Proposed trail and Shuttle connections in Junction Hollow
Find out about the most significant changes to the trail system in years
The City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI), Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (PPC) and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) have been actively working on a multifaceted project in the area known as Four Mile Run, the valley and park area between Oakland, Schenley Park, Hazelwood, and Greenfield.
The city has dubbed the project the Mon-Oakland Mobility Plan, and have been hosting public meetings and conducting surveys over the past year. First and foremost, the plan looks to deal with the extremely important water runoff and flooding issues endemic to the area, and install “green infrastructure” in order to manage the water and stop people’s homes from flooding after major rain events.
The second part of the project involves several new transportation connections, including a proposed on-demand shuttle service between Oakland, Greenfield and Hazelwood.
In the City’s own words: On May 22, 2018, we will host a joint meeting to share the findings of the mobility study and to lay out the next steps in the final engineering of the PWSA project. This meeting will be hosted jointly by DOMI, the URA, PWSA and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (PPC). During this meeting, PWSA will introduce the consultant team that has been selected to do the final engineering for the green infrastructure project in Four Mile Run. This PWSA project builds on the Green First Plan, and is a continuation of the Four Mile Run preliminary design work that was produced by PPC and its partners.
Proposed Sylvan Ave Trail and Shuttle connection
Trail Outcomes of the February Meeting
At the last Mon-Oakland Mobility Study meeting on Feb. 20, 2018, the team proposed an alignment for the new micro-transit connection that utilizes the rail corridor through the Junction Hollow Valley, as well Sylvan St, an abandoned road in Hazelwood. Since then, they have been working out the details of how this proposed connection will work, including ridership calculations, cost implications, and other operations issues.
So far, it appears that several concerns and opportunities, that we had been raising in regards to the project, have been addressed.
Improve bicycle facilities, don’t degrade them. Most notably, we have a commitment from the City that the Junction Hollow Trail in Schenley Park will not be shared with the proposed shuttle service vehicles.
Maintain trail access during construction. This trail is a key mobility corridor for people on bikes, and cannot be closed down. In a recent Public Source article, DOMI Director Karina Ricks stated that through the community process, she “learned how important it was to keep bicycling corridors open,” and we have since received further confirmation from DOMI of keeping the corridor open during construction. What this detour will look like is still an unknown.
The project may create some new bicycling connections as well. For instance, at the previous meeting, the City proposed a new trail along Sylvan, an abandoned road in Hazelwood that parallels the dangerous Irvine St. Next, they are exploring creating a bike connection from the Junction Hollow Trail along the tracks to CMU, as an alternative to Boundary St. Additionally, there was also discussion of the importance of connecting the Junction Hollow Trail to Panther Hollow Lake, across the train tracks in some way.
Find out more. Attend this meeting!
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE)
300 Saline St, Pittsburgh, PA 15207
Register for the meeting here, and find out more about the public process by visiting mon-oaklandmobility.
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