Where Pittsburgh could fit 100,000 more people... (Oakland: house, school, living)

[Tirade]

I never take suggestions of redeveloping Squirrel Hill seriously. This is a neighborhood that has let the Forward and Murray intersection sit vacant for years. Hell, Poli has been vacant for over ten years now. If they can't even manage to turn this prime location into a thriving business area, then I have my serious doubts that could carry out a large-scale project without it completely falling apart.

[Drover]

There's a staggering amount of land available for infill. Considering the city once had a population approaching 700,000 -- and notwithstanding that living conditions probably sucked in more than a few neighborhoods back when the population reached that point -- is it really that hard to imagine how the city can accommodate a population of 400,000?

[sparrowmint]

I'm sure there's plenty of room for a hundred thousand more people to live. Maybe multiple hundreds of thousands. I don't think there is room for them on the roads though.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by sparrowmint

I'm sure there's plenty of room for a hundred thousand more people to live. Maybe multiple hundreds of thousands. I don't think there is room for them on the roads though.

Agreed. We can't realistically be talking about comfortably sustaining a sizeable influx of residents into our fair city WITHOUT making major infrastructural improvements. Considering PAT's service will be anemic in a few months once their next round of cuts goes into effect due to their major budget crisis I suspect traffic congestion woes will only continue to worsen. I can't speak for other areas of the city, but I can definitely say there has been a small (yet noticeable) uptick in congestion on major surface streets here in the East End over the past two years. Shady Avenue through Squirrel Hill in particular used to be a great time-saving alternative to the non-synchronized traffic lights, jaywalkers, and people who can't parallel park to save their lives who hold up traffic on Murray Avenue, but now I find it to be even MORE congested at times and hope Wightman Street, my other prime shortcut, doesn't also soon suffer the same fate. Traffic heading outbound on Beacon Street through Squirrel Hill (bound for Regent Square/Point Breeze from Downtown/Oakland) has also increased. Very narrow Melwood Avenue through Polish Hill has definitely become much busier---I've seen several people stopping to examine bumped sideview mirrors during my commutes over the past few weeks due to the aggressiveness of drivers who both try to force their way through instead of one yielding to the opposing vehicle. This stretch in particular has also been the location of several bad accidents this year alone. The amount of congestion my weekday 9:00PM-ish bad car accident at Forbes & Dallas back in September caused was mind-boggling.

In a city where everyone will soon be driving everywhere for everything due to the incompetence of both our local transit agency and our illustrious governor I don't think it's necessarily a "good" thing to encourage rapid population growth. Yes, it would be nice to overtake Cleveland so residents of that fair city stop pounding their chests thinking they're far superior to us (yeah, right), but if Pittsburgh becomes a "congested" city then the excelsior quality-of-life that is currently drawing so many transplants here will definitely be threatened.

[pman]

Originally Posted by sparrowmint

I'm sure there's plenty of room for a hundred thousand more people to live. Maybe multiple hundreds of thousands. I don't think there is room for them on the roads though.

Outside the tunnels Pittsburgh city traffic is nothing. There is an enormous amount of unused road capacity. It really all depends on where the additional people live and work. If people move to the northside,Lawrenceville, downtown,east liberty, and the hill there's be little need for major infrastructure and bus service would be better used and easier to fund. If they commute through the sq hill tunnels you have a problem

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by pman

Outside the tunnels Pittsburgh city traffic is nothing. There is an enormous amount of unused road capacity.

I don't think that's true.

Right now there is very heavy traffic on Butler near 40th backing up in both directions at that bottleneck, heavy traffic in Oakland, on Baum, on the South Side, in the South Hills neighborhoods getting into and out of those tunnels and traffic often is very much a pain going through Liberty Ave in Bloomfield and up through the Polish Hill shortcut.

[SolitaryThrush]

Originally Posted by Tirade

I never take suggestions of redeveloping Squirrel Hill seriously. This is a neighborhood that has let the Forward and Murray intersection sit vacant for years. Hell, Poli has been vacant for over ten years now. If they can't even manage to turn this prime location into a thriving business area, then I have my serious doubts that could carry out a large-scale project without it completely falling apart.

Exactly. And now practically that whole block (from Poli up to the old Squirrel Hill Theater) is empty, save for the quiet pizza place.

I'd like to see more of the rundown, chopped-up houses in Squirel Hill developed like the apartments under construction near Forbes-Murray. You could add density and better-quality housing, though a lot of the population attached to Pitt / CMU / UPMC is already being directed toward East Liberty and the Baum Blvd and Centre Ave corridors.

Really, plenty of areas could add population if they would start building up not out. Just a matter of attracting people from the suburbs, and divorcing them from the car culture.

[BrianTH]

We've got some bottlenecks inside the City that would need to be addressed with rapid transit, but that is completely feasible on the likely timeframe in which we would be passing 400K (of course, I would mention urban gondolas in this context, but just Rapid Bus would help a lot).

By the way, I'd note the East Busway is nowhere near its theoretical capacity. However, I expect it is more likely that capacity will be absorbed by areas outside the City, particularly if it gets extended to Monroeville.

[pman]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

I don't think that's true.

Right now there is very heavy traffic on Butler near 40th backing up in both directions at that bottleneck, heavy traffic in Oakland, on Baum, on the South Side, in the South Hills neighborhoods getting into and out of those tunnels and traffic often is very much a pain going through Liberty Ave in Bloomfield and up through the Polish Hill shortcut.

Like I said its.very manageable compared to most places that have jobs.people living downtown or the strip would have the option to walk as would the lower hill. Presuming uptown also saw development modest transit improvements could help. Even higher capacity streetcars aren't major investments really. Outside the rush there's an incredible amount of capacity.

[selltheburgh]

I don't think that Shadyside will gain much more population or lose much more. If some of the 2 or 5 unit buildings that are run down are renovated, I'm sure many of the owners will keep them as multi units. Given the current rental market there, 22 year olds are paying a grand / month to live in something that was last updated before they were born. If a place has an occupancy permit for 3+ units, the owner will want to hold onto it, update each unit for 10-15k and get that money back out in less than 18-24 months. There will be new construction, rental and for sale (at least in the 500k range) where Reizenstein currently sits. Walnut Capital and others are behind that.

Places like bloomfield are about as dense now as it was 50-60 years ago building-wise. It is just that most of the 2 or 3 bedroom houses only have 1-3 people in them and not 5-8 people spanning 3 generations. Same with the southside and Lawrenceville.

There's a lot of land where the Heppenstahl plant is and that could expand into a whole new community.

The Buncher lots in the Strip is going to be a huge residential development. That plus the Cork II will create an increase in population there, but it still won't feel busy for a good while.

East Liberty will be interesting.

The Highland / Wallace project will have 127 units. It is safe to say that'll be at least 150 new residents. That doesn't mean 150 new city residents. Some will come from the Heinz Lofts, Cork, Downtown, Southside, parts of Shadyside, the suburbs and possibly some from out of state.

The Fairfield apartments behind Target are about 130 units of 1-2 bedrooms. They are half subsidized (not section 8, just low to moderate income) and half market rate (800-950 / month).

Between Penn Circle N and Stanton, Highland and Negley, there are 30+ vacant lots that will eventually be built on. Plus ELDI has about 30-40 buildings in their possession or option agreements that are either vacant and will be SFH rehabs or are houses split into slum rental units that will be SFH. Some might be razed for new construction too. I don't think that this will create a large increase in population, but it'll continue stabilizing the housing market there. This has been happening and will continue for the next 5+ years. This will still only be a

An area like Morningside won't gain population unless the houses with 1 or 2 residents sell to larger families or couples have babies.

Highland Park has about 30-40 vacant properties. That really only adds 50-75 people though. There will be new apartments on Bryant St eventually.


All in all, adding 100k to the population is doable, but you'd need another baby boom more-so than in-fill housing and new developments. That or a huge industry to move to Pgh.