Monday’s meeting ran for three hours! About 100 people attended, most of them probably residents of Four Mile Run (the area around Big Jim’s) or Panther Hollow (the neighborhood at the north end of Junction Hollow).
The meeting became fairly confrontational, with two main sides, which I’ll simplify:
The city said (city councilman Corey O’Connor; Ray Gastile, director of Planning for Pittsburgh, and design consultants hired by him):
We propose to build a transit link (vans or small buses) running several times per hour between Hazelwood, Almono, Technology Center, thru Junction Hollow to Oakland. We anticipate demand for such transit once Almono is built. The vehicles would be clean, carbon-neutral. Rubber tires on a 12’ wide road (maybe 2 lanes for 24’ total). Not on rails. We’d probably use gates to keep cars off this road, but it would be available for emergency vehicles. We have two preliminary routes. Route A (minimal construction) connects the two dead ends of Boundary St, and would run close to the bike trail for much of its length. Route B (minimal disruption to residents by shuttle traffic) would extend the new road from Joncaire St to beyond Big Jim’s, would run close to the RR tracks much of the way, and would relocate the bike trail similarly. We would “daylight” (bring to the surface) the stream through the hollow.
The residents said (a number of them spoke up):
* We’re angry because Four Mile Run (aka “The Run”)
flooded in 2009 with five feet of sewage and little has been done about it and now the city is proposing to spend millions of dollars on a shuttle!
* We’re angry because the
connector trail to Panther Hollow Lake and Schenley Park is closed. We like to walk there. [None of the residents mentioned Allegheny Valley Railroad or CSX by name, I don’t think, but one of them suspected a conspiracy by
the city to close that crossing - weird paranoia!].
* We’re angry because we don’t want more suburban commuters using our neighborhoods as park-and-ride lots to catch this shuttle. Many of us don’t have garages.
* We’re worried about traffic disrupting our quiet communities and endangering our kids, who like to play in the parks.
* We don’t want gentrification.
* Our roads have potholes and they’re not getting fixed.
* You guys did all this planning without consulting us. We learned about it in the newspaper [they’re probably referring to the 2015/8/29 PG story
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2015/08/29/Pittsburgh-seeking-money-to-build-transit-link-between-Oakland-Almono-site/stories/201508290058 ]. This is a done deal, isn’t it? [O’Connor said: no, that’s why we’re having this meeting.]
* This is the city giving public land to private universities. [some residents are thinking of this shuttle as if it were entirely for the benefit of, and perhaps owned by Pitt and CMU. The city said public/private partnership.]
* You’ve been deceptive to me. Haven’t answered my emails. [the worst bitching and fearmongering came from Carlino Giampolo]
I said:
I attended a public ALMONO meeting in October 2014 where the shuttle idea was discussed [see
http://localhost/mb/topic/hazelwood-trail-input-session-10162014/#post-303353 where I wrote “there was talk (speculative at this point) of shuttle buses between Hazelwood and Oakland, perhaps directly up Junction Hollow, perhaps autonomously-driven!” - if these people kept up with the bikepgh messageboards, they’d be better-informed! And then there was a second meeting
http://localhost/mb/topic/encouraging-almono-to-think-big-on-active-transport/#post-308912 where it was discussed a little more] Almono redevelopment is going to happen. I like this transit idea. If this transit shuttle is
not built, what will be the effect of the additional cars on Hazelwood, Bates St, Swinburne St, etc? We should think about all the neighborhoods, not just the two in the hollow.
Not present at the meeting: representative of CSX or Allegheny Valley Railroad (or if present, they were silent). Never mentioned at the meeting: Mon-Fayette Expressway.
I was surprised at all the anger toward the city and all the fear of shuttle buses. Don't they know that transit is our friend, and cars are the enemy? If I were a resident of the hollow, I'd be angrier at the railroad than anybody else.
