BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I agree, it's a mess. I wrote about this a bit on my blog back in July. If it were closed to cars during that time, then vendors could move into the street, people could walk anywhere and there could be sidewalk cafes at every restaurant.

There's certainly plenty of parking for cars that doesn't have to be taking up the middle of one of the busiest sections of the city. As an individual and not necessarily a staff member of Bike Pittsburgh, I am definitely in favor of turning this into a mecca for walking, talking, shopping, and being with people, not their transportation.

This subject comes up periodically. Sometimes, they do close it on Saturdays, like when the Steelers are in the playoffs. The subject of closing Penn Ave to all motor traffic on all Saturdays has definitely come up before, but it has never gained enough traction to happen. The issues that I hear cited are parking, accessibility, and the overall traffic flow. My personal impression is that there hasn't been sufficient political will to make it happen.

One legit concern that I've heard is that with Penn Ave closed to traffic, people will drive even more poorly than they already do on Smallman, which is already a total nightmare for pedestrians and cyclists.

parking, accessibility, and the overall traffic flow

I haven't ever seen an open parking space in that area on a Saturday morning. I'm guessing many of those spots are used by the vendors in the area that get there at super early o'clock. They could easily pull up, unload, and go park their car/van/bus somewhere else.

An accessibility argument is ridiculous. The biggest hurdle to accessibility there is not being able to walk down the single file line on the sidewalk, and moving all the vendors into the parking lane would fix that. Think if you had to navigate that stuff in a wheelchair, or while pushing a stroller?

Traffic flow is equally stupid. Have these people never been to the strip on a Saturday morning? Traffic doesn't exactly flow - it kind of trickles.

The secret is making this come from the community including the businesses themselves. If it's seen as a third party "outsider" group coming in and forcing this to happen without their support, then it will fail. I will put together an exploratory meeting with Neighbors in the Strip this winter to get a discussion going and see if we could work with the business community to experiment with one or two saturdays in the summer next year to do this. Here's the thing, in the off-chance that the businesses agree to do this you can bet they're going to be watching their cash registers to make sure they're not losing money on the day.

For the Tweed Ride, since I was running late in getting to it, I traveled upstream on Penn through the Strip, mainly pushing the bike on the sidewalk, but eventually pushing the bike upstream in the street because I wasn't getting anywhere on the sidewalk and the bike wasn't the problem; I just couldn't move, body or bike. Not that traffic was moving all that much, either.

Once you get past the "Whaaaaat? How could you *DO* that to us?!" then I think we can have a reasonable discussion. Seems thru traffic should use Liberty; Strip Dist destination traffic should use Smallman.

thanks scott! i would be so happy to see this happen. they could double the number of vendors on the street!

i would think that if it was promoted as a special event such as the street shutdowns they do in nyc, sales would have the potential to be up considerably for those days.

"Saturdays in the Strip" could be a local holiday - instead of a freaking mess. I always shop on monday because saturdays are just awful.

so would this be an actual shutdown to ALL vehicles or will bikes be allowed? the latter kind of makes me nervous actually.

i'd say all vehicles. bikes mixed with that many slow moving pedestrians looking at everything except where they are going would be a bad idea.

It's pretty simple. On weekends during the summer, there are obviously too many pedes^H^H^H^Hcustomers for the existing sidewalk capacity. More sidewalk capacity is needed.

So the question is merely "where do you get the extra sidewalk capacity from?" You could close the streets down for a day, or you could reconfigure them permanently.

I think a reasonable first approximation is to remove the left-side parking. People can't park on the left very well anyway, and there are only a tiny number of those spaces relative to the total number of pedes^H^H^H^Hcustomers on Penn Ave on a summer Saturday. Store owners on the north/east side of Penn have an alley behind them for loading/unloading, so they don't need that parking space either.

The next step is to stop issuing permits for sidewalk sales on either sidewalk between 17th and 22d, instead relocating them onto the street.

I think the configuration at present is 8-11-11-8 (I'm guessing). I would replace this with 5 feet of vendor space on either side, 16 ft of back-in diagonal parking on the right, and 12 ft of through-lane (and, of course, with sharrows smack down the middle of it). The parking should be variable-rate so it's expensive from Friday 4PM - Saturday 4PM. That will give you just as many parking spaces as are presently available and better accessibility.

Most people can park in a back-in diagonal space much more quickly than they can parallel park, so you don't have to have drivers tying up one lane for the better part of a minute.

that sounds cool - can we get a diagram of it?

I would love that to happen but objectively, the alley between penn and liberty is usually impassible because of giant trucks.

A big issue is going to be picking up really heavy items on Sat.

For instance, if I were a bit more feeble and I needed 10 cases of canned tomatoes and 300 pounds of flour from Penn Mac or wherever, how would I be able to get them in the truck?

The problem is that even if it just happens one or two times that might be enough to switch my choice of vendor to someone who isn't in the strip.

That's going to be the big problem in my mind. A lot of those businesses make way more money selling in bulk to restaurants etc. than they ever could from people walking around spending a few dollars at a time. Not to mention that it already takes a half hour to navigate Smallman even with Penn open. I just don't think it would ever really work out. If they could somehow have one lane open and 10 minute loading zones every few hundred feet it might stand a chance but my money is on the business owners fighting it tooth and nail.

It might be more prudent to try and close a portion of smallman instead though I'd expect the same fight from a few places.

Perhaps every 1/3 block or something would be much more reasonable?

Our driver at mancini's doesn't arrive with bread until 8:30 sometimes, which is well into foot-traffic time, and he delivers to other places in the strip too.....I can certainly see a problem, if only with deliveries, and yes, large, bulk items.

I shop on the Strip weekly. I've been there on my bike and in my car.

I think it's a really bad idea to turn this area into pedestrian-only (which, I'm sure you would agree, should exclude bikers). The traffic, apart from the occasional idiot, is slow enough that it mostly doesn't matter. More recently there's been a cop standing on the corner down from Penn Mac, dealing with untutored citizens. I'm mostly afraid of yet another urban planning debacle, à la East Liberty: the neighborhood works, and it's worked for generations. Why screw with it?

As for bikers, there's quite a few cruising down the street, which is nice. And of course, early on, there's the Caffeine guys with their high-end bikes and lycra duds getting pumped at the Prima. Sadly, the bikers I tend to notice are usually salmoning up the street or otherwise calling (unfavorable) attention to themselves.

If there's one thing that really grinds my gears, it's salmon on Penn Ave in the strip. it usually doesn't bother me that much, but on penn, I want to shout nonsense at them. Probably just because that's my turf, heh.

I usually just take spring to wherever I need to go. It's fairly peaceful, and most of the drivers I've encountered seem to be nervous because of how narrow it is, and just want to get out of there safely, so I always pull over and let them pass. The only thing about penn on the way back is when a delivery truck is stopped in front of you, and the left won't stop to let anyone pass.

Those couple blocks of Penn Ave. in the Strip seem like an excellent candidate for re-routing vehicle traffic, as there is a roadway designed for higher speed travel (Liberty) running parallel to it. Can wholesale Penn Mac customers load in the alley or in the lot on Smallman? (Edit: I meant Liberty)

They could even flip the vendors around, put foot traffic in the center of the roadway, and the sidewalks could be opened up for better pedestrian traffic flow.

With it's lack of sidewalks, parallel parking, and un-striped lanes, Smallman is getting more treacherous for all modes. Worse than Penn because of the speeds involved, I'd say. Adding to this is the new Pgh Public Market (where we have a presence now) which for the first time brings pedestrians across Smallman to shop, instead of just walking to/from their cars. Someone's going to get hurt there - it's just a matter of time. Ugh.

Generally, it's a good problem for a neighborhood to have too many pedestrians, but it's still a problem.

Penn Mac's wholesale operation fronts on Liberty.

I'm pretty sure that motorists who just need to get somewhere know to shift to Liberty, just a block away. Of course it's more interesting to drive through the hubub of the Strip. I would certainly do it if I otherwise wasn't in a rush; drivers are human, after all.

Smallman is generally confusing, but I have to confess that I've never found the cars a problem; the trickiest bit are the pedestrians who wander out seemingly at random. This applies especially to Saturdays. The real key is speed: if everything is moving slowly, everything is cool. So the challenge is to further slow down traffic. I'd vote for islands in the middle (flower beds, statues, whatever). Eventually the through traffic will figure out that Liberty makes more sense.

I go to the strip almost every weekend and have thought many times closing Penn on Saturday would be a great idea.

I think you will get legitimate concerns from local businesses along the lines of what Spakbros posted. Leaving the cross streets open with 15 minute loading zones placed on the cross streets adjacent to Penn and the remainder of the cross street parking converted to 1hr metered parking with significantly higher rates would allow much better access for bulk buyers and those in a hurry than the current situation does.

In practice, most Saturday mornings, Penn in the Strip is a walking mall that they let cars drive on.

Ryan, in your estimation how often do restaurants do their shopping in the Strip on a Saturday as opposed to other days during the week?

Also, would you be swayed if a place like Penn Mac made it easier for restaurant buyers to load in from the back of the store?

I think most of this could be figured out. I'm intrigued by Lyle's back-in angled parking. That way the Strip wouldn't lose many if any parking spaces and it would free up more space for street venders.

I would just love to be able to pilot this in a really well-thought out manner. Working closely with businesses. Having street seating available like on Broadway in NYC so people can enjoy themselves. Making sure there are plenty of temporary loading zones, and police to monitor them. Having people fill out surveys and interviewing them on how they feel about the arrangement.

I think keeping most of the cross streets open is fair.

The City only needs to enforce the ordinance for vending on the sidewalks. The vendors in the Strip totally ignore the rules and do whatever they want. They take up more space then permitted. This is causing people to walk in the street and creating an unsafe situation. They are supposed to leave 4 feet of sidewalk clear on a 10-foot-wide sidewalk and if the sidewalk is more then 10 feet wide they must leave 5 feet clear.

Over the summer they cracked down on the ordinance in the South Side with sidewalk cafes taking up too much of the sidewalk…they need to visit the Strip on a Saturday.

I have talked to Neighbors in the Strip about this, not at length, but I pushed whoever I was talking to to answer all of my questions. She said, as spakbros pointed out, it's about loading. If Penn is closed, how are people supposed to get a huge crate/flat/whatever to their car?

The other argument business owners in the Strip have against closing Penn is that, whenever Penn has been forced to close (e.g. for the marathon, etc.), they have lost money. I argued that this could be because they were *forced* to close and therefore probably didn't market it as fun pedestrian times, but she insisted that the business owners would never have it.

So, according to the director of NiTS, it's never going to happen. Which is a shame.

Ryan, in your estimation how often do restaurants do their shopping in the Strip on a Saturday as opposed to other days during the week?

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Hard to say Steven, it all really depends.

Most any really busy place is going to have to receive or pick up supplies every day. A lot of places are closed Sunday or Monday and they don't want to or can't overstock supplies so if they get slammed on Friday, they are there the next day buying lots of stuff.

Another reason is that a lot of owners are the ones picking up the supplies and they have more important things to do during the day M-F so they make Sat. the big one.

Getting the alley to be the loading spot might work but sometimes there are semi trailers that have to park for a couple hours. You simply can't fit around them. If the alley was much much wider it would probably work.

I also think that some of the bigger trucks probably have to stop on Penn because they can't make the turns out of the alley.

Another issue would be access by emergency personnel. I suppose they would be able to get in but it might be too far away from the stores for fire trucks.

Just a few thoughts

Fire trucks could move down a closed road filled with pedestrians just as quickly, if not quicker they could move down an open road full of automobiles mixed with pedestrians. I don't think anyone is suggesting erecting jersey barriers at both ends. They close roads for farmer's markets all over town and just like those, I imagine a couple white sawhorses would suffice.

In my strawman proposal, there would still be parking on the north/west side of penn for loading the usual vans, SUVs and small trucks that small business owners use. Not ideal for the customers of business on the opposite side of Penn, but not that bad.

It's not like you can ever park directly in front of Penn Mac to load up your tomatoes and flour -- you have to wheel that load somewhere anyway.

Just to throw another idea in the mix:

How about some kind of crate bike loading service? Restauranteurs could purchase their flats of berries or whatever, and a person on a serious crate bike/trike could pedal them via the allies to a wholesale-only parking zone?

On Sundays, could one lane of Liberty be parallel parking?

{edit} I would also add--though this may be a controversial viewpoint--that I think the chaos of the Strip is a big part of what makes it lively and a desirable place to visit. If things are too regulated, it will be more convenient, perhaps safer, but something will be lost. I think in some ways the aggravation of having to squeeze past a taco stand and a bunch of south american sweaters in a pedestrian traffic jam is part of why people enjoy the place so much. You can get some of the same food stuffs at, for example the new Market District @ Settler's Cabin. Sometimes the convenience is boring and unimaginative & less social somehow. There are lessons to be learned from all the Urban Planning disasters of the 60s on...The Pike Place Market in Seattle was almost razed at one point for something "new & improved."

my 2 cents. {Ahlir makes similar points above}

I wonder how many non-paying customers are parking on Penn that stay parked all day? Employees, vendors, etc.

wholey's won't let our employees park in front of the store

A great discussion. From the broader context, we are pursuing the reduction of cars in the area through improvements such as a rail and trail along the existing rail line, the next generation of Pittsburgh transit, and the consideration of off-site parking with circulator shuttles in the area.

There was an announcement the other week about the Green Boulevard planning funding that was received from USDOT and HUD. That plan will better detail improvements between the rail line and the river. We are also waiting to hear back from PennDOT about funding (Pennsylvania Community Transportation Initiative) to consider changes to Smallman, Penn, and Liberty between 11th and 34th Streets.

Figure on having the chance to expand upon this discussion in the spring. We can even get a head start on answering questions about who parks where, why, and how often if you are interested in volunteering. We are always seeking interns, and data collection in this corridor will be exceptionally valuable to differentiate between what is real and what is perceived. It would also allow us to do more with whatever funding we do receive, since consultant field costs could be lowered. I have been known to buy lunch (or breakfast). Plenty of great places for that in the Strip too!

Hey Patrick! I wanna see Pittsburgh on this map, ASAP.

These USDOT/HUD administered TIGER grants seem to be the way forward in all the low rumblings on the Hill regarding a new surface transportation authorization bill.

Choo-Choo trains are nice, but the city and county need to check their egos and have a mind meld over how best to rehabilitate major corridors within the City. Everyone has high talk over consolidation of services. Well, here's an area where the County performs pretty well at and is apprehensive in taking on any city business.

Incidentally, are you the inbound cyclist I pass on the West Carson sidewalk at six in the morning as I head outbound?

The map link did not work, else I am not allowed on that site. I could not find the quote from the USDOT Secretary, but he has remarked about how State's and (especially) Cities are leading the way at identifying how to do projects that exhibit the "sustainability" and "livability" that the administration is talking about.

Keep in mind that MOVEPGH will be a 25-year plan of projects, policies, and design guidance that is meant to transform our spaghetti network into complete multimodal systems. That may require new relationships between old partners and even introduce some new ones into the mix. All projects require support such as funding and right of way, not to mention other variables. While we are not about to ignore funding challenges, we must still plan ahead to see what rights of way will be impacted if we are to make system-wide changes/shifts. So this corridor will continue to be addressed within a larger forum that does include the broader group of stakeholders Scott mentioned previously.

At this time I cannot respond to the specific suggestions that have been made here, but I will commend you all for taking time to discuss the issue from a number of perspectives. When we get into the planning process for MOVEPGH we will most likely be talking about how to relate the value of places like the Strip in terms of context and density, since they are important to the balance between land use and transportation. Additionally, factors like accessibility and how that is defined will be important for determining how projects/proposed improvements can be prioritized.

I ride in from Esplen on West Carson and then jump to the sidewalk just beneath the West End Bridge. That is ususally around 8:30, but some mornings I come in earlier. I use a strobe on the front. I also ride out Carson through the Rocks and climb hills through Kennedy, coming back on the flat smooth greatness of Neville Island. Maybe you saw me on the route.

I see more and more cyclists on West Carson St all the time. Some (definitely not all) drivers are also becoming more aware that they are sharing the road. I appreciate that.

When NASA first started sending astronauts in to space they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent several thousand man hours and a terrible amount of money to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C...The Russians used a pencil!

I love the Strip district and I ride there on my bike for breakfast every week. I also shop at the street vendors all the time. But recenlty they stoped following the rules and are obstructing the sidewalks causing the problem.

Instead of spending a lot of time and money redesigning traffic patterns changing the Strip I suggest they ask the vendors to start following the rules for the amount of space they are permitted to use. There is plenty of room for everyone.

@greasefoot-

Space pen costs = Urban myth. Or maybe more like "lying right wing anti-government propoganda," along with Obama's $200,000,000 a day tour of the East.

Wiki has an OK article on this, but you can find the real story in literally thousands of places on the net.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen

"NASA never approached Paul Fisher to develop a pen, nor did Fisher receive any government funding for the pen's development. Fisher invented it independently, and then asked NASA to try it. After the introduction of the AG7 Space Pen, both the American and Soviet (later Russian) space agencies adopted it."

To further perpetuate the offtopicness, someone gifted me a sensa pen that writes upside down and on wet stuff (under water too?). I very much like it. Way better than a pencil. I imagine pencil shavings and bits of broken graphite would be problematic in a spacecraft.

Mick,

I'm afraid you can't see the forest for the trees.

How so, Greasefoot?

I mean, I would rather not get into a political discussion here, but I believe that I'm well-informed and I try to keep a global viewpoint.

What is it that you think I'm missing?

The Pen vs. Pencil is a metaphor. It was not a political statement?

By the way you forgot to mentions the episode of Seinfeld when Jerry had one of the pens that an astronauts used in space that writes upside-down...

I love the Strip. My grandmother lived on Penn Av and I literally grew up playing in all the alleyways. I don’t think they should change anything about it.

It has become very overcrowded but this is because the vendors are setting up on both sides of the sidewalks and impatient people now walk in the street.

The answer is not to close down Penn Av but to ask the vendors to respect and follow the rules.

but i like all the vendors!! i want them to be there AND not get hit by cars. is that really too much to ask for?

by the way, pencils are far superior to pens in every way.

I like them too! And there is plenty of room for all.

+1 pencils (except on a space station I suppose).

I would concede that better vendor regulations might be helpful, so long as they don't turn into a means of harassing low-income vendors.

Slightly OT: the Center for Urban Pedagogy has a great multi-lingual guide for street vendors in New York city. Images here: http://www.makingpolicypublic.net/index.php?page=vendor-power.

Also *cargo bikes (not crate bikes) was the intent of my earlier suggestion for the alleyways.

Try the link again. The map takes a while to load sometimes of the day i've found. http://t4america.org/resources/tigermap/

pens < pencils < lead holders

I love the Strip. My grandmother lived on Penn Av and I literally grew up playing in all the alleyways. I don’t think they should change anything about it.

Wasn't the population of the strip in the tens of thousands until fairly recently (i.e. 1970s)? Now it's 266 - I'd say it's changed quite a bit?

Salty, you are correct most of the row houses have been removed. My grandmother passed in 79 and her home was razed shortly after. I also had an uncle that lived on Charletta a few blocks away in Laryvil we used to visit alot. It's realy awesome to see how much that area has changed.

The Strip currently has few crosswalks. Dilapidated or nonexistent sidewalks on Smallman. No ped signals. Few ADA compliant curb cuts. Vendors breaking encroachment laws, and motorists not paying attention because they are too busy looking for parking. And there are people saying "it's fine the way it is." If people saying this were confined to a wheelchair I bet they would be whistling a different tune.

I would love there to be a real-life example of an area like the Strip with the sort of traffic layout Lyle described (back-in diagonal parking, etc.) Pictures speak louder than words. Even better, video, and before-and-after testimonials.

Today, I tried to walk from mancini's to pennmac, and it took almost as long as it took me to ride to and from the market square store earlier.

Yeah. I think the Strip has passed from charming to impractical. It's just about impossible to carry a bag of groceries down the sidewalks there, let-alone push a stroller.

Change for change's sake results in Orange Julius and Starbucks whitewashing. But a few tweaks might just be what's called-for.

I'm not anti strip district street vendor! I need to have my access to all the Cleveland/Baltimore/Cincinnati Suxs t-shirts on the weekend. But here are some pics from this Sat.

This person is set up in the middle of the crosswalk at Penn & 21st:

This guy was blocking the crosswalk and also had an orange cone in the street because he could not park his trailer???

check out sunseri's outdoor stand. I looks awesome, yes, but there is no room to walk around it.

All I'm saying is, there is more demand for sidewalk space on Penn Ave between 17 and 22 than there is supply of that space. That demand is coming from customers of the businesses in those blocks (and sidewalk vendors). Those aren't drive-through businesses, or bike-through businesses -- people need to walk (or be wheeled, sure) through the front door. In order to increase the number of people walking through the front doors of the Strip businesses, there is no other option but to increase the supply of sidewalk capacity. Otherwise the number of customers is fixed.

The question should not be whether to increase that capacity or not, it should simply be how to do it. Or maybe the demand could be reduced by increasing the rents charged to sidewalk vendors.

Aren't they tryng to make a marketplace of the old produce building on Smallman? Is that maybe the attempt at solving the street vendor problem - organizing them indoors in the produce terminal?

Something like that might make more sense if that is what they are doing than re-doing the sidewalks and access and all of that.

the public market on smallman is a farmer's market. which is to say higher end produce, meats, and treats (not to mention BEER!). there's not a steelers jersey for sale in the whole building and it doesn't seem likely there will be any time soon. although behind that warehouse there was a flea market this year. i never went to it, anyone know how that went over? seemed too hidden. the public market will in the long run just add to the pedestrian congestion. i can foresee smallman getting dicer next summer. which is all great news and makes a solution that much more important.

To be devils advocate, William H. Whyte discovered 40 years ago that people unwittingly like congestion, they are naturally attracted to it, so proceed with caution when attempting to "decongest" or "improve" an urban space.

http://vimeo.com/6821934

I think it would be good for the city or private parking operators to negotiate some new pay parking with businesses on the other side of liberty ave (toward the busway) on the weekends for rates at or below $5 and convince the city to paint some strongly visible crosswalks in a few places to make it more appealing. If it's not cheaper than the options right on penn ave, then I don't see people using it. However, if you price it cheap enough, then it could make it more appealing to park there than to circle around the block 3 or 4 times looking for a metered spot.

It seems like this could be doable since it seems like there is a lot of empty private lot space across the liberty ave corridor. Could even rent or sell some of those folding grocery push carts there as well, to assist people who might be bringing back more than they could carry otherwise.

To restate an earlier point: The Strip works just fine the way it is. I don't see any reason to make major changes and screw it up.

It's more than likely we'll end up with something useless such as the East Liberty urban renewal fiasco, which has take more than a generation to start healing.

Go read some Jane Jacobs.

Or watch this video to see how it can be done in a way that keeps the character of the Strip, but makes it better for the majority of people using it i.e. pedestrians.

http://www.streetfilms.org/traffic-calming-postcards-from-london/

P.S. I love William Whyte, especially his work around movable chairs. Thanks for posting that.

More on W.H.W. for all you urbanists: http://streetswiki.wikispaces.com/William+H.+%28Holly%29+Whyte

From the W.H.W. Wiki-link "If there is a noticeable dip in the number of women present, there is a good reason to believe something is wrong. Conversely, if there is a high concentration of women, the plaza is working well as a public space."

Hey, we could really use some quality interns for people and traffic pattern recording. Any takers?

Speaking of women, why is it that wheelchairs always come up, but moms with strollers, & nursing moms are often at the bottom of the heap when it comes to planning urban space?

I kind of like Benzo's idea of cheap parking across liberty in conjunction with traffic-calming, highly visible crosswalks across liberty (as in the Postcards from London video posted by Scott). And lose a lane of driving on Penn on weekends.

The ADA doesn't cover moms with strollers, to my knowledge...

Moms aren't the only people with babies.

Sensible strollers are one thing, but anyone pushing a gigantic jogging stroller through the strip deserves to be at the bottom of the heap. Use a backpack instead -- the kids love being up high, and you don't run people over.

How about a free trolley in the Strip for a couple of hours on Saturdays? Streetcars - when they existed - filled a really useful niche for that short two or three-block jaunt. And they make it a lot easier to use remote parking lots.

The Allegheny River Vision Plan identified as a possibility, in addition to the "Green Blvd" project, a Strip District light-rail/trolley circulator just as you describe, Lyle.

@Lyle thanks for the correction. I should know better having been raised for a good number of years by a single dad (post-stroller age).