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4 service plazas reopen on Pa., Ohio turnpikes

Written by Jon Schmitz on .

Just in time for your holiday travel, two service plazas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and two on the Ohio Turnpike have reopened.

The South Midway plaza on the eastbound turnpike at mile 147 in Bedford County (pictured) was the 14th Pennsylvania service plaza to be rebuilt since 2007, and the stately exterior style of the 72-year-old plaza was preserved.
 
southmidwayopen“We’ve preserved the charm and appeal of the South Midway facility with a historically sensitive reconstruction. The facade looks identical to its ancestor. But the restored South Midway is more spacious with amenities such as a food court, more food selections, contemporary restroom facilities and some unique features that pay homage to its origins,” said turnpike chief operating officer Craig Shuey.

The plaza has a display of service plaza memorabilia; restored wood-and-copper fireplaces; photos of old service plazas; and large-screen monitors playing a video of the turnpike’s history (we’re guessing there’s not much about indictments). A piece of concrete from the original turnpike in 1940 is on display outside the main entrance.
 
Concessionaires are Starbucks, Auntie Anne’s pretzels, Steak ‘n Shake, Sbarro and a Sunoco A-Plus Mini-Mart.
 
Farther east, the Highspire Service Plaza at milepost 250 eastbound in Dauphin County reopened May 15. Both plazas had closed Sept. 4, 2012.
 
With the completion of South Midway and Highspire, only three service plazas have yet to be reconstructed: North Midway in Bedford County and Peter J. Camiel and Valley Forge both in Chester County. The plan is to close North Midway in September 2014 and to reopen it in May 2015. The Camiel service plaza will remain open during staged renovations which will begin this September and should be completed in December 2015. Reconstruction of the Valley Forge service plaza will be coordinated with a turnpike widening project in that area and is expected to begin in March 2014.

On the Ohio Turnpike, the twin plazas not far from the Pennsylvania state line finally reopened this week after 2 1/2 years of reconstruction. Completion was delayed when the original contractor, Pittsburgh-based Reginella Construction, was booted off the project for failure to perform, according to the Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

ohiopikeplaza

The westbound Mahoning Valley and eastbound Glacier Hills plazas at mile 237 have Panera Bread restaurants and Sunoco A-Plus convenience stores, expanded restrooms including a family restroom, larger fueling areas, a truckers’ lounge with showers and washer-dryer and vending machines. Dairy Queen Grill and Chill is scheduled to open there next month.

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gatewayclipper

The Gateway Clipper will christen the latest addition to its fleet, the Three Rivers Queen, at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the docks at Station Square. The boat is described as a 110-foot-long and 32-foot-wide all-steel classic paddle wheel-style passenger boat with three decks. It can accommodate 250 passengers for dinner or 338 for sightseeing and features a calliope.

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Trash and blight: We have big work to do

Written by Diana Nelson Jones on .

old school
 
This old school is not an anomaly in the city, where we have more and more of them not being used. This one sits largely unseen, behind the vacant Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church on Larimer Avenue in East Liberty.
 
If you’re out that way on Saturday, you can watch the Explorer’s Club doing “roof” repairs. Roof as in steeple. So they’ll be dangling from ropes.
 
The school, the church and the rectory have all been vacant for a long time and have suffered degrading abuse by vandals and thieves. East Liberty Development Inc. is conducting a feasibility study to help Kenneth Stevenson, the owner — a pastor and former charter school director — decide on the best reuse.
 
Meanwhile, people further abuse the site by using the parking lot between the church and school as a dump site.
 
Even though we’re on the national radar as an up-and-coming-back city, Pittsburgh has an awful lot of evolving to do. 
 
First, we have to grab these yokels and trashheads up by the collar and shake them into some sensibility about pride and respect, for themselves and others. In other words, as a city, we must begin a strict campaign and enforcement measures to stop the abuse of dumping and litter in its tracks. Fine the hell out of these people. Catch them. Chastise them. Make them visit Portland. Introduce them to Boris Weinstein. Whatever it takes.
 
This behavior is disgusting, degrading and embarrassing.
 
Second: We have to get some great minds together to figure out what to do with all the buildings that sit vacant. Something other than what we’re doing now. I don’t know what that is. But we have a ton of blight and the national spotlight is on us. We’re expecting to keep growing.
 
We need to be getting ready yesterday, y’know? 
 

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You can’t Google to get these answers

Written by Diana Nelson Jones on .

 
Mitchell Silver speaks internationally about global population changes that should be compelling planners to study trends the way stockbrokers follow the stock market, and he spoke today to an almost-full ballroom of people at the Community Development Summit at the William Penn Hotel Downtown.
 
His message was so challenging, so informative, inspiring and entertaining that I am posting  long here to share as much as I think you might want to read. He's all over YouTube and Vimeo if you Google his name, so check out some keynotes and interviews. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, especially if you care about the vibrancy and future of your city, do it. It might make you feel charged up to become a more active citizen.
 
The chief planning and development officer for the city of Raleigh, he said the cities that stay or become vibrant are already planning to meet the needs of a very different country by 2050. "The smart cities understand the sense of urgency 10 years before it is urgent."
 
The summit is an annual exercise of the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group, a non-profit planning organization, to bring together community development specialists and advocates to share strategies that move cities forward. They came from throughout the region, including Cleveland and Baltimore, to discuss how they do transit, bust-up poverty pockets, manage stormwater, employ innovative housing strategies and maintain community in the face of population shrinkage.
 
PCRG  has dozens of member groups and is based in the Hill District.
 
As if Mr. Silver  knows how things have always been done in Pittsburgh -- and maybe he does-- he said, “Plan making is not deal making,” eliciting chuckles from the crowd. “I have no problem with the deal but it must work with the plan.” A smattering of applause broke out. “A development’s life cycle is 20 years. We are not a commodity, we are a community, which is generational.”
 
Mr. Silver said the resistance to planning that he hears as a city official and a consultant is resistance to change that is already happening and means no harm. It just is.
 
"When you say no to something," he said, "you’re saying yes to something else. If you say no to multi-family housing, you might be saying no to old people and children." To say no is to bear the consequences when your city is not equipped to handle the realities of 2025, 2030 and 2050, he said. 
 
Although Pittsburgh is in the top 10 cities with the greatest population losses since 1950 — St. Louis and Detroit are #1 and #2 — we are in the top in another category: “the comeback kid” cities.
 
“People have been paying attention to you, so you’re on the map,” he said. “The question is: How do you keep the momentum going? The regional approach will be the driver in the coming years.”
 
Remarking on the number of Allegheny County mayors and school districts, he said, "130 mayors and 41 school districts? Lord, how do you deal with that?”
 
I will pause here so you can digest his astonishment, maybe register your own and update his number: There are 43 school districts in the county.
 
Connections between a city, its inner ring “suburbs,” outer suburbs and rural areas have to do with transit, infrastructure and investment corridors. On a national level, young people are seeking the amenities of the city and more people are choosing not to drive alone every morning from home to work and back, so regional planning and collaboration “is the way to move forward. You rise and fall as a region, so you focus on what connects you.” 
 
The nation’s future will depend on smaller houses and millions more of them, more density to get greater return on investment, more and better transit options and opportunities for young people to be part of the planning process.
 
“One in three children born today will live to see the 22nd century, when we will have half a billion people. For planners, the time horizons should be 50-100 years,” he said.
 
The bulk of growth continues to trend south while trending away from the west. Climate change “could be a game changer,” he said. And a trend changer. This is me talking now: Pittsburgh is a good city to be in when coasts are inundated and water becomes scarcer.
 
Other trends he cited include one he called “the silver tsunami”: By 2030, one in five Americans will be older than 65. Today, one in five in that age group is disabled and that number is likely to grow. Because people will be living longer, the age group over 85 will triple by 2050, he said. 
 
Family make-up is dramatically changing and has been for several years. His presentation included a graph of the marriage rates from 1965 to 2010. They look like a slope for an experienced skiier. By 2025, the number of households with one person will equal family homes.
 
“If you are a developer,” he said, “what kind of housing will you be building in 2025?”
 
Mr. Silver said trend-watching is critical to planning for the future of any city that people want to live in.
 
Raleigh has updated old zoning codes and built a comprehensive city plan using social media to engage Generations XYZ,  whose century the current one belongs to.
 
Finally, the big S word: “Sustainability,” he said. “Don’t tell me you are sustainable if you are working on the environment and the economy but not equity. People ask me what that means. It’s this: Are you being fair?” It’s about race, ethnicity, culture, age, sexual orientation, housing choices, access to jobs.” 
 
He said the graying and browning of America, which will have no majority race by 2043, the changes in family structure, urban sprawl and aging suburbs, climate change, antiquated zoning and obesity are among the challenges that will need solutions and answers that you can’t get by Googling.
 
The people who will be solving these challenges are the best generation to come along since our grandfathers and grandmothers sacrificed in the Depression, served in World War II and saved today for our tomorrow, he said. Of Generation Y — those born between 1982 and 1995 — he said, “We have never seen such a purposeful generation. I am confident that we will be served well by this group.”
 
But cities need to plan for them because they don’t just want choice they demand it. They demand bike lanes, they demand flexibility, they care more about finding the right place before finding the right job and they are environmentally conscious, he said. 
 
After his talk, he was swarmed by people who wanted copies of his presentation or to say how much they appreciated this point or that one. As the staff were taking the table linens up and moving tables, he was one of three people still in the room talking to a member of Gen Y.
 
 

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Mahalo! And hang up that phone!

Written by Jon Schmitz on .

Hawaii has become the 40th state to ban texting while driving, the Governors Highway Safety Association announced today.

The Aloha State also banned hand-held cell phone use by drivers, become the 11th state (plus the District of Columbia) to do so. This appears to be a key component of effectively banning texting, because if it is still legal for a driver to dial a cell phone, it’s hard for police to enforce the ban.

The safety association believes all states should ban texting and hand-held phone use by drivers. Pennsylvania has a texting ban but hasn’t gotten around to banning the hand-held. Our neighbors in Maryland, New York, New Jersey and West Virginia are among those who have.

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The Pennsylvania Turnpike celebrated the reopening of the South Midway service plaza in Bedford County this afternoon. It is the 14th of 17 rest stops to be rebuilt, but unlike the others, its original appearance was preserved. “South Midway has a unique distinction: It looks much like it did when it originally opened more than 72 years ago — at least from the outside,” the turnpike announced. On the inside, it was expanded and modernized to offer amenities similar to the turnpike’s other rebuilt plazas.

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workzoneIn case you are wondering, there is no Squirrel Hill Tunnel closure this weekend because of the holiday.

Repairs to concrete barriers will cause lane closures on the Parkway East tonight. The closures will begin at 10 p.m. and conclude by 5 a.m. Wednesday on the inbound side between Exit 73B in Oakland and the Boulevard of the Allies-Liberty Bridge interchange, and in both directions between the Penn Hills and Monroeville interchanges.

The eastbound right lane of the Tri-Boro Expressway was scheduled to close today for one month during repairs to retaining walls from Monroeville Avenue to Patton Street in Wilmerding.

Be sure to drift along to earlier posts for more upcoming road work.

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City's paving program nothing to brag about

Written by Jon Schmitz on .

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has announced that 40 miles of Pittsburgh roads will be repaved this year at a cost of $10 million. This is from his news release:

“This year’s capital budget allows us to invest in our infrastructure and improve even more roads in our city … Paving and resurfacing city streets is just one way that we work to keep Pittsburgh as America’s ‘Most Livable City.’”

Sorry to rain on the mayor’s pavement, but 40 miles is nowhere near the 75 to 100 miles per year that Public Works Director Rob Kaczorowski has said he would like to do per year, which is what would be required to keep the city’s street network in good repair. And it’s 20 fewer miles than last year’s program.

While the city has a lot of things to brag about, the condition of its streets is not one of them.

You can view the list of streets to be paved here.

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U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster announced on Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency will not do another round of reviews on the proposed widening and relocation of Route 219 in Somerset County. This should clear the way for construction on a project that has been talked about and planned for nearly a half-century. With the EPA signoff, the work now needs a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, which is expected soon. This Post-Gazette story from February explains why some wanted more scrutiny of the project’s environmental impact and shows where the new road would be built.

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How cool is PennDOT? PennDOT is on YouTube.

Today it announced the launch of its channel, www.youtube.com/PennsylvaniaDOT. “Our YouTube channel is our next step in communicating with our customers in more personal, interactive ways,” PennDOT Secretary Barry J. Schoch said in a news release. Posted there so far are a 25-minute time lapse video of repair work after the May 9 tanker fire at the Interstate 81 and U.S. 22/322 interchange (definitely worth a look), educational and safety videos; and features on PennDOT operations and initiatives.

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PennDOT driver’s license and photo centers will be closed Saturday through Monday for the Memorial Day weekend.

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roadworkaheadTraffic on Route 65 will be reduced to one narrow lane in both directions starting tonight for a $6.3 million paving project. Starting at 8 p.m., inbound traffic will be crossed to the outbound side from Camp Horne Road in Emsworth to Locust Street in Avalon, with one 10-foot lane maintained in both directions. The restriction will be in place around the clock. Five miles of Route 65 will be resurfaced in Emsworth, Ben Avon, Avalon and Bellevue. The project is scheduled for completion late this year.

Another likely source of big slowdowns is the continuing in-depth inspection of the Liberty Bridge, which may cause lane closures and traffic shifts from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on weekdays through June 14. This has already caused some hefty midday jams. Restrictions also are possible from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 1 and 2. No work will be done May 31.

Watch for line painting on the Parkway North and Interstate 79 all week. Keep your distance.

Inspection of the Rachel Carson Bridge over the Allegheny River will begin next week. The bridge will close to traffic and pedestrians from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., weather permitting, on the following dates: May 28 through 31; June 3 through 7; and June 10, according to the Allegheny County Public Works Department.

The signs are up advertising the closing of Valley Brook Road at Route 19 in Peters on Wednesday as reconstruction of that awkward, shabby interchange begins. You’ll probably like the finished product but it’s going to cost you 16 months of detours. For those east of Route 19, McMurray Road is the official alternate; to the west, Mayview and Boyce roads. You might have some better ways to go.

Inspection of the 10th Street Bridge will cause alternating right-lane closures in both directions from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. through Friday.

duncan

The dreaded alternating one-way traffic pattern will be in effect overnight on Duncan Avenue between Babcock Boulevard and Thompson Run Road in McCandless starting at 6 p.m. weekdays and concluding daily by 6 a.m., with extra police on hand to control traffic. Project is scheduled to be completed in August.

Alternating one-way traffic also will be in effect on Freeport Road from Western Avenue in Aspinwall to the Route 28 Blawnox interchange in O’Hara from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. weekdays through late June.

PennDOT announced that Washington Road in Findlay will be closed through early July between Route 30 and Potato Garden Road for bridge work. It’s not a heavily traveled stretch, with about 700 daily vehicles.

Interstate 80 is restricted to one lane in both directions for three miles west of Exit 24 Grove City/Sandy Lake in Mercer County by road work. The restrictions are expected to be in place until Friday afternoon.

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