worked hard to understand the proposed changes, including attending the Hazelwood community meeting.
“This morning I spent an hour and a half tracing routes to find dead spots and consider alternatives. Electric bikes aren’t cheap,” he added.
Similar problems for students
Like others in Greenfield and Hazelwood, Lincoln Place high schoolers use PRT buses to get to school. In Lincoln Place, students have farther to travel to get to schools like Allderdice located across the river. School commutes can go the other way, too.
A school guard who asked not to be named wrote in a Dec. 3 email that the school bus shortage has meant more and more students are riding PRT to school. “I brought this up at a PRT thing in Squirrel Hill and the gentleman said something to the effect of, we can’t plan on or around public school students. [Pittsburgh Public Schools] pays for a lot of those kids to ride the bus, why is their money no good?”
Emily Provonsha, PRT’s manager of service development, said after the Nov. 12 Hazelwood community meeting that PRT had met with school transportation directors from across Allegheny County. PRT asked the schools to share data on where their students travel to and from to reach school so PRT can compare those trips with the transit network.
Help push for a better ‘draft 2.0’
You can review the Bus Line Redesign proposal, get the latest on meetings, and comment to PRT at engage.rideprt.org/buslineredesign/buslineredesign-home. PRT said online comments will remain open until at least Jan. 31.
Pittsburghers for Public Transit is encouraging people to join them in advocating for a Bus Line Redesign that works for all. Visit pittsburghforpublictransit.org/petition-we-deserve-a-prt-bus-line-redesign-that-works-for-us-all/ to read and sign their statement detailing what PRT should do to improve the plan.
“They can get it right in draft 2,” Ms. Wiens said. “But they’ve got to shift some fundamental assumptions.”
This article originally appeared in The Homepage.
Hazelwoodians Tell PRT, ‘We Need the 93!’
After Pittsburgh Regional Transit released the first draft of its Bus Line Redesign project on Sept. 30, Hazelwood resident Tiffany Taulton had one top concern: How will her son and his classmates get to school at Allderdice? The plan eliminates the 93 bus line and replaces it with routes that don’t have stops in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside or Lawrenceville.
“Without the 93 bus, there is no connection to Squirrel Hill that gets [students] to school on time and safely,” Ms. Taulton said on Nov. 13.
On Nov. 12, the agency formerly called Port Authority, now known as PRT, gave a presentation on their new plan to the Hazelwood community meeting — where they heard many similar concerns from Hazelwood residents.
Proposed Hazelwood changes
About 35 people attended November’s monthly meeting in person and, another 20 used Zoom. Emily Provonsha, PRT’s manager of service development, said PRT is in its first phase of getting feedback about the proposed plan. As the weather gets colder, she said, they are planning fewer “pop-up” events in different neighborhoods. But people can still comment online until at least Jan. 31, 2025.
PRT will share another draft of proposed changes they are calling “draft 2.0” with the public sometime this spring. The new draft will incorporate the feedback they are hearing at events and meetings like this one. Stops for the new routes have not been proposed yet.
“One of the changes proposed in the first draft that reflects changes in transit demand after the pandemic is the proposal to discontinue many of the commuter flyer routes,” Ms. Provonsha wrote in a Nov. 14 email. “The ridership on many of the commuter flyer routes remains very low and has not recovered after the pandemic. That being said, we will take another look at this based on public feedback we receive and refer to more recent ridership data as well. In the first draft, given our constraint of having the same operating budget and number of bus operators, we redistributed service hours from the commuter flyer routes and put them into standard bus routes that operate all day, 7-days a week, and this increased trips throughout the midday and on weekends for many of our local bus routes.”
Ben Nicklow, a senior planner at PRT, listed and explained the new routes that would go through Hazelwood: D44, D52, and O53. A fourth route, N94, skirts the edge of Hazelwood. He also mentioned X50, which follows the route of the existing 61C route; and O50, which follows the route of the existing 61D. Those two routes do not go through Hazelwood, but they have stops near Hazelwood and could be reached by transfer.
“You will be able to connect to [X50] through the Waterfront,” Mr. Nicklow explained. “When you need to go somewhere in that service area, even if it looks like it’s not quite in the same travel corridor you do currently, it may come so often that even if you have to transfer it’s a quicker trip.”
Where Hazelwoodians are going
The team from PRT seems to have thought that Hazelwoodians travel to the Waterfront a lot more and to Squirrel Hill (along with other uphill neighborhoods) a lot less than they actually do.
When they took questions from meeting attendees, the questions centered mostly around the need for a direct connection between Hazelwood or Glen Hazel and Squirrel Hill. Attendees wanted one-seat rides to places other than Oakland and the Waterfront. Parents were concerned about their children getting to Allderdice.
Ms. Provonsha told me, “PRT recently held a stakeholder meeting in which we invited school Transportation Directors from all schools throughout the County to discuss their proposed changes and ask them to share data with us on where their students travel from to go to each school, so that we can compare those trips with the transit network.”
“I think they were surprised,” Ms. Taulton commented about the meeting. “I don’t think they realized the 93 was so critical, that people were using it to get to Squirrel Hill so much.”
She uses the 93 to get to work, do light grocery shopping, and get to her mom’s eye doctor, among other places. Hazelwood residents are going to Squirrel Hill not only for the necessities they lack in their own neighborhood, but for connections to the larger community.
Besides grocery stores and banks, Ms. Taulton and several other meeting attendees mentioned Zone 4 safety meetings in Greenfield and the JCC in Squirrel Hill. The JCC has the only pool nearby and offers activities for seniors. They also hold public meetings there.
Mary Bartol, who lives in Hazelwood, commented about the 93 at the Nov. 12 meeting.
“It satisfies every need we have because you can get off in Squirrel Hill to Schenley Park, then into Oakland — then you can go into Shadyside, get off anywhere there.” She said she sometimes visits Bloomfield and Lawrenceville and mentioned the new grocery store being built on Butler Street.
“We’d be lost without it,” Ms. Bartol said.
Lincoln Place PRT riders
Because PRT’s proposed changes are so complex and far-reaching, this article is one in a series. The next article planned is about Lincoln Place. Please email us at junctioncoalition@gmail.com if you want to be interviewed about how the bus line redesign would affect you.
You can review the Bus Line Redesign proposal, comment to PRT, and get the latest on meetings at PRT’s Bus Line Redesign website.
This article originally appeared in The Homepage.
15207 May Be Hit Hard by PRT Bus Line Redesign per Current Proposal
On Sept. 30, Pittsburgh Regional Transit (formerly Port Authority, now known as PRT) released the first draft of its Bus Line Redesign project.
Their proposal completely reroutes many transit lines. It also includes new schedules and new names for all the routes in the system. Because the changes are so complex and far-reaching, this article is the first in a planned series.
As it stands, PRT’s plan contains grim surprises for residents of Greenfield, Greater Hazelwood, and Lincoln Place. Future installments will focus on each of these areas.
Service cuts in parts of Greenfield
PRT’s interactive map shows a hole on Greenfield Avenue, where the 58 bus line now connects Second Avenue with Greenfield and other communities at the top of the steep hill. The redesign appears to merge the 58 with the 65, which now runs between Squirrel Hill and downtown.
As a result, people who live in upper Greenfield and work downtown would be redirected through Oakland. People who live in lower Greenfield and can’t walk up the hill would be cut off from the rest of the neighborhood. Greenfielders, who have long enjoyed the benefits of the neighborhood’s central location, could see their bus commute time double.
“I don’t understand it, why you just keep cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting,” said transit rider William Shorter at an Oct. 21 PRT pop-up event at the Giant Eagle on Murray Avenue. “People need these buses.”
“It would suck,” said Patrick Hassett, who has lived in Greenfield since 1989. “It would suck for me, my elderly buddies, and businesses that depend on transit for their employees and customers.”
Mr. Hassett said he has spoken with proprietors along Greenfield Avenue who are concerned that the route changes will make it difficult or impossible for people to get to their business.
Although Mr. Hassett considers himself a Greenfielder first since his retirement, he earned degrees in planning and transportation and worked for the City of Pittsburgh for 26 years in transportation and development.
When we met on Oct. 9 to review the map, Mr. Hassett identified Greenfield and Murray avenues as the two main commercial corridors that serve Greenfield.
“The most important transit spine is Greenfield Avenue,” he said. “Murray Avenue doesn’t penetrate the neighborhood like Greenfield Avenue does, although its commercial district is important.”
Pittsburghers for Public Transit’s director of communications and development, Dan Yablonsky, said the organization is holding meetings about the Bus Line Redesign every week to better understand what is being proposed and to shape their response.
Prioritizing bus rapid transit
The proposed plan’s effect on Greenfield is the opposite of PRT’s stated goal to “prioritize equitable investment by aligning service with land use and socio-economic changes.”
The source of the disconnect in PRT’s plan may be two-fold: the bus rapid transit model around which the plan is designed, and its “cost-neutral” funding scenario.
Mr. Hassett said bus rapid transit is not a new idea, and other cities like Kansas City and Indianapolis have been using it for more than a decade. Bus rapid transit focuses on connecting employment centers — in Pittsburgh’s case, downtown and Oakland.
“That system requires you to adjust the transit network so that service to the corridor is maximized. What suffers is local service,” he said.
“Right now, the buses filter through Pittsburgh’s many neighborhoods and smaller centers of employment,” he said. “The effect on Greenfield is obvious, but similar problems could occur with Lawrenceville, Squirrel Hill, and South Side [with this plan]. You still get local service, but it is less effective and more tuned to commuter needs. Many of the routes are redesigned to get you to Oakland.”
Mr. Hassett said discussions of bus rapid transit, or BRT, have been percolating in Pittsburgh for over a decade, too, but were previously shelved for competing transit priorities, plus a lack of funding and political support. He questioned whether the model of redirecting commuters to key job centers is an appropriate response to the effects of COVID-19 on transit demand.
“How have they modified the BRT model since the pandemic?” he asked. “You’d think people working from home would require more diffuse neighborhood service, not less.”
PRT’s cost-neutral plan means that the bus rapid transit investments would come at the expense of existing community services. In their Allegheny County Visionary Service report, Pittsburghers for Public Transit encouraged PRT to also consider versions of the Bus Line Redesign where service can grow with funding increases.
The Bus Line Redesign website includes a section imagining they will have 20% more funds. But those funds would not restore eliminated routes in neighborhoods. Instead, they are earmarked for increasing service on the proposed routes and establishing new “microtransit zones” in several neighborhoods including Oakland.
Mr. Yablonsky said, “We didn’t know what to expect, just that the framework they set up was cost-neutral. And like Laura [Wiens, executive director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit] always says, any redesign that doesn’t look at a growth scenario is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”
Help turn this bus around
PRT says they are in the process of gathering feedback from transit users. At the time of this writing, they had scheduled several “pop-up” meetings for mid-October. You can review the Bus Line Redesign proposal and get the latest on meetings at engage.rideprt.org/buslineredesign/buslineredesign-home.
Mr. Hassett encouraged Greenfield transit users to ask themselves how the new routes would affect their ability to get to the Greenfield Giant Eagle, Magee Rec Center, St. Rosalia’s church, and other Greenfield destinations they need to visit. How much longer would the trip take, and how much more walking would be involved to get to the bus stop?
Pittsburghers for Public Transit says their organization is approaching the Bus Line Redesign with caution because of concerns like these. According to their website, their focus is “that PRT should ‘Do No Harm’ with the new design, at the least.”
Mr. Yablonsky invited residents of hard-hit neighborhoods to “organize with their neighbors and join up with [Pittsburghers for Public Transit].” He said the group will hold a Zoom organizing meeting on Nov. 13 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. where they will discuss the proposal and decide what changes to push for. Email info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org for details.
PRT will address the Greater Hazelwood community meeting on Nov. 12.
This article originally appeared in The Homepage.
It’s a Road: What’s Missing from DOMI’s Sylvan Avenue Trail Plan
Plan disregards environmental issues, lacks transparency and needs more public input
At the Aug. 22 public meeting about this project, representatives from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the City of Pittsburgh Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, also known as DOMI, fielded questions about management of stormwater and springs in the project area, landslide prevention, the dangerous intersection at Sylvan and Greenfield avenues, steep inclines on Waldeck Street and along the proposed trail, light pollution from proposed streetlights, landscaping maintenance and invasive plants, and the effects on nearby residents.
These matters are not easily addressed. Yet when attendees asked about them, DOMI project manager Michael Panzitta responded, “That’s a good point” or, “We’re looking into that.” How has DOMI not heard the same resident concerns since 2018, when the Sylvan Avenue Trail was first proposed as phase 2 of the Mon-Oakland Connector shuttle road between Oakland university campuses and the Hazelwood Green development?
Community input
Discussion of this trail began with the Mon-Oakland Connector (MOC) instead of the communities in its path. Public meetings about development and infrastructure projects should focus on dialogue, not checking the “community engagement” box in a rush toward predetermined outcomes. Since 2022, Junction Coalition has been calling on the city to adopt our guidelines for public engagement, including announcing meetings at least 14 days in advance and posting the meeting slides with the announcement.
The city continues to fall short, as well as not following state guidelines for community involvement in greenways outlined in the Pennsylvania Trail Design and Development Principles.
Transparency
The design presented bore a striking resemblance to the MOC. Controversy plagued the plan partly because of dishonest tactics used to force it on affected communities. Opacity was and is its hallmark: inadequate community outreach for public meetings, evasive answers and an unwillingness to clearly define the scope of and intentions behind each phase of the project.
For example, while holding public meetings about the shuttle road in 2018, DOMI hid its grant applications for work on the Sylvan Avenue portion of the road.
Before informing affected communities about the MOC through a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, former mayor Bill Peduto’s administration filed a fraudulent grant application for the project for $3 million and then tried to cover it up, violated the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act, and repeatedly violated PA’s Right to Know law throughout the years-long process of trying to bully the plan through.
The recent Sylvan Avenue Trail meeting presentation did not even include a budget slide. How much money has the Sylvan Avenue Trail received as part of the MOC? How much is budgeted to address the major environmental and safety issues, like an abandoned mine under part of the project area?
Slides showed an unrealistic rendering of the trail with mature plantings to obscure removal of existing trees and gentle slopes instead of cliffs.
Some residents who arrived early said they were told city officials were holding a separate, closed-door meeting with PennDOT before the public meeting.
And according to Mr. Panzitta and Pittsburgh Neighborhood Services infrastructure engagement specialist Jan Raether, this was to be the only public meeting about the Sylvan Avenue Trail.
Unfortunately, this territory is all too familiar. It is obvious to us and others in Greenfield and Hazelwood that, although Mayor Ed Gainey canceled the MOC, DOMI has continued to plan out a buildout of the project.
What’s not missing from the Sylvan Avenue Trail project is red flags that point to a road paved with bad intentions.
Some residents of Greenfield and Hazelwood have organized meetings to discuss the project and reach consensus on an alternative proposal. Reach out to Junction Coalition at junctioncoalition@gmail.com if you are interested in getting involved.
Originally appeared in The Homepage
Transit Report Urges Local Riders to Dream Big and Campaign Hard
Advocates set 2020 transit levels as first milestone but aim to restore 20 years of service cuts
Big changes are coming to public transit in Allegheny County with Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s Bus Line Redesign project. As the public transit agency (formerly Port Authority, now known as PRT) prepares to release a draft of its plans in the coming weeks, Pittsburghers for Public Transit is encouraging riders to advocate for the service they need—and the funding to make it happen.
A vision for better transit
In August, Pittsburghers for Public Transit published a report titled Allegheny County Visionary Service that views the Bus Line Redesign planning period as an “opportunity to reverse the trend of budget and service cuts.”
The Bus Line Redesign will propose four versions of a revamped bus network. They will differ based on levels of funding: cost-neutral, 15% decrease, 10% increase and 20% increase.
According to the transit advocacy group’s report, our region has seen a more than 37% cut in public transportation service over the past 20 years. “That has led to a transit system that doesn’t go where we need it to go, long wait times between buses, and service that doesn’t always run at the times we need it,” the report states.
Against this dismal backdrop, it makes sense that PRT would prepare for more cuts, even though they would be catastrophic for an already gutted system. Redesigning the network with no change in funding would present problems of its own, because some communities would have to lose service to allow others to gain service.
Pittsburghers for Public Transit encouraged PRT to also consider versions of the Bus Line Redesign where the bus network can grow with funding increases. This would still leave much work to be done. Even a 20% increase in service would merely restore the amount of service provided before 2020. Although 2020 levels of transit service fell short of meeting community needs, the report calls for getting back to that level as an important first step.
‘Transit champions’ can help
The Allegheny County Visionary Service report identifies local, state and federal officials pushing to expand funding for public transit including the PRT.
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s transition team in 2022 recommended that the city work with PRT to “make its use easier and more attractive to encourage ridership” (p. 103). Their transition report showed an understanding of the need to improve transit service frequency and expand its hours.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato built her 2023 campaign partly on a platform of improving public transit.
In his 2024 budget address, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called for increasing the state’s public transit funding by $282 million without levying new state taxes. PRT would receive $40 million of these state funds, which would increase their operating budget by more than 7%. In July, an $80 million stopgap was passed from the state’s surplus to the Public Transportation Trust Fund.
Reps. Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio are co-sponsoring the “Stronger Communities through Better Transit Act,” a federal bill that would provide funds to transit agencies of PRT’s size and larger. Allegheny County would receive an additional $175,586,810 in transit operating funding, allowing for up to 37% more service.
These funds could make a huge difference to riders and the whole region.
“It’s not just PRT that needs to hear from people, but also legislators,” Pittsburghers for Public Transit executive director Laura Chu Wiens said during a July 31 phone call.
Another bus line for Hazelwood?
In 2019, residents and organizations in Greenfield, Hazelwood and other communities worked with Pittsburghers for Public Transit to draft Our Money, Our Solutions, an alternative plan listing needed improvements that cost less than the Mon-Oakland Connector’s original $23 million budget.
The Mon-Oakland Connector envisioned a privately-run shuttle from Oakland through Schenley Park, Four Mile Run and Hazelwood to Hazelwood Green. The project, designed to serve university and research interests, was scrapped by Mayor Ed Gainey in early 2022 after years of community outcry.
The city and PRT adopted some items from Our Money, Our Solutions, like additional weekend service on the 93 bus line. Another top transit item, extending the 75 line across the Hot Metal Bridge into Hazelwood, has been under discussion. More transit funds and renewed local support could make the extended 75 line a reality.
It’s an example of what Pittsburghers for Public Transit would like to see happening throughout Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods.
“We hope people will be galvanized by the opportunities from getting more funding and what that would look like, how it could benefit their communities,” Ms. Wiens said.
Traffic-Calming Measures in Greenfield Leave Some Residents in Danger
In the first week of July, Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, known as DOMI, began its traffic-calming project along Greenfield Avenue. Crews installed speed humps and raised pedestrian crosswalks near Magee Rec Center and Greenfield School, and added rumble strips and extensive line painting. They also created a short bike lane that begins just past the 300 block of Greenfield Avenue.
It was a welcome sight for many Greenfielders, whose calls for traffic safety swelled after a car hit and injured a 12-year-old last summer near Magee Rec Center. But residents on the 300 block of Greenfield Avenue report little or no improvement when it comes to speeding drivers, even though they fought to have their area included in the project.
Two Greenfield Avenues
“I’m definitely seeing a complete change in traffic from Rialto’s around to the stop sign [at McCaslin Street],” upper Greenfield resident Annie Quinn said on July 14.
Addy Lord, a close neighbor of Ms. Quinn, agreed. “I think overall it seems as though people are slowing down around Magee,” she said. “Really thrilled about having the raised crosswalk.”
Catherine Adams co-chairs the Greenfield Community Association’s (GCA’s) Planning, Transportation and Development Committee.
“Anecdotally, traffic seems slower where the speed tables have been installed and I feel safer as a cyclist on Greenfield on the section where there is now a bike lane. But there doesn’t seem much of a change in rate of traffic speed or behavior change on the sections where the only treatment was paint,” she wrote in a July 14 email.
“Traffic calming on Greenfield Ave has been a long time coming,” Run resident Marianne Holohan texted on July 11. “We are honestly lucky that no one has died. I want to emphasize [that] more work remains to be done, especially in the 300 block.” Early last summer Ms. Holohan, secretary of the Greenfield PreK-8 Parent Teacher Organization, helped draft a traffic safety petition co-sponsored by the GCA. It garnered 600+ signatures.
An uphill battle continues
Since 2015, lower Greenfield residents have been requesting effective solutions for hazardous conditions on the busy 300 block, where vehicles often travel 40–50 mph. They report seeing frequent car crashes, including the destruction of parked cars.
The stretch is at the center of numerous major commuter routes, but many drivers do not respect it as a residential street. The Anderson Bridge closure detoured traffic to Greenfield Avenue and made the speeding even worse.
After last summer’s petition, public outcry over the child hit by a car, and pushback in response to Pittsburgh’s initial capital budget that left out traffic calming for Greenfield Avenue despite a 44% increase for its traffic safety program, DOMI finally agreed to include Greenfield Avenue — but not the 300 block.
Only additional lobbying from frustrated residents and District 5 City Councilor Barb Warwick convinced DOMI to hold a neighborhood “walk-through” of Greenfield Avenue on March 5 to hear residents’ concerns and witness the dangers for themselves. DOMI agreed to add painted lines on the 300 block but, so far, no physical infrastructure.
Now that the work is complete, 300 block resident Paul Faust told us, “I think what they did with people driving downhill has them driving a little slower, but down [at Swinburne Bridge], as soon as [drivers] get past those rumble strips and curve they hit the gas. They floor it and are going 45 mph. At the least, they should put in a speed hump.”
The speed hump and raised crosswalk clustered together near the former St. Rosalia school are too far away to slow traffic where he lives, Mr. Faust said.
In a July 14 email, Greenfielder Ben Yogman praised the work in Upper Greenfield but wrote, “The absence of any marked crossing at all for residents of Tunstall Street and the 300 block is completely unacceptable. The danger here was highlighted at the start of the neighborhood walking tour with DOMI but they didn’t communicate that they were not including a crossing in their plan.”
On July 11, BikePGH advocacy manager Seth Bush took another walking tour with Junction Coalition to view and analyze DOMI’s traffic improvements.
“Unfortunately, cars [are] driving right over the paint on Lower Greenfield and zipping through just as fast as ever,” Mr. Bush observed. “There really isn’t any change. The bike lane helps slow folks down further up the hill, but drivers are ignoring the treatments otherwise.”
Mr. Bush said he believes some type of physical infrastructure is needed to make the 300 block safer.
Residents have discussed ways of slowing down traffic until city officials follow through on equitable traffic-calming measures, including installing their own.
The Department of Mendacity and Inequity
Greenfield Avenue’s 300 block needs traffic calming now
Residents along Greenfield Avenue’s 300 block were fed up with dangerous conditions on their street. Speeding vehicles and crumbling infrastructure caused wrecks and injuries, countless near-misses and a constant fear for children’s safety. Years of pleading with city officials to address the hazards went unanswered, so residents organized a protest. They brought their porch chairs and lined up across both lanes, shutting down all traffic on Greenfield Avenue. It was 1948.
Residents’ direct action that day caused officials to show up within two hours, repair the infrastructure and commit to policing speeding drivers. One of the organizers, Julia Grezmak, was my grandmother. Seventy-six years later, living on the block and experiencing these dangers every day, my neighbors and I feel the same frustration and outrage.
Past becomes present
Today’s city officials are inflicting the same disregard on current residents. In the last decade, numerous legally parked cars on the block have been totaled. Clipped mirrors, sideswipes and other damages by hit-and-run drivers are commonplace. Worse, residents’ and pedestrians’ physical safety is at risk 24/7. Weekly near-misses that could cause severe injury or death take a mental and emotional toll.
The critically unsafe conditions on the 300 block are well-documented, but the city continually ignores our urgent, legitimate concerns.
Since 2014, we have been requesting traffic safety measures. In 2017, we began calling for the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, known as DOMI, to meet with us onsite to witness the danger, discuss solutions and schedule resident-approved fixes.
A 2023 petition drive demanded DOMI address three areas of Greenfield Avenue needing traffic safety improvements. The city recently committed to addressing two of them, both in upper Greenfield. The 300 block, a notorious danger zone, was included in the petition. But — incredibly — DOMI left it out of Greenfield’s hard-won traffic-calming plan.
DOMI hedges as conditions worsen
My neighbors and I are furious at again being ignored while living on the most treacherous stretch in the neighborhood. This persistent, purposeful neglect over years amounts to abuse.
Since the closure of Anderson Bridge over Schenley Park, speeding has gotten worse as impatient commuters are detoured from both directions onto Greenfield Avenue. More than ever, crossing the street or exiting a parked car is a life-or-death game of chance.
DOMI’s single proposal: a four-way traffic light at Swinburne Bridge. They won’t install it until after completely rebuilding the bridge, an extensive project that can’t even begin until work on Anderson Bridge ends. A traffic light could make the intersection at the bridge safer, but will do nothing to curb speeding on the 300 block.
Once past that intersection, eastbound drivers floor it, reaching 40-50 mph on the 25-mph residential street. Westbound drivers would have a clear path to speed downhill until reaching the bridge. A traffic light would accomplish nothing for safety on the 300 block.
DOMI has responded to our concerns and proposed traffic-calming solutions for the block with a mixture of arrogance, indifference and dismissiveness. After we confronted them at several public meetings, they said, “DOMI is aware of dangerous traffic conditions along Greenfield Avenue that led to repeated requests for traffic-calming measures … It’s in the long-range plans as resources become available.”
Resources are available… for now
Pittsburgh’s approved 2024 capital budget includes a 138% increase for traffic-calming measures, which amounts to $877,744 in additional funds. Residents’ ideas for solutions are chump change in this context. We have offered to provide the labor for installation to prevent delay and save taxpayers’ money.
If there is no traffic calming along the 300 block in 2024, the city may not fund it for years — or at all. At a public budget meeting on Oct. 4, city representatives projected a severe drop in revenue after 2024. They said the 2025-2027 budgets will be tight.
Representing corporate interests
We believe DOMI’s targeted refusal to address basic public safety needs stems from the wishes of private developers.
The foundations that own Hazelwood Green, along with CMU and Pitt, joined forces in the development plan through a public-private partnership announced in 2015. The Remaking Cities Institute’s 2009 “Remaking Hazelwood” report baldly stated their infrastructure goal: to move traffic as quickly as possible between Oakland and Hazelwood. Their report also advanced the controversial Mon-Oakland Connector, rejected by a multi-community coalition and canceled by Mayor Ed Gainey on Feb. 17, 2022.
These developers want infrastructure designed for their project rather than the safety of residents and pedestrians. It’s our public servants’ job to correct the power imbalance.
The city has publicly acknowledged that the 300 block qualifies for traffic safety improvements but chooses to prolong the danger and consciously disregard our personal safety. One neighbor dubbed it “vehicular terrorism.”
Direct action needed
If the Gainey administration is authentically committed to equitable traffic safety, they should put our money where their mouth is. After 76 years, the equitable thing to do would be to address unsafe conditions on lower Greenfield Avenue, now, before the next severe injury or fatality.
Residents on the 300 block are taking a stand. Unless DOMI commits to addressing our traffic hazards in 2024, we will implement our own safety measures to slow down drivers. It should not take causing an epic traffic jam to force officials to take adequate steps, but it might be the only way. I’m certain my grandmother would approve.
A Neighborhood Changed Forever: The Parkway East and Four Mile Run
Carol Rizzo Hopkins, 81, lived in Four Mile Run until moving to upper Greenfield at age 14. She clearly remembers a network of trails on the hillside. “Everywhere was a path, and we walked everywhere—Schenley Park, Squirrel Hill, Beechwood Boulevard, Magee Swimming Pool. We could be anywhere in two minutes.”
“Growing up in The Run was the best time of my life,” she told me during an in-person interview in December. “It was like a little village for us.”
But the Parkway changed all that. Now, as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (known as PennDOT) gets started on plans to improve the Parkway East Bridge over Four Mile Run, residents face the prospect of history repeating itself.
On Dec. 1, District 5 City Council member Barb Warwick posted on Facebook that PennDOT is conducting a feasibility study to explore their options for fixing or replacing the six-span bridge.
One option the department is considering involves building a new bridge beside the existing one — similar to their plan for the Commercial Street Bridge on the other side of the Squirrel Hill Tunnels. PennDOT would destroy the existing bridge and move the new bridge in to replace it. Using this method in The Run might shorten closure time on the Parkway East, but it may displace households near the bridge.
Two neighbors, Judy Gula and Ms. Hopkins, witnessed the original construction of the Parkway East bridge from 1949 to 1952.
Life in the Parkway’s shadow
Ms. Gula, 76, has lived in The Run her entire life — just like her father did. In her earliest memories, the Parkway was already under construction.
“We used to roller-skate on the Parkway before it was finished,” she recalled during an interview in December. “Kids rode their bikes and played up there. The construction workers would give us their empty pop bottles and we’d fight over who got them.”
Neighborhood children exchanged those bottles for two cents at Mary Kranyak’s candy store on Saline Street.
Even after the Parkway opened, non-vehicular traffic continued for a time. Locals used it in ways people might find hard to imagine today.
“My dad and I would walk up to the Parkway to watch cars,” Ms. Gula said. “It was always backed up, even then.” As high school students, she and her friends would “walk the Parkway” to get to Allderdice.
Ms. Gula grew up in the shadow of the Parkway and with shadows of what it replaced. A school behind the apartment building where she lived was torn down, but she isn’t certain whether that was because of construction.
“My mother said there were steps from [The Run] to the Bridle Path [in Schenley Park] that were taken away by the Parkway,” Ms. Gula recalled.
She also remembers older relatives remarking how much quieter the neighborhood had been before the Parkway. Along with the wall of noise produced by speeding cars and trucks, the road brought other problems that continue into the present.
“We used to get all the water from the Parkway down here,” said Ms. Gula, who lives in the eastern part of The Run near the end of Saline Street. “Water used to come up to my [front] gate.”
About five years ago, crews added large rocks to slow water down in the area at the end of the street and behind the building colloquially known as “the pump house.” Ms. Gula says that has helped.
“It just destroyed us”
Ms. Hopkins’ grandmother, who lived on Naylor Street, had a small farm in the field beneath the Greenfield Bridge. The family’s seven children, including Ms. Hopkins’ father, took turns walking their cow to a nearby field to let it graze. By the time Ms. Hopkins came along, her grandmother no longer had the cow, but she still raised chickens.
The field near the pump house where the cow once grazed served as the local playground until Parkway construction began.
“They put all their equipment on our playground,” Ms. Hopkins said. She described large, hollow cylinders that looked like pipes wrapped in metal coils.
“I broke my arm,” she recalled. “I was running at nighttime, and I tripped over a coil lying on the ground. We couldn’t play there anymore.”
Of the displaced families and businesses, Ms. Hopkins remembers three in particular: the Marbella family, a market called Husky’s, and her friend Peggy. Peggy’s family lived in a stylish house with a lot of latticework.
“That’s where a pillar is now,” Ms. Hopkins said.
Ms. Hopkins and her friends and cousins from The Run still talk about the experience of having a highway carved through their idyllic neighborhood. “It affected us kids, and I’m sure the grownups,” she said. “People had cracks in their walls [from the construction] they had to fix.”
Follow this project
Councilmember Warwick encouraged people to sign up for notifications from PennDOT about the bridge project as it moves forward. She said the PennDOT team expects to have the first public meeting on its feasibility study in mid to late summer of 2024. Until then, she promised to include any new developments in the District 5 newsletter and the Facebook page for The Run.
Visit PennDOT’s project page for the feasibility study at http://tinyurl.com/Parkway-East-4-Mile-Run to see more details and instructions for getting project notifications. Visit the District 5 newsletter webpage at https://pittsburghpa.gov/council/d5-newsletters to sign up for monthly emails.
New Playgrounds for The Run, Greenfield School
by Marianne Holohan
It’s been a good year for playgrounds in Greenfield. The rebuilt playground in The Run is finally open and a playground at Greenfield School is moving forward.
This fall, new playground equipment was finally installed in The Run. The City worked with neighborhood residents—including children—to design the new playground, which features more climbing options than the previous design.
Replacing the playground became a priority after a neighborhood girl was seriously injured due to rusty play equipment. This playground is a favorite among local kids, who like the fact that the parkway bridge shields them during rain, extending playtime.
At Greenfield School, the unsightly paved lot that has doubled as a play yard will become home to the first Community Schoolyard in Pittsburgh. A project of the Trust for Public Land, Community Schoolyards turns neglected public school play spaces in cities across the country into environmentally friendly, green play spaces that also double as outdoor classrooms. TPL worked with the Western PA Conservancy to launch the project at Greenfield School.
The partnership unveiled their design for the new schoolyard in September. It will feature traditional playground equipment along with a track, basketball hoops, new trees, and green spaces. TPL worked directly with students to design the schoolyard, which will be open to the community outside of school hours. Construction is slated to begin in summer 2024.
These new playgrounds have been hard-won, with residents advocating for them persistently over many years. They are a positive example of what’s possible when the City and nonprofit organizations invest in our communities’ future.
District 5 Residents Voice Priorities for 2024 Budget
On Oct. 24, about 60 Pittsburghers gathered at the Pittsburgh Firefighters Local in Hazelwood for a budget engagement meeting with city officials. It was the final meeting in a series of five throughout the city to get feedback on the preliminary budget Mayor Gainey’s office is proposing for next year.
Budget basics and a high-tech twist
Patrick Cornell, chief financial officer of Pittsburgh’s Office of Management & Budget (OMB), presented the city’s process for creating budgets and finalizing them with community feedback throughout the year.
Mr. Cornell also explained the difference between operating and capital budgets and went over broad highlights of the real 2024 budget. These included increased funds for keeping bridges and roads safe and maintaining community assets like rec centers.
He invited attendees to try creating an imaginary $1 million budget using a budget simulator. A separate feedback tool on the city’s website, Balancing Act, lets users submit their ideal capital and operating budgets.
When asked if the city has a process to use feedback from the budget simulators, Mr. Cornell said he introduced them as a pilot program this year so there is no formal process yet, explaining they would need to create a citywide campaign and leave the simulators open for longer.
Residents share their priorities
In the second half of the meeting, attendees circulated around the room, talking to representatives from city departments.
The Greenfielders we interviewed all named traffic calming on Greenfield Avenue as an urgent priority. The budget includes a 44% increase in funding for traffic calming projects, but Greenfield Avenue was not selected.
“We have no school zone,” Eric Russell said. “The cars on Greenfield Avenue go extremely fast. That’s where the Rec Center is, the playground.”
“You go to Squirrel Hill or Shadyside; I’ve seen so much traffic calming there, but nothing in Greenfield,” he added.
Anna Dekleva, organizer of a recent protest demanding traffic calming on Greenfield Avenue, wrote in an Oct. 25 text that department representatives did not provide a lot of specific guidance.
DOMI’s representatives seemed unaware of a petition for traffic calming the Greenfield School PTO and Greenfield Community Association submitted to them over a month ago, she said.
“[District 5 Councilmember] Barb Warwick is a tremendous ally and committed to this concern and through her partnership I see the most capacity to change on this issue now,” Ms. Dekleva added.
Other attendees’ priorities revolved around people, housing and green spaces.
Saundra Cole-McKamey of Hazelwood said her top priorities are “more funding for youth and senior programs, more money for low-income housing, more money for the food justice fund and grassroots organizations.”
Teaira Collins of the Hill District emphasized fixing the crosswalk signs on Second Avenue and affordable housing built to suit children with disabilities. “I had to move out of Hazelwood for one reason: no tub. My son has Down syndrome and sensory issues; he can’t take showers.”
Jazmyn Rudolph of Mt. Washington said, “There are a lot of vacant lots, so it
would be great if we could use those for youth to learn about farming.”
“I want them to build a playground down below the tracks,” commented Hazelwood resident Bob White. “There used to be one on Blair Street that was there when I was a kid.”
You can find the preliminary budget and simulator tools at https://engage.pittsburghpa.gov/2024-city-pittsburgh-budgets.
Juliet Martinez co-wrote this article, which originally appeared in The Homepage.
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