University Times

Bigelow Boulevard between the Cathedral of Learning and the William Pitt Union will reopen to vehicular traffic sometime prior to midnight on Oct. 15.

Bob Harkins, director of Pitt's Office of Parking and Transportation, could not say exactly when the concrete barriers blocking the street would be removed, but urged students, faculty and staff to be careful crossing the street on the morning of Oct. 16.

"We're going to put up some signage, but we really want to remind people that the traffic will be there beginning on the 16th and to be careful," Harkins said.

Although data is still being collected, Harkins said preliminary counts have shown traffic densities on surrounding streets to be less than projected at the start of the closing on Sept. 16.

"We were criticized by some people for not doing counts," Harkins said. "We did an awful lot of counts before Bigelow closed, and then waited two weeks for traffic patterns to settle down so there weren't any unusual spikes. We were out all last week and this week doing counts." Along with counting the number of vehicles using surrounding streets, staff from the Office of Parking and Transportation have been conducting "turning-movement" counts on the number of vehicles that pass through intersections.

Harkins said that surveys have uncovered some things that the city might consider doing on surrounding streets if Bigelow Boulevard is permanently closed, such as adding overhead traffic signs to indicate the direction of each lane on a street.

Overhead signs were not erected during the temporary closing, Harkins said, because they are expensive to install and neither the University nor the city wanted to incur the cost for a period as short as 30 days. Staff from Harkins's office will meet with members of the city planning department this week to discuss whether any traffic changes created by the closing, such as lane lines and loading zones, will remain in effect after Bigelow is reopened.

"The city will tell us what it wants," said Harkins. "It's all a city call. Our mission is to reopen Bigelow by midnight on the 15th and we'll do that." Final figures on traffic counts will not be available for about three weeks after Bigelow is reopened, he added.

"We've got to run some data," Harkins said. "What we will do then is go back and look at the criteria the city established for the closing to work. That was to make certain all of the intersections remained at the same level of service. We have to demonstrate that we haven't made traffic conditions any worse. Our initial look shows that things may have improved." Harkins also noted that homecoming fireworks and other events that took place on Bigelow Boulevard during the closing provided a hint of what Pitt would be like if Bigelow was permanently closed and planted with grass to create a central campus area.

–Mike Sajna