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August 28, 1997

Compromise on Bigelow block tabled at last minute

Without comment, Pittsburgh City Council on July 30 indefinitely tabled a bill that would have authorized spending up to $425,000 in city funds to narrow Bigelow Boulevard between the Cathedral of Learning and the William Pitt Union.

The tabling in effect kills the plan unless it is reintroduced by a Council member. Jay Roling, Pitt's director of local relations, said that may not be possible until a new legislative session begins in January. Pitt will not know for sure, however, until Council returns from vacation in September.

Roling also does not know what, if anything, the University plans to do about the project; for example, whether the administration might decide that Pitt will pay the entire bill for the redesign.

"That's beyond the order of our office," Roling said. "If plans are being made, I am not aware of them yet." According to Ken Service, Pitt's director of communications, the future of the plan is in the hands of City Council. Service said: "It is somewhat puzzling that the president of City Council [Jim Ferlo], who proposed this compromise, was also the same person who tabled it.

"There was no discussion at all," Service added. "It was tabled without explanation." Under the agreement worked out with the Murphy administration, Pitt and the city had planned to split the $750,000 to $850,000 needed to narrow the street from four lanes to two lanes and landscape the surrounding area.

More than a year and a half ago, the University had proposed paying the full cost of reconstruction if the one-block stretch of Bigelow was closed permanently. Opposition to a permanent closing by Council President Ferlo and the public resulted in the compromise plan under which Pitt agreed to pay half the cost and the Murphy administration the other half. According to testimony at several meetings on the project, the city in the past has entered into such agreements with property owners on the North Side, in the East End and in other neighborhoods.

Council was set to approve the compromise earlier in July, until public opposition arose over the city paying for half the cost of the project. At a July 23 public hearing on the issue, more than two dozen speakers opposed spending city funds on the project.

At that meeting Service said: "The University still feels it has been a good neighbor in going along on the compromise and that since it is, in fact, a compromise, we shouldn't be expected to pay the total price for it." The University had planned to start the project by Aug. 1 and complete it before the fall term.

–Mike Sajna

Filed under: Feature,Volume 30 Issue 1

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