Lots of new projects receiving funding (Pittsburgh, Fox Chapel: apartments, chapel, house)

[Forging Steel]

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg...-projects.html

a multimodal hub and garage, along with a new stop on the busway, for Bakery Square and its new expansion into Larimer. ($2.5 million)

investment in the new headquarters of Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services in Uptown. ($1 million)

for the new 15,000-square-foot environmental education facility at Frick Environmental Center. ($1.7 million)

improvements at Goodwill Southside Workplace Development Center ($1 million)

construction of the new Midwife Center expansion project in the Strip District. ($1 million)

pedestrian bridge for the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children. ($1 million)

in the Phipps Landmark Glasshouse rehabilitation ($1 million)

the new 21,540-square-foot annex expansion of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in the Strip District. ( $1 million)

expansion of 6 acres into pathways and new animal exhibits at the Pittsburgh Zoo ($1 million)

improving the Strip District produce terminal building and making public space improvements around it. ($4 million)

infrastructure to support the first phase of apartments at Station Square East. ($1 million)

for the purchase and renovation of the South Side terminal building ($2.5 million)

for the second phase of the 82,000-square foot University Commons student center at Carlow University ($1 million)

for expanding and renovating the Women’s Center and Shelter of Pittsburgh. ($1 million)

[WhoIsStanwix?]

That pedestrian bridge for the school of the blind is not to be overlooked. I often wonder whether Pitt should be installing these for the safety of their students on the Fifth/Forbes corridor.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by WhoIsStanwix?

That pedestrian bridge for the school of the blind is not to be overlooked. I often wonder whether Pitt should be installing these for the safety of their students on the Fifth/Forbes corridor.

They have a pedestrian bridge on the Pitt campus that spans Forbes Avenue by Dunkin' Donuts. Nobody uses it. Instead students just aimlessly wander into moving traffic UNDER the pedestrian bridge, forcing me to drive around them.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

They have a pedestrian bridge on the Pitt campus that spans Forbes Avenue by Dunkin' Donuts. Nobody uses it. Instead students just aimlessly wander into moving traffic UNDER the pedestrian bridge, forcing me to drive around them.

That's not entirely correct. It's heavily used by students who are leaving the Towers Dorms or Posvar/David Lawrence/Law Library, since they don't have to use any stairs to get to it. It's definitely true that not everyone uses it, but it would be way worse without it.

Also, you should probably just stop instead of driving around people. Yeah, it sucks that they are breaking the rules, but it's a lot safer to just slow down and stop than to be changing lanes unpredictably.

[gladhands]

There's an East Busway stop THREE BLOCKS FROM BAKERY SQUARE. Complete waste of tax money.

[Forging Steel]

Originally Posted by gladhands

There's an East Busway stop THREE BLOCKS FROM BAKERY SQUARE. Complete waste of tax money.

The proposed stop will also serve the neighborhood of Larimer. For that reason, I support this. The current East Liberty station is great but it's still a long walk for most of the neighborhood of Larimer especially when you start considering the elderly/disabled.

It seems that the pedestrian bridge at the school for the blind is a very specific project for them and has little to do with jaywalking or traffic flow. It will just make their lives a thousand times easier. Could you imagine if UPMC had to transport its patients between buildings at street level?

As far as the ped bridge on Forbes, if the city/university really wanted to discourage jaywalking here and encourage use of the bridge, they would install railings along the sidewalks as they did in front of Montefiore along Fifth. Otherwise, people will continue to leave David Lawrence Hall and go back to their dorms via the path of least resistance, which currently is waiting for a break in traffic and crossing Forbes at the surface level. But seriously, a simple railing would solve 99% of this problem and probably will save a life one day based on the comments by the person who drives AROUND students on a college campus. That sounds like a recipe for disaster when one should exercise patience and respect their campus.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Forging Steel

But seriously, a simple railing would solve 99% of this problem and probably will save a life one day based on the comments by the person who drives AROUND students on a college campus. That sounds like a recipe for disaster when one should exercise patience and respect their campus.

You people act like 18-22-year-olds are supposed to be stupid and reckless. I was 18 not that long ago, and due to having poor parents had to work full-time while in undergraduate school unlike most of my peers whose more affluent parents were paying for their educations. I didn't have time to risk my life because I felt "entitled" to jaywalk the way so many students feel entitled to everything these days. You make the decision to play chicken and step off the curb to cross a multi-lane busy street where approaching traffic has a green light because you don't feel like waiting for a break in traffic, then you either run your hiney across at full speed or deal with me driving AROUND you while honking. That simple. My most recent delivery job permitted our clients to track me real-time on an app, and if they didn't feel as if my routing was most efficient I could be given a lower rating and/or not tipped for it. Like hell I was going to risk either of those things happening by stopping for some entitled college kid texting their way across the middle of Forbes Avenue like a game of Frog-ger when they had the option of either taking an elevated and enclosed pedestrian walkway right above them OR walking to either of two nearby signalized intersections.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

You people act like 18-22-year-olds are supposed to be stupid and reckless. I was 18 not that long ago, and due to having poor parents had to work full-time while in undergraduate school unlike most of my peers whose more affluent parents were paying for their educations. I didn't have time to risk my life because I felt "entitled" to jaywalk the way so many students feel entitled to everything these days.

Oh. Just. Stop. It's not a "these days" issue.

I know I've typed this countless times in the past. When I went to Pitt, long before you were born, Towers residents crossed without looking going to and from Common Facilities (now known as David Lawrence Hall) hundreds, maybe thousands, of times a day. People would literally (and I do mean "literally") joke about not even looking when they crossed the street. And there wasn't any Mary Tyler Moore bridge above Forbes Avenue. Was it entitled? Sure (though that word was not used as frequently it is today). But it was our neighborhood. Cars were just driving through it. Were we immature? Stupid? Of course. We were freshmen and sophomores. Most of us had never lived away from home before. You, OTOH, are now what? Almost 30? Old enough to look at the big picture, no?

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

You make the decision to play chicken and step off the curb to cross a multi-lane busy street where approaching traffic has a green light because you don't feel like waiting for a break in traffic, then you either run your hiney across at full speed or deal with me driving AROUND you while honking. That simple.

If it weren't for the fact that it would mean someone else was injured or dead, I almost wish you would hit someone while you're driving AROUND them on your way through their neighborhood and have to sit your hiney in jail for a couple of years. Talk about feeling "entitled."

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

My most recent delivery job permitted our clients to track me real-time on an app, and if they didn't feel as if my routing was most efficient I could be given a lower rating and/or not tipped for it. Like hell I was going to risk either of those things happening by stopping for some entitled college kid texting their way across the middle of Forbes Avenue like a game of Frog-ger when they had the option of either taking an elevated and enclosed pedestrian walkway right above them OR walking to either of two nearby signalized intersections.

And you have now -- FINALLY!!! -- dealt with that in the only effective manner, by getting a job that doesn't require you to drive through one of the busiest sections in all of Pennsylvania as a way to make a living.

So let up on the rage, already. Everyone feels entitled to something. Even poor, poor pitiful you (as people zoom past your house while driving through your neighborhood).

[Forging Steel]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

due to having poor parents had to work full-time while in undergraduate school unlike most of my peers whose more affluent parents were paying for their educations. I didn't have time to risk my life because I felt "entitled" to jaywalk the way so many students feel entitled to everything these days.

Wow. So by this logic jaywalking is nonexistent in the poor neighborhoods and surely must be an epidemic in Fox Chapel and Upper St Clair these days. All of those rich kids with nothing better to do with their time than to play ******* in the street.

In all my years of driving around Pittsburgh, and living in Pittsburgh, I can't recall ever seeing a situation where a jaywaking pedestrian literally steps into the path of an oncoming car forcing that car to drive around them, as you claim to do often. The fact is 99% of people value their life and have enough common sense and judgment skills to cross the street. If the 25 mph speed limit is being observed on Forbes, slowing down to let a few stragglers cross will have a neglible impact on your delivery.

Because of people like you, we need Forbes to be reconfigured into a complete street that is designed to accomodate everybody and designed to prevent exactly the type of dangerous, selfish behavior being exhibited here. With any luck it will include a signalized zebra crossing in this location where the press of a button can turn the light red and delay the delivery drivers 60 seconds while the students can reclaim their campus from one of the two deep dangerous scars that divide it.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by gladhands

There's an East Busway stop THREE BLOCKS FROM BAKERY SQUARE. Complete waste of tax money.

That is a long hike from Bakery Square to East Liberty Station. The new stop will replace the current PAT employee stop. The new stop will also serve Larimer and North Point Breeze as well as the Kingsley Center, Lincoln Elementary, and Mt Ararat Baptist church which is one of the largest black congregations in the area.