University Times

Pitt is putting its money where its mouth is to help improve pedestrian safety on the Pittsburgh campus. The University will contribute $250,000 plus in-kind project management services to supplement a $500,000 grant awarded to the Oakland Transportation and Management Association (OTMA) by the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC).

The SPC grant and Pitt supplement will fund phase 1 of an overall strategy to improve 11 intersections along the Forbes and Fifth avenues corridors.

Maevis Rainey, executive director of OTMA, said, “We’re very pleased to partner with the University, with PennDOT, with the OBID (Oakland Business Improvement District) and other community organizations in looking at these problem areas. We’ll be looking at the crosswalks, at surface treatments to alert drivers of changes in pedestrian flow and traffic lanes, at traffic management devices such as counters for the traffic signal changes, pedestrian-only cycles and pedestrian-first traffic delay signals, as well as signage and other improvements.”

According to Rainey, Pennsylvania was awarded $64 million in federal dollars this year for traffic- and safety-related projects that are overseen by PennDOT. The money is dispensed throughout the state by metro planning organizations, such as SPC.

“SPC this year had 68 applications for money from the 10-county region [it serves],” Rainey said. “We were very happy to get $500,000. SPC has $12 million for the next 3 years, meaning $4 million for each year. We will be applying for some of that money.”

OTMA also has applied for an additional $500,000 from Gov. Ed Rendell’s hometown streets and school safety program, but has not heard yet whether the money will be approved. “Our overall ‘wish list’ for the project would cost $1.9 million,” Rainey said. “So, we need to do this in phases, and at our planning meeting [Jan. 18] we will be looking at how to prioritize our efforts.”

Rainey said the planning group, which includes representatives from most Oakland community groups as well as from Pitt, will focus first on improving the design of some irregular intersections, such as Fifth and McKee, Fifth and Thackeray, and Fifth and DeSoto, as well as heavily traversed intersections such as Forbes and Bouquet, Forbes and Atwood and Forbes and Oakland.

According to John Wilds, Pitt director of community relations, money for the project will be provided by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor. Pitt Facilities Management personnel will oversee the design, engineering and construction of the project as it moves through those phases.

-Peter Hart