Statement before the Glenn A. Walsh

Council of the P.O. Box 1041

City of Pittsburgh -- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15230-1041 U.S.A.

Grant Street Brick Pavers: Telephone: 412-561-7876

Seventh Avenue to Electronic Mail: < publictransit@planetarium.cc >

Liberty Avenue Internet Web Site: < https://andrewcarnegie2.tripod.com/transit >

2005 May 24

Good morning. I am Glenn A. Walsh of 633 Royce Avenue, Mount Lebanon. Today, I am representing no formal organization.

Last Wednesday, you, again, discussed maintenance problems of the brick street pavers in the block of Grant Street between Seventh Avenue and Liberty Avenue. And, again, buses were blamed for much of the damage to the brick pavers in this block.

Although many buses do use this section of Grant Street, buses can be found using nearly all stretches of Grant Street. So why is this one section of Grant Street so much worse? The answer is heavy truck traffic.

Trucks coming from the Veterans’ Bridge, Liberty Bridge, Bigelow Boulevard, and the Boulevard of the Allies, bound for the Strip District, have no choice but to use the Seventh Avenue exit of Crosstown Boulevard to reach the Strip District. This means that the section of Grant Street between Seventh Avenue and Liberty Avenue has to endure a great deal more heavy truck traffic, than does other parts of Grant Street.

And, it was not supposed to be this way! When the Veterans’ Bridge was constructed, PennDOT was supposed to build ramps from the Veterans’ Bridge directly into the Strip District, so trucks could avoid coming into the Downtown core, just to reach the Strip District. But, these ramps were never built!

Most truckers do not want to come into the Downtown core, if their destination is the Strip District. However, since these ramps were never built, truckers coming from the Veterans’ Bridge, Liberty Bridge, Bigelow Boulevard, and the Boulevard of the Allies have no choice but to come Downtown.

This problem can still be remedied. You should talk to PennDOT, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, and local legislators about getting ramps built from the Veterans’ Bridge directly into the Strip District—while there is still land available for these ramps, before future development near the bridge makes such ramps impossible, or a very expensive proposition.

Such ramps would remove a lot of heavy truck traffic from this section of the Downtown core, and would make maintenance of the brick pavers on Grant Street much easier and less expensive.

Thank you.

gaw