Frick Park

Our Money, Our Solutions: Big Wins, More to Do

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Special Reports 0
Eagleburger Band plays as the MOC casket is carried to Four Mile Run Field

On June 11, residents of Panther Hollow, Four Mile Run, and Hazelwood gathered with supporters in Panther Hollow to celebrate the demise of the Mon-Oakland Connector (MOC) shuttle road and uplift a new vision of community-centered development in its place.

They marched in a New Orleans-style brass band “funeral” parade along Junction Hollow Trail in Schenley Park, a popular car-free route for cyclists and part of the route the MOC would have taken between Oakland university campuses and the Hazelwood Green development site. The MOC would have permanently degraded the park and commandeered already-limited public spaces in Panther Hollow and The Run. And many Hazelwood residents questioned proponents’ claims that the road was designed to improve their mobility.

But in the face of a campaign to paint concerned community members as anti-progress, simply saying no to the MOC wasn’t enough. Residents and community organizations from all MOC-affected neighborhoods—including Oakland and Squirrel Hill—met several times in 2019 to draft an alternative plan that would improve mobility in their neighborhoods and cost less than the projected $25 million Pittsburgh planned for the MOC. Pittsburghers for Public Transit helped coordinate meetings and organize the plan. Improvements were broken into three categories: pedestrian, transit, and trail/bike.

The Our Money, Our Solutions, or OMOS, plan was the result. The needs it identified were compelling enough that several of them have been addressed since the plan was launched as a petition to City Council.

Completed

  • The Irvine Street and Second Avenue sidewalk audit and replacement with ADA-compliant width and curb cuts from Greenfield Avenue through the Hazelwood business district
  • Weekend service on the 93 (a minimum frequency of once every 40 minutes is still in process)
  • Street resurfacing and traffic calming around Burgwin Rec Center and Burgwin Field

Under discussion/in progress

  • Extend the 75 bus line across the Hot Metal Bridge into Hazelwood
  • Calm traffic on Hazelwood Avenue
  • Create and maintain the Sylvan Avenue corridor as a vehicle-free route for pedestrians and cyclists, managed with an emphasis on forest habitat restoration
  • ADA-compliant sidewalks and street lights on Desdemona Avenue and Imogene Road (Councilor Barb Warwick said she is trying to get this into the budget)
  • Traffic signal priority for buses on Hot Metal and Birmingham bridges
  • Reconstructing the nexus of Saline-Irvine-Second-Greenfield streets, i.e., rethinking the current plan with more direct community input so that improvement does not ease Hazelwood Green traffic at the expense of residents in directly affected areas, particularly The Run

That is a pretty good scorecard for a plan that has never been formally recognized by the city!

Remaining goals

Address widespread traffic safety concerns. These include traffic calming on lower Greenfield Avenue; lighting on Irvine Street; school zone infrastructure around Burgwin Rec Center, Burgwin Field and Propel Hazelwood; building an ADA-compliant sidewalk along Boundary Street in Panther Hollow; and dedicated pedestrian crossing times and signals in the Hazelwood business district.

Improve public transit connections, which are still lacking throughout the area. OMOS asks for electric buses on the 75 bus line and clean bus stops with benches and shelters.

Increase connections for cyclists and pedestrians. Keeping Junction Hollow Trail free of motor vehicles, making it safe for year-round commuting, and extending bike lanes from the trail into Panther Hollow all accomplish this goal without displacing residents or disrupting Schenley Park. OMOS also calls for creating a connection between Junction Hollow Trail and the rest of the park under or over the railroad tracks to Panther Hollow Lake. Similarly, a more modest investment to connect the Duck Hollow Trail over the train tracks to Hazelwood could extend the trail network to Squirrel Hill, Frick Park, and points east. Improving the connection between Hazelwood Green and the Eliza Furnace Trail would make the bike commute between Hazelwood and Downtown much safer and allow bus riders safer access to more routes on both sides of Second Avenue.

Let’s get to work—with each other and our local representatives—on meeting the rest of these needs. Especially now that the MOC is officially “dead!”

This article originally appeared in The Homepage.

Now We Can Has CommUnity Input?

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Special Reports 0
cheezburger cat looming over Swinburne Bridge

After Charles Anderson Memorial Bridge abruptly closed in February, Pittsburghers welcomed Mayor Ed Gainey’s announcement that the city will complete a full rehabilitation—even though it means the bridge will remain closed for a few years instead of the four months originally projected for temporary repairs.

Emily Bourne, a press officer in Mayor Gainey’s office, wrote in an April 13 email, “Charles Anderson design is tentatively set to finish in Fall 2023 with construction anticipated to begin in Spring 2024. Ideally the bridge would reopen to traffic by late 2025.”

Residents of The Run who live around nearby Swinburne Bridge, also scheduled for replacement, have questions about what the new plan means for them. Until the city closed Anderson Bridge, Swinburne Bridge had been on track to be replaced first. The Run was threatened with erasure by the Mon-Oakland Connector (MOC) shuttle road, which Mayor Gainey halted in February 2022. The planned MOC route included a rebuilt Swinburne Bridge with a dedicated shuttle lane.

As the Swinburne Bridge project moves forward without the MOC, Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) has continued its odious track record of prioritizing high-powered profiteers above communities. But the Anderson Bridge closure gives DOMI an opportunity to change course. They should reset the Swinburne Bridge project to include public decision-making—even if that means a short delay.

A tale of three bridges and one dangerous street

The first public meeting about rehabilitating Anderson Bridge hasn’t been scheduled yet, but DOMI has already posted a presentation about it on the project’s Engage Pittsburgh webpage. After the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed in early 2022, Pittsburgh officials told the public to expect limited involvement in the rebuild because of its urgent nature. Even so, artists and residents had time to discuss ways to honor the span’s history and connection to Frick Park.

By contrast, DOMI ignored repeated requests for DOMI’s presentation on plans for Swinburne Bridge until about four hours before the first of only two public meetings on the project. Then project manager Zachary Workman posted a statement denying the requests. DOMI’s community outreach consisted of a letter sent to a few residents who live near the bridge, which they received 10 days before the original meeting date.

At the July 2022 meeting, representatives from DOMI, PennDOT, and private construction firm Alfred Benesch & Company all acknowledged that work on Swinburne Bridge will profoundly affect The Run. A significant portion of the neighborhood—and the only street providing vehicular access to it—lies directly beneath the bridge.

DOMI painted a rosy picture of plans to minimize disruptions to the community, but avoided promising that residents would not have their homes taken through eminent domain. They also avoided any commitment to calm dangerous traffic along Greenfield Avenue.

DOMI ruled out even adding a traffic signal at the intersection of Swinburne Bridge and Greenfield Avenue until after construction on Swinburne Bridge wraps up in 2026 (at the earliest). Residents have been advocating traffic-calming measures along the nearby 300 block of Greenfield Avenue for more than eight years. They face speeding traffic every time they walk between their houses and cars. Several accidents, including some that totaled parked vehicles, occurred there in 2022 alone.

Moving traffic without mowing down residents

Affected residents, commuters, and DOMI all agree that closing Anderson and Swinburne bridges at the same time would cause far-reaching traffic nightmares.

According to Ms. Bourne, “Based on the traffic observed with Charles Anderson being closed, it is apparent that construction cannot begin on the Swinburne replacement project until Charles Anderson has reopened to traffic.”

While Anderson Bridge remains closed, the posted detour includes Greenfield Avenue.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic now provides a brief respite from leadfooted drivers during rush hour, but the rest of the time, they continue to speed.

Whose needs is DOMI serving?

There is no getting around the fact of competing priorities for Greenfield and Hazelwood. Residents need safer streets, while investors in the Hazelwood Green development have long desired a “permanent, rapid link” that moves traffic as quickly as possible between their site and Oakland university campuses. This explains DOMI’s continued prioritizing of MOC-related projects above community needs even after the MOC’s demise.

Taxpayer-funded institutions should be working against such an extreme power imbalance instead of deepening it. We are calling for DOMI to:

  1. Prioritize the physical safety of existing residents by adopting the Our Money, Our Solutions plan. Residents from MOC-affected neighborhoods created the plan in 2019 to point out infrastructure improvements Pittsburgh should be funding instead of the MOC. Several items in the plan have since been addressed—but not traffic calming on Greenfield Avenue.

  2. Follow the public engagement guidelines/demands posted at junctioncoalition.org/2022/07/26/pittsburgh-community-engagement-needs-more-of-both/. These are commonsense provisions like notifying the public of meetings and sharing presentations at least 14 days in advance so that people can come prepared with relevant questions. City officials are aware of these guidelines but have not responded.

  3. Reboot the Swinburne Bridge Project, starting with additional public meetings. The next public meeting is not scheduled to be held until the “final design” phase of the project. Plans established before the first meeting call for a rushed, cookie-cutter design that skipped public input. With work on Anderson Bridge expected to last at least through 2025, there is plenty of time to reassess this approach—and no excuse not to.

Hazelwood Forests Play a Key Role in Pittsburgh’s Future

Posted on April 23, 2022 by Special Reports 0
map of Hazelwood Park

In 2017, Pittsburgh led the way for many U.S. cities by announcing its Climate Action Plan to prepare and protect against effects of climate change. The plan lists urban ecosystems strategies for achieving its goal to “increase carbon sequestration by 100% by 2030.” One of these strategies is to “halt the conversion of forest canopy to development.”

Forests are our best defense against destruction caused by industrial pollution and global warming—and the importance of Hazelwood in Pittsburgh’s plan can’t be overstated.

Links between forests protect more than trees

Besides a high-profile brownfield redevelopment (Hazelwood Green), Hazelwood contains a vital forested corridor that connects two major city parks: Schenley and Frick. The connection supports a variety of wildlife including coyotes; foxes; deer; turkey; hawks; owls; and songbirds such as wood thrush, vireo, tanager, and warbler.

“The more a fox from Schenley Park can reach the population of foxes over in, say, Duck Hollow, the healthier our fox population will be,” Matt Peters, administrative coordinator for Heartwood, an environmental organization, said during a phone interview. “Forest fragmentation leads to isolated animal populations that are vulnerable to disease and inbreeding.”

A compromised or weakened fox population disrupts the ecological balance and can lead to an overabundance of rats and mice. This, in turn, causes an increased chance of diseases jumping from animals to humans, Mr. Peters said.

That’s only one example of how connected, protected forests can benefit all living beings in and around them.

“It’s not just because we like trees,” said Tiffany Taulton, director of outreach and sustainability at Hazelwood Initiative (HI), discussing her work with Hazelwood Greenways Partnership in a phone interview. “This is public health infrastructure.”

Urban forests like Hazelwood’s help improve air quality, an issue that continues to plague Pittsburgh decades after most of its steel mills closed. They also help reduce flooding, mold problems, and heat-related deaths. Ms. Taulton shared a sobering quote from Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists: “In an average year in the U.S., heat kills more people than any other type of extreme weather.”

“People should be able to experience nature and the physical and mental health benefits it provides,” said Ms. Taulton. A connected forest offers the opportunity to “get out, get exercise in a way that reduces stress and lets you travel to other neighborhoods without traffic.”

Our forests are receiving funds and recognition

In December 2021, Pittsburgh City Council voted to make over 300 acres of greenway into parks—a game-changer for Hazelwood forests.

“Designating most of the [Hazelwood] greenway as a park gave it access to the funding and resources parks get,” said Mr. Peters. This includes funding from the city park tax passed in 2019.

The move supports another Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan strategy: “Allocate adequate resources to sustain the public open space system.”

Community volunteers were already hard at work in the greenway. HI, Landforce, Pittsburgh’s City Planning Department, Tree Pittsburgh, and Allegheny Goatscape coordinated in recent years to clean up an area near Elizabeth Street. In 2021 they built a trail loop, planted trees, worked on drainage issues, and used goats to clear invasive plants. Neighbors hit existing trails to remove all types of litter—from shards of glass (a dedicated cleanup organized by Boy Scout Troop 3945) to discarded televisions. In November, these efforts led to the Hazelwood Greenways Partnership placing as a finalist in the United Nations Climate Challenge Cup.

Let’s take Hazelwood forests to the next level

As community members who care about our forests, we can hold the City of Pittsburgh accountable meeting its own management goals for climate preparedness.

Mr. Peters urges a temporary moratorium on development proposals affecting forested lands. He says a citywide evaluation of Pittsburgh forests would help us identify ways to maintain their ecological integrity. 

Such goals need not conflict with economic ones. Ms. Taulton pointed out that the newly designated park in Hazelwood is “an amenity for the entire city, and a nice tourist attraction as well.”

This post, along with many others on this website, was originally written as an article for The Homepage.

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