Our neighbors know how to improve mobility for our community. We've put solutions forward for years. It's time our public money and officials support these priorities.

Sign this petition to call for the investment of our money in our solutions.

We believe that Mobility is a Right, and that all Pittsburgh residents deserve accessible, affordable and effective public transportation to reach employment, healthcare, food, housing, and community. Moreover, all of our neighborhoods deserve safe streets and trails that allow people to walk and bike within and between communities.

Investment in transit, pedestrian and bike infrastructure is critical to achieving an equitable and environmentally sustainable city. Over the years, our communities have asked for accessible sidewalks, bike trail connections, expanded transit service and safe pedestrian crossings on busy streets—and those requests have been documented in countless community plans and at City and County agencies.

Time and time again, we've been told that there is no money to make those plans a reality. Yet, a multi-million dollar mobility project is now being pushed forward instead of our communities' solutions.

We the residents, neighborhood organizations, businesses and broader stakeholders in Hazelwood, Greenfield, Oakland, Panther Hollow, Four Mile Run, and Squirrel Hill are now putting forward a different solution: a holistic mobility package. We now call on our City, Port Authority, universities, foundations and other stakeholder organizations to support and fund these key transit, pedestrian and bike priorities that are long overdue and critically needed. And we believe all the entities that stand to benefit from these improvements alongside the residents should contribute to its realization

Join us in calling for the Mon-Oakland communities' transit, pedestrian, and bike priorities to be funded and implemented.

Why are we putting forward this proposal now?

Over the past few decades, the Hazelwood, Greenfield, Panther Hollow, and Four Mile Run neighborhoods have been the focus of institutional aspirations. Most recently, the City's transportation planning in our communities has coalesced around a single solution for our mobility needs: building the Mon-Oakland Connector roadway through Schenley Park. This roadway would be built with millions of dollars of taxpayer money to host unspecified privately-run transportation modes—leaving a plethora of open questions such as usage costs, disability access, hours of operation, passenger-carrying capacity, safety for other park users, and impact on adjacent neighborhoods and the natural environment. Because of these concerns—and the Mon-Oakland Connector's dubious utility in addressing our very real transportation and pedestrian safety needs—the proposal has been met by considerable opposition.

How would the future of our neighborhoods look if driven from within by community members?

We the residents, neighborhood organizations, businesses and broader stakeholders in this corridor would like to offer a different solution: a holistic mobility package. Our proposals solidify recommendations and needs identified by the Greater Hazelwood Comprehensive Neighborhood Plan and draw upon community feedback and data acquired through the SPC's State Route 885/Second Ave Study, the City's Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI)'s Pedestrian Safety Plan, Port Authority's Annual Service Report and the Burgh's Eye 311 requests.

We have identified key pedestrian, bike and public transit improvements that benefit all of us—including other stakeholders such as businesses, universities, and foundations. These proposed streetscape and public transit investments will make our streets safer and provide sustainable and effective transportation alternatives to single-occupancy vehicle use. Moreover, they open pathways to economic opportunity and support workers with non-traditional work hours by improving transit connections between Hazelwood and Oakland as well as creating a new one to the job centers at SouthSide Works and southern neighborhoods beyond. In short, our proposals direct public dollars to equitable and long-term alternative transportation solutions that will improve access to our natural resources without degrading them.    

Finally, we want to state unequivocally that all resources earmarked by the City and PWSA for improvements to the Four Mile Run watershed (along with upland areas as needed to address flooding) and Schenley Park should nonetheless be disbursed, and that those projects should proceed in a timely fashion.  

We invite DOMI, City Council, Port Authority of Allegheny County, PennDOT, the Southwest PA Commission (SPC), the foundations that own Hazelwood Green, RIDC, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Pittsburgh to be partners in realizing this vision. We believe that all the entities that stand to benefit from these improvements alongside the residents should contribute to its realization.  

Pedestrian Improvements:

1. Irvine/Second Avenue sidewalk audit and replacement/install to ensure ADA-compliant width and curb cuts, from Greenfield Ave through the Hazelwood Business District (need as highlighted by SPC State Route 885/Second Ave Study, the DOMI Pittsburgh Pedestrian Safety Plan)

2. Improve street lighting on Irvine

3. Dedicated pedestrian crossing times and signals on Hazelwood Second Ave business district, particularly by the library during school pick-up and drop-off hours.

4. Saline St/Irvine/Second Ave/Greenfield Ave nexus reconstruction (need as highlighted by SPC State Route 885/Second Ave Study, but rethink with more direct community input so that this improvement does not facilitate Hazelwood Green traffic at the expense of residents in directly affected areas—particularly The Run)

5. Traffic calming measures on Hazelwood Ave and on the lower residential area of Greenfield Ave

6. ADA-compliant access to Panther Hollow parklet/Fixing curb issues and chronic potholes on Boundary Street

7. Sidewalk from the corner of Joncaire Street and Boundary Street to the intersection with Filmore Street (Some refer to this stretch of roadway as Boundary Street and others refer to it as South Neville Street.)

8. ADA-compliant sidewalks and street lights on Desdemona Ave and Imogene Rd

Transit Improvements:

1. Weekend service on the 93, at a minimum frequency of once every 40 minutes (need as highlighted in the Port Authority service requests for 2015, 2016, 2017)

2. Extension of the 75 across the Hot Metal Bridge into Hazelwood

3. Traffic signal priority for buses on Hot Metal Bridge and Birmingham Bridge

4. Electric buses for the 75

5. Clean bus stops, with benches and shelters

Trail/Bike Improvements:

1. Maintain pedestrian/bicycle trail access during PWSA stormwater remediation project and reconstruction.

2. The reconstructed pedestrian and bicycle Junction Hollow Trail should be similarly paved but not be used for motor vehicles of any form, and should be enhanced with trail level lighting to allow for year-round commuting.

3. Create a connection of Junction Hollow Trail over or under railway tracks to access Panther Hollow Lake and the rest of Schenley Park.

4. Improve connections between Oakland and Junction Hollow. Extend Junction Hollow Trail toward Oakland to the CMU parking lot (as indicated in the Junction Hollow Project report with OPDC, Oakland Green Team and Bike Pittsburgh). Create bike lanes on Neville/Boundary St (in addition to the sidewalks proposed in #7 of the pedestrian improvement section).

5. Build a seamless connection between Hazelwood Green and the Eliza Furnace Trail by using the existing train bridge and/or connection at the Hot Metal Bridge (need as highlighted by SPC State Route 885/Second Ave Study). This would greatly improve the route between Hazelwood and Downtown for those wishing to avoid dangerous traffic on Second/Irvine. It would also allow bus riders to safely access more routes on both sides of Second Ave.

6. Connect the Duck Hollow Trail over the train tracks to Hazelwood using existing sidewalks on the Glenwood Bridge to extend the network to Squirrel Hill, Frick Park and points east. (need as highlighted by SPC State Route 885/Second Ave Study).

7. Create and maintain the Sylvan Avenue Corridor as a vehicle-free route for pedestrians and cyclists, managed with an emphasis on forest habitat restoration