The Saga of a Crosswalk - or Why I'm Blogging Again

It's been over 3 years since I last wrote a post for this blog. Some really exciting things have happened in the meantime:

• The North Shore Connector was finished and has been very successful.
• Property Assessments finally happened again in Allegheny County.
• Gay marriage became legal in Pennsylvania.
• The Great Allegheny Passage was FINALLY completed.
• I created the Knoxville Incline Overlook Park in an old vacant lot.
• Bill Peduto was elected Mayor of Pittsburgh - about as important at the local level as Barack Obama being elected President of the United States.

A couple of not-so-great things: 

• The Brown T Line to Allentown is still not running - but The Hardware Store and the Hilltop Alliance are generating some great energy for Allentown, and I expect good things to happen there.
• We still have the PLCB and no tax on Marcellus Shale gas - but Corbett is on his way out the door.

And what drove me to blog: 

• I've been trying to get a crosswalk painted since May, and it's still not done. 

Some History:

May 14: I submit the request to repaint a barely there crosswalk on Twitter

https://twitter.com/illyrias/status/466579294815518720

July 7: I follow up multiple times on twitter and am told that the intersection is scheduled for painting. 

https://twitter.com/Pgh311/status/486539963987918848

July 22: Still not done, but I'm told it will be done in the next 5-7 days!

https://twitter.com/Pgh311/status/491657160481591296

August 19: Still not done, but I'm told that the project is still scheduled but that: "Equipment failure resulted in delay" https://twitter.com/Pgh311/status/501739023686467584

September 9: Still not done. No response. https://twitter.com/Pgh311/status/509358322542448640

October 6: Since it's getting late in the season, and @pgh311 is no longer getting updated information, I reach out to my city councilman's office.

Kraus's office follows up and informs me that the city traffic engineer claims this crosswalk was never city maintained, and they have no record of it, so they will not be painting it. I call the office and to clarify and let them know that this is a standard city crosswalk with curb cuts and city signs to call attention to the crosswalk. 

October 9: After following up with the city traffic engineer, Kraus's office informs me that the work-order has been forwarded to the line striping crew and back on schedule with a new ticket #413410.

October 24: Still not done. "I heard back from the painting foreman today and she assured me that your crossing is on the list to be painted. Her words to me are that this will be taken care of literally as soon as they can get a truck over there."

December 10: Still not done. 

What Next? 

Will I start trying again in the Spring? Or will I give up? Will someone else in the area re-start the same process all over again? 

In the meantime, I've also watched the attempts of @southsideslopes to get wooden forms removed from a set of steps. I've followed along with the requests of @moarhops to get a construction sign removed from a sidewalk. Why is it so hard for these "little" quality of life issues to get addressed? 

Funny how there are a lot of big awesome important things on these lists, but the only one that's gotten me up excited enough to write a blog post in the past 3 years is a simple crosswalk. It really is the "little" things that make constituents happy or angry on a daily basis, and they are just as crucial to our success as a city as the big things. I can only hope our city government learns to take this to heart (from top to bottom) before we all give up.

New Years Resolutions

While most of us make New Year's resolutions to lose weight or save money, some folks in our community decide to run for office.

Of note:

• County Controller Mark Patrick Flaherty is eyeing the County Executive seat
  
• Chelsa Wagner has decided on a run for County Controller
• Valerie McDonald Roberts has also thrown in her hat for County Controller
  
• Bruce Kraus will be running for a second term as Pittsburgh City Councilor - District 3
  
• Lucille Prater-Holliday is running for Pittsburgh City Councilor - District 9
  
• Anyone else?
  

All of the odd-numbered Pittsburgh City Council seats are up for grabs this year, so expect to see more announcements soon.

And if you're fed up with the way things are going? Maybe your New Year's Resolution should be to run for office, too. If so, check out the "How to Run for Public Office" workshop on Saturday February 5. Or next year, check out Coro's annual 12-week course called "Running for Public Office."

Councilman Kraus versus the South Side

Love him or hate him, Pittsburgh City Councilman Bruce Kraus cares about his South Side constituents. Since he was elected, he has made it his crusade to stem the tide of violence, disrespect, and litter in the South Side. Earlier this summer, he organized the "Sociable City Forum" bringing local leaders and bar owners together. Last year, his intern created the following document: "INVITING, SAFE, AND COHESIVE: A PROPOSAL FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE SOUTH SIDE USING RESPONSIBLE HOSPITALITY PRACTICES" This proposal outlines the many ways the South Side could be better handled. But unfortunately funding is an ever-present issue in the city, and none of these recommendations have been implemented.

This past weekend, we had a stark reminder of why it's so important to make changes on the South Side. After getting into a fight with a bouncer, a bar patron opened fire wounding the bouncer and two bystanders. This is unacceptable. Stories like this are why I try to leave the South Side craziness before all hell breaks loose at closing time. Every Friday and Saturday night I've been on the South Side, I've experienced drunken belligerence and fights - though thankfully no gunshots yet. This behavior is unacceptable. Are we going to wait until 4 people get killed?

But our Mayor keeps pushing this off on Councilman Kraus as a minor district problem. Moreover, it seems the Mayor's office is turning a blind eye to Kraus's efforts.

Ms. Doven [Mayoral Spokeswoman] said Mr. Kraus "hasn't brought us anything by way of recommendations, solutions, a white paper" and questioned his willingness to work with the mayor's office. She said previous enforcement blitzes on the South Side yielded only temporary improvements.

Mr Mayor, perhaps if you read your mail, you would have opened your personal invitation to the South Side Sociable City Forum. Or perhaps you could go to Councilman Kraus's web-page on the city website where he outlines the above goals. Or maybe once a week, you could read the newspaper which regularly highlights Kraus's attempts at legislation and change in the South Side. Since being elected, Kraus has managed to get laws passed to increase fines for open alcohol containers and created a fine for public urination.

Perhaps money collected from these fines could be funneled directly back into the South Side police presence? Whatever the case, you can disagree with his tactics, but you can not disagree that Councilman Kraus is willing to work on this vital issue.

City Council Plans Death of South Side

As is said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I firmly believe that Councilor Bruce Kraus has his heart in the right place. He wants to make life better for his South Side constituents. He constantly receives complaints about rowdy drunken revelers pissing on lawns, damaging private property, and generally wrecking havoc in the South Side neighborhood.

"[T]this morning in council, Pittsburgh City Councilman Bruce Kraus reintroduced a bill to limit bars on the South Side, after a similar bill was rejected last month by an Allegheny County Common Pleas Court judge.

Mr. Kraus said the new version of the bill would change city zoning rules to prohibit all new restaurants in the Carson Street corridor, whether or not they offered alcohol. According to the city Law Department, he said, if the bill is "alcohol-neutral, it will be held up by the courts.""

This latest legislation is intending to prohibit all new restaurants from opening on the South Side. Because of the previous limit on alcohol licenses, many previous restaurants had already discovered that it was more profitable to move and sell their alcohol licenses. The most recent and egregious example is Bruschetta which shuttered its doors to re-open as Villa, quite possibly the largest square footage of physical bar in all of the South Side.

If this legislation passes, not only will no new restaurants open, many restaurants will close to follow the suit of Bruschetta. The South Side needs a balance of restaurants, bars, shopping, grocery stores, etc. Without excessive punishing legislation, this will happen.

Instead, I recommend that Councilor Kraus follow the results of the hospitality study that he commissioned. Work with local businesses instead of attempting to squash new business, and we will have a vibrant community.

2 Steps to Sanitizing the South Side

Perhaps as fallout from the upcoming G20, there is some renewed interest in sanitizing the South Side.

2 Cleanliness Culprits in the South Side

1. Public Urination. From what I hear of friends that live on the South Side, this is a pervasive problem. Many solutions have been tried in the past - a mostly vacant port-a-potty sitting over at 18th Street being the most salient reminder. Ideas have been thrown out of giving bar-owners subsidies for opening their bathrooms to the public. Councilor Bruce Kraus wants to take the direct approach. Fine the guys $500. If that's enforced, it might actually work. Of course, we'll also have Kraus to blame if there's a sharp rise in Urinary Tract Infections amongst college-aged men in Pittsburgh. Final vote is on Tuesday.

2. Dangerous Building Conditions. City building inspectors ordered the artist colony known as the Brew House (the former Duquesne Brewery at 21st Street and Mary Street) to vacate the unfit premises by September 19. As it turns out open wiring and lots of flammable materials (also known as art) make for a dangerous combination. Personally, I'd recommend they start with the state of college apartment rentals. The folks at the Brew House are choosing to be there. The college students are clearly morons who will end up pissing on their open wiring when they're kicked off the streets, causing a much more volatile situation. As for the Brew House residents and their building, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up in Garfield, and the lovely building gets turned into condos.

For the South Side, these changes are inevitable. They are the "living room" and ATM of the city. When houses cost over $300,000, you have to expect anger and indignation when someone pisses on your lawn or smelly artists move in next door. Happily, Pittsburgh still has the pleasure of containing many other pre-gentrified neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and Polish Hill. And when those are cleaned up, we'll still have plenty of more neighborhoods to follow.

Yinzer Dogs at Large

I was about 8 when the leash laws came to Haverhill, Massachusetts. We could no longer let our Beagle mutt roam the streets at will. Instead, she had to stay fenced in our backyard. After decades of leash laws, dog owners are now starting to demand some leeway. Back in Haverhill, they are trying (and failing) to establish dog parks.

In Pittsburgh, we are lucky to have some dog parks already in place in Frick Park, Hartwood Acres, North Park, and South Park amongst others. But dog-owners want some place where they can go after work, some place that's convenient. And folks in the city don't tend to have spacious fenced in backyards. In the South Side, dog-owners recently took over Armstrong Park at 12th Street, which generated a great hullabaloo amongst area residents and was cracked down upon with fines and signs galore. This generated such a ruckus that Councilor Bruce Kraus has now admirably involved himself in the issue, and plans have been drawn up to create an official dog park in the South Side. Save the hospital, build dog parks, crack down on al fresco dining, what can't this man do in the South Side?

The catch? This convenient, well-landscaped, multi-zone dog park is going to cost the city $200,000 which it doesn't have. On the other hand, some community activists over in Lawrenceville are building their own dog park with minimal landscaping and minimal cost. Which do you think will be built first? And where will the next renegade dog park pop up in the city?

Drink And Let Live

As I feared, Saturday's drunken revelry ended in tears and bloodshed. Unlike Councilman Kraus, though, I believe that there were plenty of police. There is a dangerous culture of drinking and driving prevalent throughout this city. If drinking and driving were not acceptable from a young age, then this problem would not have happened. Unfortunately, Mr Haniotakis had a clear history of drinking and driving and aggression. Less bars on Carson Street would not have changed the outcome Saturday night. Taking away Mr Haniotakis' license might have helped. Drinking and driving is not acceptable. There should be harsh penalties in place for those who do and plenty of alternatives for those who choose not to. I'll re-iterate my plea from Saturday - cut back on a few billy-club-shaking overtime cops in riot gear and instead, let's have some real leadership in Pittsburgh broker a deal with Port Authority that all buses after 10pm are free. And make sure there are actually buses running until after the bars close on Friday and Saturday nights. Re-institute the party shuttle down Carson Street. Teach kids in school that it is NOT okay to drink and drive. Teach kids to drink responsibly. While we're celebrating St Patrick's Day, why don't we splash some bloody ugly commercials on TV like in Ireland?



How do you pay for these things?

Ever hear of the drink tax?

Or maybe instead we can just add more police? I understand treating the immediate symptom, but this is getting ridiculous. Soon, we'll have more police than bar patrons on Carson Street. Let's treat the root of the problem by stopping drunk driving. Excessive binge drinking is next on the list.