Bike Lanes on Two County Bridges a Bad Idea

Earlier this month, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced that two County-owned bridges -- the 6th Street Clemente Bridge and the Phillip Murray South 10th to the South Side -- would have bike lanes installed in each direction on them.  The lanes would be 5 foot wide with a 3 foot buffer between vehicular traffic.  In theory, this is a great idea.

In reality, it's awful.  These bike lanes, one in each direction, will take away one lane of vehicular traffic as well.  So each bridge will be turned into a one-lane bridge in each direction. What this will do is cripple the ability of these bridges to do their primary function of moving vehicular traffic during peak periods.

As much as bike advocates would like you to believe that cars and bikes are equally important, they are not.  Roads and bridges are primarily for motor vehicles.  Their secondary function is for bikes and pedestrians.  The two can co-exist, but it's not an equal partnership.

Roads are like the human body's blood vessel system.  Certain roads are arteries and veins and have to push a lot of blood through; certain roads and bridges are the same and have to push a lot of vehicles through.  If there is a blockage or bottleneck, neither system will work and will eventually fail.

There is a big push to make Pittsburgh more bike-friendly and these bridges are part of that expanded network.  That's great, but it can't come at the expense of vehicles.  I predict that the Clemente Bridge experiment will fail and will be quietly modified in a few years.

The Dawning of the Bill Peduto Era

Monday saw the inauguration of Bill Peduto as the new Mayor of Pittsburgh.  Although I'm not a City resident, I feel a sense of relief that the lassitude associated with the outgoing Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has been lifted.

Peduto may lean a little bit towards the policy wonk side at first glance, but what he brings is passion and a love for Pittsburgh.  He's ready to jump into the position and doesn't have that deer-in-headlights aura that Ravenstahl had after taking over for the deceased Bob O'Connor.

There's also a sense of harmony and team building between not only the Mayor and County Executive Rich Fitzgerald (which didn't exist previously), but also with the Mayor and City Council (which also didn't exist previously) now that Peduto ally Bruce Kraus is President of Council.  Peduto should be able to get things done with Council, as his allies (6) outnumber his enemies (3).

What Peduto has is vision.  One of my favorite quotes is "Vision is seeing things not as they are, but how they can be in the future".  That's what Peduto does.

Things are going to get done in Pittsburgh.  Whether it's something relatively easy like loosening rules on food trucks to modernizing public transportation (probably with Bus Rapid Transit, should be Light Rail Transit) to re-developing new neighborhoods in the City, Peduto will attempt to get it done.

The Hazelwood zone has always been an area of great interest to Peduto, so we'll see how hard he pushes that right off the start.  I imagine that the North Side, with the Garden Theater project soon to start, will be the next hotbed of re-development, like East Liberty and Lawrenceville before.

These are exciting times for Pittsburgh, mostly because there is once again a captain steering the ship.

The Fountain at Point State Park Is Spraying Again

If Pittsburgh had a symbol, what would it be?  The Monongahela and Duquesne inclines?  The three rivers themselves?  A folding chair holding a parking spot?

All good choices, but I think the answer for me would be the Fountain at Point State Park.  The Golden Triangle is set off by this majestic fountain spraying high in the air to frame every aerial shot you see of the City.  Since 2009, the Fountain has been out of service for intense repairs, but it re-opened last week at the start of the Pittsburgh Arts Festival.

As per the Wiki link above, the Fountain has been rehabbed at a cost of $9.6 million.  People at the Arts Festival, when we went on Sunday, were glad to see it back in service.  Although it's been gone so long that people were apparently confused and thought it was a communal Lazy River to jump in with their clothes on and wade around.  I felt like we were at the Ganges River in New Delhi.

The Fountain is served by the mysterious "fourth river" of Pittsburgh, which is actually an underground aquifer that feeds many of the wells in the region and originates all the way up in Moraine State Park.  It is said that it takes water 40 years to travel in the aquifer from Moraine to the Allegheny, so enjoy that vintage 1973 water if you see the refurbished fountain this year.

Back in the 90's, I believe if my recollection is correct, there was a pie-in-the-sky idea to run a cable car from Mount Washington down to the Fountain's end of Point State Park.  In addition to being tacky in general, I always felt that would have taken away from the simple beauty of Point State Park and the Fountain.

You don't miss something until it's gone.  Then you really appreciate it when it comes back.  Good to have you back, Fountain.

Pittsburgh Public Market Makes the Most of a Bad Situation

Today it was announced that the Pittsburgh Public Market, now in the far end of the Produce Terminal in the Strip, would be moving to an all new space on Penn Avenue this summer.  This move is in response to the wrong-headed decision by Buncher Development to tear down part of the Produce Terminal in order to build an office park along the riverfront.

The new location is at the 2400 block of Penn Avenue and is a much larger space with more reliable heating and cooling than the present location.  The Produce Terminal on Smallman Street was a little bit of an awkward location, as the vast majority of foot traffic occurs on Penn Avenue.  But with this move to the 2400 block, the new Public Market is 2 blocks away from the "end" of the shopping zone (Penn Avenue Fish Company and the Polish Deli).  Will the foot traffic walk 2 blocks past Bar Marco/Firehouse Farmers' Market to get to the Public Market?

The heart of the Strip on the weekends, from Wholey's to the 2200 block of Penn Avenue, gets quite congested.  By lengthening the zone, will this make the situation better or worse?  If the pedestrian traffic continues to thicken, the day may come where Penn Avenue should be considered to be pedestrian-only in the shopping zone on the weekend mornings/afternoons.

It will be interesting to see if Bill Peduto is elected Mayor of Pittsburgh in May (no Republican stands a chance in November historically).  Peduto is very food truck friendly and it would make sense for food trucks to congregate in the Strip on the weekends.  It would be very realistic to shut down Penn and set up the trucks right on the street, making the Strip even more of a destination.

Trunks, Hot Dogs, and Chili

Saturday was a day where we kinda sorta had an idea of what we wanted to do, but no definite timelines.  DB~ got an e-blast from Construction Junction about some storage trunks they got in, so we wanted to get down there early on Saturday before they all got sold.  We also knew that we wanted to check out a chili cook-off in Swissvale to support her not-really-a-blood-relation uncle Paul.  But in between we were just going to wing it.

We got to Construction Junction at 9:15 and there was still one trunk left to buy.  DB~ will strip it and re-stain it, so that will keep her busy and off the mean streets for a little bit of time.  We wandered all throughout the warehouse and saw some cool things; DB~ was making a mental checklist of future Pinterest-inspired projects and what she could scavenge from here.  We spotted some old slate roof tiles -- 10 in a bundle for $8 -- and thought they would be cool to use as menus for when guests come for dinner.  We'll just write the menu in chalk on them.  Then DB~ had the really good idea of putting some felt on the bottom and using them as serving trivets, as well.

After we walked out of the Junction, I suggested we should check out the East End Food Co-Op, as neither of us had ever been there.  It was right down Penn Avenue from the Junction in a (presumed) renovated factory called... The Factory.  We didn't realize the Co-Op was on the complete other side, so we drifted all throughout the Factory following the array of signs directing us until we got outside and went around the block.  The East End Co-Op is like a less pretentious Whole Foods.  Lot of dirty hippies and earthy-cool-urban-dwelling parents and kids.  We got this awesome quinoa/kale/lemon prepared salad and couldn't wait to try it.

Since we were right down the street from Station Street Hot Dogs, I suggested that we hit that up for lunch.  DB~ had never been there so she agreed.  Showed up and who was working the line?  Kevin Sousa himself.  Nonchalantly tossing hot dogs together like he's a freshly hired newbie.  He was probably going to leave there and pop in on Union Pig and Chicken before prepping for dinner service at Salt of the Earth.  He may be a cyborg.  Not sure.

I had a Hawaii Dog (pineapple salsa, soy sauce, bacon), but DB~ made the choice of the day with a Falafel.  It had julienned carrots, diced cucumbers, a light application of tahini, and perfectly fried falafel -- not heavy at all.  It was wrapped in a tortilla-pita hybrid.  As it was only a "special", there's no guarantee it will be there when we go back.

At times, I'm a little socially awkward.  At times, DB~ is a little socially awkward.  Everything is fine when at least one of us is 'normal', but then you have lunch at Station Street.  Because we wanted to try our quinoa/kale salad, we felt weird about bringing outside food into Station Street.  So we decided to get it to go and eat in the car....except I parked in the front row where we would be looking into the restaurant as the patrons look at us through the large glass windows.  Solution -- drive next door to the Target and park in their parking garage...while situating the car to look at Station Street.  Urban picnic!

We stopped by to see DB~'s East End dwelling aunt for an hour and then headed to the Chili Cook Off at Pub in the Park.  It was located in....Swissvale?  Maybe?  I think?  It's pretty rare that I'm out of my element in the confines of Pittsburgh and its environs, but this was one of those cases.  I have never been to this part of town before in my life.

DB~'s kinda-sorta uncle was the frontrunner to defend his 2-time chili champ crown at the prestigious Chili Cook Off.  He asked his friends and family to essentially come and stuff the ballot box for him in his quest for a 3rd straight title.  SPOILER ALERT! -- He won again.

Pub in the Park is a neighborhood bar (literally...it's surrounded by row houses) that is a hit with locals and others who drive a bit to hang out here.  It's a no-frills place that still hasn't joined the 2000's yet by accepting credit cards.  But they did have 25 different crockpots of chili to sample.  Her uncle's Baby Back Ribs Chili was very good, but truth be told my favorite may have been a Chicken Cheese Chili that was kind of a cross between chili and mac and cheese.  There was also a good Lasagna Chili, a Pork Shoulder Chili, and a Hickory Smoked 3 Meat Chili.

All in all, it was a very fun day that wasn't planned down to every minute of the day.  Otherwise known as a day kind of foreign to me.

Market Square Holiday Market

On Sunday, DB~ and I went down to PPG Place to check out the Wintergarden Santa display.  On our way over we passed through Market Square and saw the European-style Holiday Market set up in the square.  It consisted of about 10 "sheds", for lack of a better term, that each held a different vendor.

There were vendors selling ornaments, vendors selling hats, vendors selling food, and other vendors selling jewelry.  With a little bit of a chill in the air and some German music and dancing on the stage, you could pretend that you air dropped into Munich.  Sort of.  The Holiday Market is running through December 23rd, so there's still a good three weeks left to check it out.

After the Market, we walked over to the ice rink at PPG Place and watched a packed rink of patrons skating around the rink.  Even though, it was still November, it sure felt like Christmas was right around the corner to us.

The Tower at PNC Plaza

When I was off last Friday and downtown for some meetings, I wandered past the construction site for the new PNC tower known officially as The Tower at PNC Plaza.  Even on my off day, I was drawn to watching the construction going on at the site.

The site has been excavated to approximately 50 feet deep and caissons have been drilled for the proposed foundation mat.  When completed the 30 story skyscraper is being billed as one of the "greenest" skyscapers in the nation.  The green technologies being considered are geothermal wells and a solar chimney (no idea what that is) to reduce carbon emissions, rain gardens and water reuse systems to re-use water, and state-of-the-art heating and cooling techniques based on occupancy of rooms.

The architect firm for the building, Gensler out of San Francisco, is the same firm that designed PNC 3 next door to the site.  There are some faint similarities between the two buildings in terms of the tinted glass and floor plans, but The Tower at PNC will stand alone on its own merits.  The Tower is scheduled to open in 2015.

I was wondering if Pittsburgh is on the same path with PNC and UPMC as they were with steel companies in the past.  If those businesses fail or move or significantly downsize, will Pittsburgh experience the same prolonged morass as they did with the failure of the steel industry.  Are we (as a city and region) putting too much faith in these two companies?  I would like to think that the region is more diversified in 2012 than they were in 1982, but you never know.

Food Truck in Pittsburgh - Novel Concept

I've mentioned many times how great of a food scene there is in Pittsburgh right now.  You have restaurants that match up against restaurants in any of the food meccas in the United States.  But what has been severely lacking has been the mobile food truck.

The majority of the problem are the legal and outdated roadblocks that currently exist in Allegheny County.  This article from the Post-Gazette explains the issues well, especially the "can't stay parked more than 30 minutes" part.

However, there may be a fissure forming in the dam holding back food trucks.  In August, the Pittsburgh Taco Truck (not the most imaginative name) will be rolling around the city and the surrounding environs selling a wide variety of tacos, including vegetarian options, and an interesting grilled cheese type of item called a planchado.

On their website, the Taco Truck folks mention some of the other food trucks in the City and highlight 5, including 3 of them that don't move anywhere.  That's not a true food truck; that's a restaurant that has the ability to move in an emergency.  Portland has 5 food trucks on one block (if not more), probably.

Regardless, it is great to see a mobile food truck on the scene.  Selling tacos is probably one of the easier, less labor-intensive ones to start with and tacos have mass appeal.  I know I will be following their progress and picking something up as soon as they come on the scene.

Burgh Bits Food Tour - Brookline

For Christmas, my brother-in-law got me a gift certificate for a company called Burgh Bits Food Tour.  What they do is give guided tours to five different neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh -- Strip District, Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Dormont, and Brookline.  DB~ and I frequent the Strip often and are familiar with the other neighborhoods, so we picked Brookline as our trip.

Yesterday was our tour date and we met our guide, Corey, at Pitaland on Brookline Boulevard.  Corey is a current grad student at Chatham University completing his degree in Food Studies.  His goal is to become a food writer and travel, sharing his love of food and writing.

Our first stop (of 7 places on Brookline Boulevard) was inside Pitaland, where we met the owner who introduced himself as "Joe".  We went to the backroom and observed the pitas being made, at a rate of 2000/hour on a simple yet elaborate conveyor belt system.  The dough is squeezed out and pressed automatically and then "flash-baked" inside a 1200 degree oven for probably a total of 1 minute.  The yeast instantly puffs up, then the pita is conveyed around a belt system and cooled down to its typical flat-looking pattern.

Pitaland has been in its current location since 1990, but they have been making pitas since 1974.  They are now supplying most of the restaurants in the City with pitas.

Our next stop after sampling some pitas, feta, and olives, was Kreibel's Bakery.  We were greeted (and given samples, a staple at all stops on the Burgh Bits tour) by a nice young girl that told us the bakery had been in some existence of ownership as a bakery since the 1930's.  We tried two of their special cookies and the girl, a theatre studies major at Duquesne, told us how they ship their cookies all the way to Alaska.

The third stop was to Las Palmas, a Mexican groceria.  They now have started selling street tacos out on Brookline Boulevard.  I knew that we had a bunch of other things to eat, so I resisted but hoped I could get one at the end of the tour.  Most of the products in the groceria were in Spanish.  The butcher/meat section is the highlight of Las Palmas, with great cuts of meat and blends.

After that we went to another bakery called Party Cake Bakery, another long-standing bakery in the area.  We were greeted by another perky girl who said she had been working there for 8 years and "would never leave because her bosses were so great to work for."  We had to-go bags waiting for us to add to our piles.

As an interlude, after Party Cake we went to Sal's Barbershop to talk with the son of the original owner.  The barbershop had pressed tin ceilings and great pictures of the barbershop throughout its history on the walls, along with antiques collected over the years.

The next two stops were two new businesses on the Boulevard, Vinnie's Pretzel Shop and Antonio's Pizzeria.  Vinnie was a retired teacher from Philly, so I didn't hold that against him.  He had branched out from just pretzels and was doing speciality little sandwiches and pretzel-themed treats.  Antonio's Pizzeria brought out a whole pizza for us to sample.  The others on our tour ended up taking the remainder home to eat.

Our final stop on the tour was Cannon Coffee.  The owner, Nathan, came from Albuquerque six years and set up the business in Brookline because of the potential diversity of the neighborhood.  We learned about all the different ways to roast and press a coffee bean, including sampling two different coffees.  Then Nathan brought out at least 6 different varieties of teas -- black teas, green teas, herb blends.

Trying all the different pretzels, baked goods, coffees, teas were great, but it was speaking to the owners and hearing their stories that was the best part of the day.  Brookline was a neighborhood that we didn't know much about before Saturday, but it is now one that we will be back to visit soon.

If you have the opportunity to check out Burgh Bits, whether you are new to the city or a lifelong Pittsburgher, we highly recommend going on one of their tours with a knowledgeable guide like Corey.

And yes, I did get a chicken taco from Las Palmas on the way back to the car.  It was fantastic.  Dare I say, it was even better than Reyna's in the Strip.

Light Rail to the North - Concept Plan

Note - The following was a concept paper that I submitted to County Executive Rich Fitzgerald's Vision Team Committee on Transportation.  There was an open call for written submissions ahead of the sure-to-be painful public testimony on May 4th.

If the North Shore Connector was built solely to serve as stops for the North Shore and Allegheny stations, then it was a colossal waste of $500+ million dollars.  However, I do not believe that was the intent of the project.  Early descriptions of the project referred to it as a multi-modal center where different forms of transportation would be able to access the North Shore station.  It would be sort of a mini Grand Central Station for Pittsburgh.

To that end, its most logical next step would be to serve as a jumping-off point for light rail service to the North Hills.  I am sure that in the offices of the Port Authority, there are a multitude of studies collecting dust of shelves that are proposing very similar ideas to mine; however, I would be remiss if I didn’t submit my opinion, as well.

The “T” to the South Hills is effective and well used.  It acts more as a bus on rails, though, then a mass transit train.  There are many stops on both the Red Line and Blue Line to the South Hills, which makes it very neighborhood based.  The passengers can walk from their homes, in many cases, to the “T” or utilize small auxiliary parking lots as stand-in park-and-rides.

For the North Hills, the spine of my proposed system is already in place – the vastly under-used High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes of I-279’s northern branch.  This version of light rail service would be more park-and-ride based, as there would be many fewer stops.  As you will see, most of the 7 stops proposed are at exits along I-279 or I-79.  The HOV lanes would cease to exist for cars and trucks.  The rail beds would be placed right on top of the existing traffic lanes.

Moving north from the North Shore station, the first stop would be in the Tripoli Street zone of the North Side.  The small platforms for this stop would be down on the rail bed area, while access would be off of the Tripoli Street bridge via stairs/escalators/elevators.  The Tripoli Street bridge would need to be expanded slightly for pedestrian access lanes.  In the area of Tripoli Street and Lovitt Way, there is an ample amount of empty lots and under-utilized buildings that could be demolished to make way for a surface park-and-ride lot or small garage to serve the commuters at this stop.  An added benefit to this project is the redevelopment of neighborhoods utilizing the light rail serve as a catalyst.  Transit Oriented Development (TOD) could potentially spring up around these stops, whether it was a mixed use building with retail/commercial on the bottom and affordable housing apartments on top or small restaurants to cater to the commuter.  It would be a way to jumpstart this forgotten area of the North Side.

Continuing north from Tripoli Street, the next logical stop would be at the McKnight Road exit.  This area is the main loading node in the morning for commuters traveling on I-279 from the North.  The perfect area for the park-and-ride lot here would have been where WPXI just built their brand-new studio.  In lieu of that, the next best location may be to acquire the homes below WPXI or examine the possibility of the wooded area adjacent to the off ramp of Evergreen Road from I-279 North.

After the McKnight exit, the main hub of the potential commuter park-and-ride facet could be slanted towards the Perrysville exit.  There is already a sizeable park-and-ride surface lot available here.  By taking it from one level to a multi-level mega garage, this could be turned into the hub for commuters to use in the North Hills.  The smaller park-and-ride lot, with the salt dome, could be kept as an overflow surface lot.

Although this is the end of the present-day HOV lane to the North Hills, I am proposing that the light rail continue to extend northward utilizing the median space between the two current lanes of I-279 Northbound and Southbound traffic.  More space can be gained in the median area by shifting the northbound and southbound lanes a few feet to the side.  The bridges from this point forward do not have support foundations in the median area and a few feet could be procured from the shoulder area underneath these bridges.

The next stop would be the Bellevue-West View stop along I-279.  The most logical location for a park-and-ride lot would be at the foot of the grounds of the Sisters of the Holy Family off of Bellevue Road.  Due to the sensitive nature of obtaining ground from a religious entity, this lot would not be too large in comparison to the other lots and there would be no secondary facility or off-shoot development proposed.

Camp Horne Road would be the next stop on the Light Rail, with the vacant land adjacent to Joseph’s Lane, across from the Stone Quarry Business Park, making a good location for the park-and-ride lot.  Alternatively, the erstwhile Green Valley Golf Course land would provide a plethora of parking spots, but a small spur people mover would probably need to be constructed to shuttle people along Camp Horne Road to the platform area.

The light rail could continue to move along the median of I-279 and merge into I-79’s median in order to open up the heavily utilized Wexford exit of I-79.  The area at this intersection of I-79/Rt 910 leads to severe traffic problems during rush hour.  Installing a park-and-ride at this specific location would not help the situation in regards to traffic flow, so perhaps shifting the platform and parking area northward to the Mingo Road area would help alleviate some of the traffic here.

The final stop that I am proposing under this plan would be at the Warrendale-Bayne exit off of I-79.  At Brush Creek Road, there is already a park-and-ride surface lot.  Typically, this lot is full no later than 7 am, so either expanding this or turning it into a multi-level garage would help collect traffic from this node.  Many people that live on the border of Cranberry and Marshall utilize this parking lot to commute into town or take the bus.

Mass transit is the key to future population growth in Allegheny County.  It will help take individual vehicles off of our surface roads and minimize traffic snarl in downtown Pittsburgh.  A truly great city is defined by its transit and transportation capabilities.  It is time to change the thinking from single passenger motor vehicle transit to a more efficient mass transit model.

Market Square

Let me preface this post by saying I am a suburbanite and have no true dog in this fight, but....

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl hasn't done a lot of great (or even good) things during his tenure as Mayor of Pittsburgh.  But one thing that has gone well under his watch has been the renovation and renewal of Market Square.

Market Square is the area nestled between PPG Place and the recently-constructed PNC 3 Tower (with the Fairmont Hotel and Reed Smith offices).  Five years ago, when PNC 3 was just breaking ground, Market Square was a great place if you wanted to observe hobos in the wild, doing hobo type of things: being drunk at 10 a.m., swearing, scratching themselves, buying and using drugs, pushing shopping carts.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority and the City of Pittsburgh dedicated some funding to cleaning this area up ahead of the opening of PNC 3.  The construction project entailed re-routing vehicular traffic to the perimeter of the square, rather than criss-crossing the square -- thus protecting pedestrians and creating a safe space in the center.  Market Square was torn up and had new brick and stone pavers installed for the better part of 2 years.  During this time some restaurants closed, but there were plenty of new ones ready to take their place.

Great restaurants like NOLA on the Square and Winghart's Whiskey Bar came in.  There were new lunch choices like Chipotle, Noodles and Company, and the Diamond Bar Diner.  There were some new breakfast places too, like Mancini's Breads and other new coffee shops.

After the Pirate game on Friday, DB~ drove home separately so I hung around downtown for a little bit, just seeing what things were like right now.  It was a gorgeous night (still in the 70's probably, a sharp contrast to the 30's as I type this now) and the Square was packed.  The bars were overflowing, people were still enjoying Primanti's and NOLA and the Diamond Bar & Grill.

It was good to see downtown hopping on a Friday night.  Back in my early 20's, during the mid-90's, Friday nights meant M Squared in Market Square -- you would go down and get real drunk, listen to local Pittsburgh bands that you swore would break nationally, but never did.  I wonder if the Strip District will make a comeback from its recent heyday of the early/mid-90's next?

French to the rescue --- that's a new one

Last week it was reported that Veolia Transportation may (triple underline "may") be interested in taking over the Port Authority in the future.

I, for one, would like to welcome our new French overlords.

Veolia Transportation is a sector of the overall Veolia conglomerate that includes a wide variety of functions like water, wastewater, transportation, energy, etc. The headquarters is in France, but they are a global megacompany with plenty of offices here in the United States.

Veolia Transportation is running public transportation systems in New Orleans, Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Toronto. By all accounts, those systems are doing fairly well.

The Port Authority in Pittsburgh is so underwater, to use the parlayance of our times, that there is a common perception that the only way for them to be successful long-term is to go bankrupt. This will get them out from under the long-term legacy costs of pensions and retiree healthcare. In cold, bloodless theory that sounds like a great way to rectify the problem. Just the scorch the earth and let the pine trees grow anew from the enriched soil.

But those are good hardworking people that worked a long time to get those benefits. Are they in some cases overpaid? Sure, they are. But no one put a gun to the head (I think) of the Port Authority's management team to approve those Collective Bargaining Agreements over the years.

Part of my problem with the Port Authority is that they have no vision. Well, I shouldn't say that in light of the new North Shore Tunnel/Connector/Money Pit getting ready to open soon. The inevitable leaks in the tunnel under the Allegheny River will start probably 1 month after it opens. Their lack of vision stems from not realizing the demographics of the region and how they fluctuate, then adapting to those changes.

Trying to do light rail, by piggybacking off of the PENNDOT High Occupancy Vehicle lane up I-279 North, to the northern suburbs is about 20 years overdue. The "T" in the South Hills is a decent enough system, but the North Hills line could have less stops and higher speeds.

They could also link the "eds" and "meds" more efficiently to downtown and some of the more popular places to live in the City, thus making it easier for students and young professionals to live in the City and work at the various medical centers or go to schools in the Oakland/Shadyside area.

Would Veolia do any of this? Maybe, but probably not. But I would feel a heck of lot better getting a fresh set of eyes on the problem and trying to revive the patient currently on the operating table that is the Port Authority.

Red Star Ironworks

I had the occasion to have a sign created as part of a project for my day job. I wanted the sign to be a little bit different, so I scouted around for different artists in the area. My love of wrought iron steered me in the direction of Red Star Ironworks in Millvale.

Red Star Ironworks is owned and operated by Peter Lambert, who has an inspiring back story of his own. Peter, 30, was not an apt student in high school and dropped out at age 15 and didn't really have a direction for his life. Knowing that he had an artistic side and liked working with his hands, he latched on with the owner of Iron Eden, an iron works studio in Bloomfield.

After getting his welding degree and apprenticing at Iron Eden, Peter started Red Star in 2001. It was originally in Oakland, but moved to a warehouse in Millvale a few years back. Red Star has built pieces for restaurants in Pittsburgh (a sign for the new BRGR in Cranberry just went out the door), falcon statues for gravesites, ornamental fences, and anything else that can be pounded on an anvil, welded together, and bent into shape.



When I went down this past week to check on the progress of the sign, Peter took me for a short walk around Millvale to show me his other passion. Peter and some others with Red Star have worked with Allegheny Grows to plant urban gardens on vacant lots in Millvale. He showed me three separate lots. The first, planted 2 years ago, had 20 cedar raised-bed boxes on it. There were a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, and pumpkins. The second lot, planted one year ago, had a large amount of sunflowers and other flowers planted. The sunflowers, in particular, are rather adept at remediating pollutants that may have existed on these urban lots.

The last lot, started this spring, will be an orchard with apple trees and other fruit-bearers. It reminds me a lot of what Detroit is trying to do on a larger scale -- reducing the footprint of the city by turning vacant and abandoned parts of the city into urban agriculture. Detroit wants to shrink the footprint by reducing the infrastructure load (roads, water, sanitary, power) on certain parts of the city. They are doing this by buying out the few remaining residents in certain blocks and ripping out the infrastructure.

Maybe that's not what Millvale needs to do, maybe it does. But it's good to see that there is a grass roots effort to make Millvale's vacant lots useful. All by one of the top iron artists in the City. So when you go to Sonoma Grille or the new BRGR in Cranberry, think about Peter Lambert and his artistry and his passion for urban agriculture.

Bloomfield - Pittsburgh's Little Italy, but how much longer?

DB~ and I have been spending some time in Bloomfield lately. It is the site of the church where we will be getting married 3 weeks from today (eye twitching ever so slightly..jk!) and it is where her parents grew up together. It holds a special place in the DB~ clan's heart.

When you enter into Bloomfield, you are greeted by a sign that reads "Pittsburgh's Little Italy". But when you cast your eyes to the right, you see the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern with a Polish Eagle flag painted on the side of the building and Polish Night Thursdays advertised.

There was a time when Bloomfield was a completely homogenized enclave of nearly 100% Italians, I'm sure. Even the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern aside there are other influences now penetrating the neighborhood. There's the Wai Wai Cafe restaurant of fine Chinese food, with a sushi place being built next door. There's a Starbucks, which is universal in heritage, I suppose.

The neighborhood has Blacks, Asians, Latinos, and a whole host of "mutts" from mixed heritages nowadays. Not everyone's last name ends in a vowel. There's nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but you have to wonder how much longer the old staples like Del's, The Pleasure Bar, Alexander's, and d'Amicos will still be there. There's a new place called Stagioni in the neighborhood, but it is gourmet Italian, not the true red sauce on a plate like these other places.

Bloomfield is a neighborhood in transition, partly because of pressures applied by the other neighborhoods around it. Shadyside is relatively stable and preppy still, with CMU backboning many of its residents. But Lawrenceville is in a huge upheaval of re-development, both due to Children's Hospital and the re-invention of Butler Street with great restaurants like Piccolo Forno, Round Corner, and Tamari. East Liberty has been well discussed on this blog, due to its restaurants, but I probably haven't detailed the commercial side of things as well as I should have. The new Target will join Whole Foods, Home Depot, and Bakery Square in leading the revival of this once-thriving "2nd Downtown".

And there sits Bloomfield. There are still plenty of tiny Italian grandmas shopping at Groceria Italiana for their plum tomatoes, basil, garlic, and oregano to make Sunday sauce, but they are shopping next to a more diverse clientele than in years past. That's encouraging, but also a little bit sad at the same time.

Public Record - peeling back the layers of Pittsburgh's history

The Post-Gazette had an article on Wednesday about a multi-media project called Public Record. It's a book, art exhibition, poetry reading, and iPhone application. It's meant to give us a glimpse back to a time when Pittsburgh was very rough around the edges. A time when it was, if not socially acceptable, at least well overlooked to kill an Irish immigrant that stepped out of line. A time when gambling halls were on every block. It was during this time that current-Point State Park was a massive tenement area.

Some point in the near future, DB~ and I will download the Public Record app and go around town listening to all the oral histories and poetic readings. But it got me thinking about Pittsburgh specifically and cities in general.

When we walk around town on the streets, we may as well be floating above the street. What history is buried 6 inches, 2 feet, 10 feet, or 20 feet below our feet? Who walked on the same street 5 days ago, 5 years, 50 years, 200 years ago? All of the buildings downtown, whether they are an abandoned warehouse in the Strip, a row house in the Hill District, or a non-descript building in the Golden Triangle have a story about previous tenants. Perhaps a misdeed like an unsolved murder of a prostitute or a robbery of a Mob boss.

I found myself walking around the edges of the Strip District tonight. Just feeling the city under my feet as the crisp October air propelled me forward. It was one of those nights that the neon from the Greyhound bus garage cut right through the air. There were pockets of activity, a packed house at Seviche, a handful of people in the dirty old man bars along Penn between the Convention Center and the Strip, a few tables occupied at Sushi Kim, a massive high-faluting event at the Heinz History Center. After I got back in my car, I drove over the recently re-opened Stanwix Street and was looking straight into PNC Park, with that clean pale blue neon staring right back at me.

Is our history recording better or worse nowadays than it was in the 19th century? We have video, Internet, digital camera, and the written word to document our history, but our society is a disposable one. When we're done with a building after only 30 years, we just smash it down and build over top of it. Are we tracking ourselves better or worse now? History is because people have poor memories that fade or misconstrue events over time.

Will someone be walking on top of our memories, misdeeds, and miscreants 100 years from now wondering about us?

Kayaking the Rivers Three

"The sea was angry that day, my friend. Like an old man sending soup back in a deli." -- George Costanza

What a great way to incorporate one of the 5 best lines from Seinfeld into a blog post. Even if I was on a river (or three).

I took the day off work today and headed down to Kayak Pittsburgh underneath the Clemente Bridge. DB~ and I had 2 Groupons (each good for 1 hour of kayaking) that needed to be used by the end of October. But they weren't good on the weekends anymore, so that kind of ruled out DB~. I politely asked if I could use both Groupons myself and get 2 free hours -- I caught the two hippies on a mellow buzz apparently, because they went for it. I was ready to bribe them, if necessary.

My goal today was to kayak on a piece of all 3 rivers. Once I pushed off from Kayak Pittsburgh on the Allegheny, I paddled down towards the Carnegie Science Center on the Ohio River. I stopped in front of the submarine docked outside the Science Center (the Requin, I think) and took this shot:

I floated a little towards the Rivers Casino. There were no semi-strange Beatles cover bands performing in full costume this afternoon. Just a few gamblers with broken dreams eating lunch outside. Wondering how the dealer was showing 16 and hit his 21 to beat the 20 on blackjack. Or why the player at poker stuck in the pot all the way to the river to hit his inside straight.

I took this shot while near the Casino looking up the West End Valley. Have you ever tried to take Route 60 through the West End Valley towards Robinson Township? It's like in the Family Circus when Jeffy has to get his mom a cup of sugar from next door, but ends up taking the most circuituous route possible.

I turned around and headed straight for the Point, being careful to not get broadsided by a speedboat, jet skier, or Gateway Clipper paddlewheeler. This is when things got a little edgy. It was pretty windy today and the rivers were not kind to me. There were whitecaps and actual waves rolling on the river. At one point on the Mon, I was going a good 2 feet up in the air riding the crest and trough of these waves. My kayak got perpendicular to the river at one point and some water from a wave crashed into the kayak, soaking me pretty good.

But it was an adventure. I did my good deed for the day while I was out. I picked up about 7 plastic bottles and jugs that were floating in the rivers and put them in a trash can when I got back. Recycling them would have earned me two gold stars, but I'll settle for one.

When I was walking back to my car in the West Robinson Garage, I passed by one Mr. John Russell reporting for work. He was resplendent in an electric blue workout shirt and black shorts. He was walking stiff-legged, so Russeltron 3000 must need his joints oiled and servos lubed, I guess.

I also stopped to watch some construction workers next to the Garage. They were pouring a low slump, stiff concrete for the new subway stairs and pedestals. This is the Subway extension stop as part of the North Shore Connector project.

It was good to have an off day and no better way to spend it than kayaking on a sunny, if windy, day. Of course it probably wasn't as good as the two dudes parked next to me in the Garage in a Dodge Ram. As I was walking towards my car, their truck looked like they were filming a Cheech and Chong movie in the cab. The sweet smell of burning hippie lettuce wafted through the air. I guess we all spend our Fridays in different ways.

The Strip District - the stomach of Pittsburgh

Oakland may be the brains of Pittsburgh, with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University occupying real estate. The Golden Triangle may be the heart of Pittsburgh, with its mix of pulsating commerce pumping money and congested traffic clogging the roads like cholesterol in the arteries of our bodies.

But the Strip District is the stomach. The place where Pittsburgh gets the food that we eat in our homes and in restaurants all throughout the region. During the day, it is quite simply a foodie's dreamscape.

The area is evolving even further in recent years by taking on a more ethnic slant with new entries such as a Polish deli (S&D Deli), a Peruvian eatery (Chicken Latino), more Asian groceries with an emphasis on Vietnamese recently, and more Greek food stands outside.

DB~ and I took off last Friday to eat our way through the Strip District (well, she would watch me try, I guess...her appetite is small). Unfortunately, the best laid plans....have delicious ruinations at Pamela's for brunch. Even though I was too full to try something from each of the street side stands, we did agree to Eat Around The World for dinner.

We started with a Havarti from a Pennsylvania creamery, God's Country Creamery, that is repped locally by Pennsylvania Macaroni Company --- a must stop on any trip to the Strip. We then selected potato and cheese pierogies at the aforementioned S&D Deli, (we reheated the red pinto beans from the night before as a side), and then had two delicious Greek desserts. And the wine was from California!

The funniest line of the day was overheard by DB~. A man in his mid-20's, dressed in a Yankees jersey and a Yankees hat with a heavy Brooklyn accent (an aside - why do Yankee fans feel compelled to advertise their affiliations everywhere they go? We get it...you like to root for the Devil) was on the phone with someone back in the Filthy Apple. He said "Yeah, I'm in Pittsburgh for the weekend. I'm in this one part that's just like Queens...yeah, they have all kinds of s&*t out on the street for sale!" So there you go. New York approved.

If you are bringing people to Pittsburgh for the first time, especially if they are out of towners, the Strip is a must do on a Friday or Saturday morning/afternoon. It's an electric atmosphere that brings out your hunter/gatherer instincts.

Skip Primanti's...try more fun foods and they'll remember it for longer.

What is the next Pittsburgh neighborhood to be redeveloped?

Next time you go to the Southside Works to catch a movie, go to Claddagh's Irish pub, pick up some (overpriced) stuff at Sur la Table for the kitchen, or shop at Steve Madden....stop and think that you are standing in the midst of what used to be a massive steel mill.

When you're walking through Lawrenceville, admiring all of the funky art galleries or dining at some of the city's best new restaurants like Piccolo Forno, Tamari, or Round Corner Cantina, think about how 10-15 years ago that neighborhood was completely run down and there were only grass root sprouts of community interest in cleaning it up.

East Liberty, starting with Home Depot and the Eastside complex in the early 2000's, is revitalizing itself, too. It also has some travel-worthy restaurants that it is using to fuel its redevelopment growth, such as Abay, Dinette, and two new restaurants to open in the fall (Spoon and BRGR) among others.

Neighborhoods are like fire, in some regards. They need fuel to not only survive, but thrive. The initial kindling must come from the residents of the neighborhoods themselves. They must take pride in their area and want to make it better. That means cleaning it up, keeping undesirables out, and presenting a good image for potential residents or businesses.

But that only goes so far. At some point, there needs to be an infusion of cash from first the government (county, state, federal) in order to attract private-side developers.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) of Pittsburgh and the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County have, for the most part, done a decent job of directing monies to highlighted neighborhoods in order for them to grow. This has been by demolishing blighted properties, rebuilding sub-surface infrastructure, re-doing streets and sidewalks, and offering tax breaks to private development. Without these things, our city neighborhoods may wither and die on the vine. And then we would be Detroit.

So what's the next neighborhood that should be targeted? Obviously, no city neighborhood is perfect (and there are a ton of them, some of which I have never heard of ---Fairywood?), but some need more help than others.

Lawrenceville, between its own neighborhood groups, city involvement, and the presence of the new Children's Hospital, is still on the way up in terms of promise. East Liberty, mentioned above, has a ways to go but is definitely off the mat in terms of where it was 10 years ago. And wedged right in between them?

Garfield. Not the one-term president assassinated in 1881 after only 6 months in office (the neighborhood took on his name the day he was shot). And not the beloved, way-past-its-prime cartoon starring a lasagna-loving cat. I'm talking about one of the meanest, roughest neighborhood in the city of Pittsburgh.

The signs are already starting....Mayor Ravenstahl has been focusing attention on demolishing many vacant and blighted houses. Nuisance bars are being shuttered. This is step one -- eliminating the undesirable element. Step two is to attract the artist community. Because rent is cheap, artists are drawn to these gritty places. It will be only a matter of time before you start to see a revitalization of the housing stock here, as a way to help provide affordable quality housing to an area that desperately needs it.

It only makes sense to connect the chain from Lawrenceville to East Liberty together with one more link...Garfield. It will be a way to rectify the terrible "sledgehammer-style" of urban redevelopment done in the 60's and 70's...construct high-rise housing to contain minorities in a concrete vertical filing cabinet, all the while destroying the very things that made the community great.

People who work in the city need good places to live in the city. I believe this decade will see the rebirth of Garfield. And we can all share a piece of lasagna when it happens.

Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills - the white elephant in the room

I mentioned my disdain for the Pittsburgh Mills in an earlier post about the "re-imagining of Pittsburgh" and how it was an example of poor planning and the need for land development to be done on a county level. This seemed like a good time to expound on exactly why this development bothers me so acutely and why I will never go to it.

Back in the early 2000's, the plans for a regional "destination" shopping center were announced. It was to be built in Frazer Township, which left everyone who didn't live within 5 miles of the border of Frazer Township scrambling to find a map to see where Frazer Township was. Turns out it's up Route 28 north of Fox Chapel, but before New Kensington. This mall, situated on 340 acres of green space, would have 1.1 million square feet of space when completed.

Now my opinion, and one shared by every other land use professional, is that you only need to add regional destination centers if you have a corresponding increase in population to justify it. Back in the early 2000's, the Pittsburgh metro area did not have that increase (and only today is experiencing the tiniest of bounce backs). This specific area along 28 did not have any hints of a growing population to justify such a mall, either. So instantly, I was against this idea on the basis that it would siphon revenue away from existing malls in its vicinity such as Ross Park, Waterworks, and even Monroeville Mall.

In essence, it would be playing the shell game with competing consumer dollars.

Then as 2003 came around, more news about the mall and its environmental impacts became public. It would be impacting multiple acres of prime wetlands (wetlands act as nature's filtering kidneys) and would require significant infrastructure improvements at its entrance and exit with Route 28. Why again did we need this mall? Well, at least the Texas-based developer was promising a range of stores and restaurants that would be unique to the Pittsburgh region. The mall and the site preparation were under construction in 2004 with a June'ish 2005 opening date scheduled.

It was then publicized that the Pittsburgh Mills would be receiving Tax Increment Financing (TIF) through Allegheny County and Frazer Township. For those that don't know, a TIF is a way for developers to offset their costs way down the line by scamming local governments. A TIF projects what the local and county governments will receive in taxes during the post-development of the project and subtracts off what the land is worth pre-development in taxes. The difference is the Tax Increment to be financed. But the kicker is that the developer can pay back the debt first until it is paid off; the local and county governments don't reap the tax benefits until the debt is paid --- they continue to get the pre-development revenues. For the Mills, the TIF was $50 million dollars. The idea is sound as long as the development is successful.

Uh oh.

Shortly before the Pittsburgh Mills was scheduled to open, the Texas developer (The Mills Group) declared bankruptcy. The developer was purchased by Johnstown-based developers, the Zamias Group. The Zamias group is not really known for their vision; they are standard strip mall developers and not fancy ones at that.

The mall itself cost $226 million dollars to construct with another $62 million in site prep costs. Among those costs:
$21.7M for the interchange improvements to Route 28 (ramps and such)
$9.3M for roads in the development and within Frazer
$7.1M for design fees
$2.6M for the land costs
$1.4M for offsite utilities
$16.3M for onsite utilities
$0.8M for environmental work (2.89 ac of replacement wetlands and 11,000 LF of stream work)
$3M for field office costs

And that $50M TIF for a $285M project? It was larger than any TIF in recent Allegheny County history for a commercial development. The Waterfront was $29.4M ($305M total cost), The Mall at Robinson was $28M ($245M total), and Mt. Nebo Pointe was $6.8M ($44M total).

Many of the scheduled tenants lured by the Mills either vanished into thin air or pulled out of their leases. Today, the destination mall that would have stores unique to the Pittsburgh area, has the following roster of stores unlike any you will find in the Pittsburgh region, such as:
JC Penney's, Macy's, Sears, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Lowe's, Spencer's (stay classy Pittsburgh), Hallmark, American Eagle, Hot Topic, Dress Barn, and Victoria's Secret among others.

It also has not one, not two, but three Hair Salons, 2 Nail Salons, and 2 Massage Parlors. Probably from when you get a stiff neck looking at all the vacant storefronts in this disaster.

But maybe it has restaurants to make up for the fact the stores are bland/generic stores....

Olive Garden, Applebee's, Chili's, Eat N Park, Red Robin, and a little coffee place from Seattle called Starbucks.

At a seminar in 2008, Allegheny County Economic Development officials used the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills (current name) as a successful case study, if you can believe it. They anticipated $452M of total revenue, with $10.4M of Sales Tax. Suffice it to say, they're a little short.

The latest attempt to roll this beached whale back into the ocean involves the building of a year round water theme park, similar to the kind constructed in Erie. Who knows if it will help revive this monstrosity of a symbol to greed, poor planning, and short-sightedness.

The humorous/redeeming part to this story is that it forced Ross Park Mall to re-evaluate and re-invent itself. In recent years, Ross Park Mall has become the upscale destination mall with stores unique to the Pittsburgh region. In other words...exactly what the Mills was supposed to be. Stores such as Nordstrom's, Kate Spade, Burberry, LL Bean, Apple (coming soon) and restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen (soon) have revitalized this North Hills mall.

Just because a space has green grass growing on it, does not mean it needs a mall -- no matter what size -- parked on it. Think about that the next time you're driving up Route 28 on your way to get a Starbucks at the Mills.

Urban Dare Pittsburgh 2010

On Saturday, DB~ and I did the Urban Dare Pittsburgh 2010 race. Urban Dare is like a mini-micro-Amazing Race contoured to a different city each week across the United States. We had heard about it last year, but we couldn't do it...so we've really been looking forward to it this year.

The race started at 12 noon at Finnegan's Wake next to PNC Park. We were given a clue sheet with 12 places we had to go. But to figure out each place, you had to solve a puzzle by using that clue and then determining what place to go. For instance, one clue said "Anthony Quinn played this character in a 1964 movie. Go to the restaurant with this character's namesake."

Our race got off to an auspicious start when we were jogging past Bettis 36 Grille, on the way to the Fred Rogers statue, and DB~ was reading her iPhone as she ran. She ran over one of those metal planters around a tree and tripped over it (it was raised up ever so slightly). If we were skiing, it would have been a total yard sale. She fell in stages and I watched the whole thing in shock. The first stage she just stumbled and I thought "She'll pull out of this" and then the second stage she went full-bore and sprawled all over the sidewalk, ripping her jogging pants in the process.

There were no tears but I thought our race was over before it really started...but she got up and dusted herself off and we soldiered onward.

We went from the North Shore to around the Golden Triangle to Duquesne University and back, solving puzzles and using the Googles on the Internet machine, thanks to our iPhone and Samsung Omnia. And no thanks to our "phone a friends" -- 2 of which didn't answer and the other...I don't know what version of Google he was using, but it didn't involve helping us try to win.

Some of the clues were hard, so we sort of stalked some other groups at times. But we figured out most of them with our own smarts and knowledge of downtown Pittsburgh.

We finished in 1 hour and 55 minutes...a very respectable time -- we thought in the middle of the pack. But when we got back to Finnegan's Wake, there weren't that many people there. When we clocked in, we found out we were roughly 15th out of 95 teams!! (Official results haven't been emailed out yet). We were only 10 minutes out of 5th place...which we easily could have made up....there's our goal for next year. The winners did it in 1 hour 10 minutes, so they must have sprinted the whole thing....freaks.

I was very proud of DB~ for fighting through her fall and resulting scrape...which was a nice bloody raspberry by the end. She was a real trooper and was the engine behind us finishing the race and finding all the clues correctly. I'm proud that she's not a quitter (when she could have after that fall) and that she is smart and semi-athletic.

/big e-kiss to DB~/