I moved to Pittsburgh from Oregon in May 1986 and was shocked to see how dirty and unattractive "downtown" Oakland is. I immediately thought that it does not have to be that way!

I am excited that the city wants to improve this important part of our city, since I work at Pitt.

The main street of the shopping district at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, has handsomely designed street lights, and they hang flowering baskets from them each summer. That would be TERRIFIC in Oakland.

If the streets were kept clean and this simple decorative touch were added, it would make people feel like they WANT to be in that particular urban space.

As it is, I completely avoid Oakland between Forbes and Fifth avenues.

I spend my lunch hours on Craig Street because it has a better ambiance.

I feel good when I am there. I feel depressed when I am in the Forbes-Fifth area of Oakland because it is dirty and, frankly, smelly.

Let’s clean up our act and beautify downtown Oakland.

It would be fitting, given the proximity of Schenley Park, Phipps Conservatory, Flagstaff Hill near CMU, the Schenley Farms area, the handsome landscaping around Pitt near Forbes [and] Fifth [avenues] and Bigelow Boulevard.

Ray Anne Lockard, Head Librarian, Frick Fine Arts Library, University of Pittsburgh

As a homeowner and business owner in the Oakland community, I feel people cannot see the assets of Oakland because of all of the trash. It creates a bad image and visitors are not comfortable in a trashed out neighborhood.

Trash is everywhere … on the streets, around rental properties and on personal and business properties. I am constantly picking up fast-food containers, broken bottles, thousands of cigarette butts, bank receipts, and half-eaten food just on my block, or as I walk around Oakland.

Many people come into Oakland to work or as students. They don’t consider Oakland as their community and don’t respect it, throwing trash wherever they feel like it. Do they trash their own neighborhoods? Downtown Pittsburgh looks better than Oakland. I realize, with all the rental property in Oakland, no one feels responsible. Students are only here for a short while and landlords can live elsewhere and don’t care.

Several things could be done.

An awareness campaign that Oakland is a neighborhood to be proud of. Possibly signs … Respect our neighborhood … Don’t litter. Respect … Don’t Litter. There could be a tie-in with Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. This may get people to think and feel part of the community even if they don’t live here.

People could be hired to walk the streets with brooms, etc. as you see in Shadyside.

More trash cans would help. I’ve often seen trash cans so full with trash spilling on the sidewalk and blowing along the streets. I realize it would take more workers to empty them more often. Business owners would be more receptive if trash cans were better maintained. People do make an effort to stash their trash if cans are made convenient and available.

Everyone needs to be accountable to their environment and needs to be reminded sometimes.

Beverly Townsend, Oakland

Regulate panhandlers

I have been involved with Oakland for over 17 years now. I began here in 1982 as a student and have since worked for three different businesses including management in a major hospital. Also, I have owned two different businesses on both Forbes, in the heart of Oakland, as well as my current deli and catering business off of South Craig Street, Kane’s Courtyard. I also am a commercial landlord in the area and have a very strong interest in seeing Oakland improve.

Here is my idea of a great way to not only clean up Oakland but the entire city: legalize panhandling.

This was tried in London, England and works very well there. If we can’t stop it, let’s give the police some sort of control over the situation.

Every panhandler will be required to buy an annual permit for, perhaps, $50. This will register them with the city with a photograph and other vital information.

By getting a permit, it would be treated like a business. They will have laws that must be abided by. There will be spelled out penalties as to what happens if they break those rules.

Giving permits will limit the number of panhandlers overall. We could even give permits only good in certain zones to limit overcrowding.

Many panhandlers will openly admit that they make way more money than many hard working $6-per-hour employees. We can now make them pay income taxes and get them off of welfare or unemployment!

Finally, anyone trying to panhandle without a permit will be required to get one within a reasonable period of time, say, 48 hours. They will not be able to panhandle without the permit and may be arrested for running an illegal business.

By legalizing this activity, it not only will alleviate the fear people have of these folks, it will limit their numbers, force them to visibly wear permits so we can report them and keep the troubled vagrants off the streets.

Right now the police can only hassle them for loitering. By making this a business, any unlicensed panhandlers will get treated just like someone running an illegal business.

Emery Levick, Oakland

The most important move to make Oakland the most vibrant and beautiful urban university hub in America is improved enforcement of zoning, traffic and parking laws and other laws relating to litter and noise.

The Oakland area is very dirty and noisy. Many slum landlords exploit university students with impunity, and even the universities themselves at times violate the laws and get away with it.

Another problem is that providers of social services overburden Oakland with group homes and residential facilities because it is easier to dump them into Oakland rather than scatter them in other neighborhoods and the suburbs, whose residents are better organized to use their clout to keep them out.

The situation has been slowly improving, I am happy to say, as Oakland becomes better organized. But there is still a long way to go.

Helen Corcoran Schlenke, Oakland

Oakland as a cultural center should have a clean residential and business area to complement the many fine buildings and parks that exist. Instead, what we have are buildings, trash cans, poles, parking meters, parking signs, stop signs, mailboxes, transit enclosures, hand rails, and traffic signal boxes loaded with all kinds of dirty debris which is the result of graffiti, stickers, and posters or bills. All of this material represents illegal acts and hardly complements a cultural center.

What Oakland needs is one full-time, night plainclothes police officer, a public awareness event (City TV channel/placards on buses), and tough graffiti, poster or bill and littering codes to start to correct this problem.

There are many other ways and things that can be done to fight this problem that would involve the total community and businesses. But the above suggestions will give a good start.

George D. Whitmore, Dr. Marilyn P. Whitmore, Oakland

With all of the new and exciting development of arenas, stadiums, parks and cultural venues slated for our city in the near future, the turn of the century is certainly a good time to call Pittsburgh home. If the creative ideas and dreams regarding the revival of our city in areas such as business, recreation, tourism, transportation, etc. become reality, the next five to 10 years will prove that Pittsburgh is one of the finest cities to live in in America. However, Oakland-based projects will fail to live up to their expectations if we are unable to keep our land clean and free of litter.

I am also concerned with maintaining a high level of cleanliness among our streets, neighborhoods and highways. Take a look at the grass medians and hillsides of our highways and exit ramps -- they are filth-ridden with litter. The same goes for some of the grassy areas of Oakland, and we are actually considered one of the cleanest cities in the United States. However, we all can do a better job of cleaning up the land we live on. All it takes is a little effort and a lot of pride.

I believe we can make a significant and visible dent in our litter problem if we institute some, if not all of the following ideas:

Provide more trash cans on our streets, in our parks, in any grassy area (convocation area, all quads on all college campuses).

Increase littering fines. Forget $50 fines; let's make the fines $500 and up.

Promote the cleanliness and natural beauty of Oakland by advertising locally (television, radio, billboards) and appealing to the younger-aged population found in the Oakland community. Help make people feel proud to be a positive influence on the city.

Have more company- or organization-sponsored "Adopt a Highway" programs. I visited San Diego a few weeks ago, and I found that "Adopt a Highway" program is much more apparent and effective than any here.

Have college or local high school students clean a designated area of campus for credit in perhaps a biology or environmental hygiene course

Have students clean a designated area of campus as punishment for violating a school policy or code of conduct.

If it can be politically worked out, have unemployed people or welfare recipients help clean the areas they live in for some type of incentive. Once again, we can use San Diego as a model: Their homeless help clean the beaches of litter, especially recyclable bottles and cans.

Let’s show the world that Pittsburgh and all of Western Pennsylvania is the place to be.

If you want to clean up Oakland or find ways to improve it, start in North Oakland.

This beautiful and culturally diverse neighborhood has gone drastically downhill, because several bar owners have gradually allowed the dregs of society to frequent their establishments.

There are homeless people begging for money directly outside of these places and going repeatedly back into these bars to drink.

With the substance abusers these bars bring to North Oakland, comes dirty needles in our alleys, crime, litter, graffiti and other associated problems.

With North Oakland’s close proximity to CMU, Pitt, Shadyside and Downtown, this area should be a thriving community with new businesses coming in. Instead we are home to bars, tattoo and piercing parlors, and the grunge and barflys of the world.

D. Williams, North Oakland

I’ve written the mayor and my councilman Sala Udin about tearing down the old building on the corner of the Boulevard of the Allies and Craft Avenue. I suggested a supermarket which is needed in the Oakland South area, or a recreation center, consisting of perhaps an indoor, all-weather swimming pool or ice rink. On the very busy Forbes Avenue, where I take occasional morning walks, better clean up the sidewalks. It looks like skid row early in the morning. Also, the old Gold apartment needs to be razed. It’s become an eyesore. Other than that, it’s a great area to live in.

Raymond Kea, Oakland

Since leaving the area in 1989, I have lived in eastern Pennsylvania, Southern California and, most recently, southern New Hampshire. During this period, I have also been privileged to travel through some of the finest university locations in the United States.

One consistent element that I noticed at these other universities is the substantial greenscape throughout the campuses. I do not think the founding fathers of the University of Pittsburgh would ever have imagined the growth of the university and its importance to Oakland and ultimately, the city of Pittsburgh. If they had, I truly believe they would have acquired more land for greenscape or maybe even pushed to have the university moved out to Moon as originally presented.

One clear distinguishing point between Oakland and other leading university cities is the lack of a "campus-like" setting. Although Pitt is positioned on the outskirts of Pennsylvania’s second largest city, there is no reason changes cannot be made to make it a more attractive university, which in turn would attract additional top professors, top students and top student-athletes.

My plan is quite simple. Although it would cost a great deal of money and would create a traffic nightmare on campus for the five-plus years of construction, the ultimate return would be immeasurable to the future prosperity of the university.

Phase 1. Forbes Avenue -- First 2 years: Forbes would be closed from South Bellefield Street to Bouquet Street and all traffic would be redirected through alternate side streets for a period of two years. Fifth Avenue also would be split to handle some of the east traveling traffic. During this period, a tunnel would be built under Forbes Avenue. At the same time, the current Forbes Avenue would be removed and replaced with grass, plants, trees, benches.

Phase 2. Fifth Avenue -- Years 3 - 5. Part I: Fifth Avenue will be closed in a similar fashion to enable a tunnel to be built underground. The roadway will be removed and replaced with grass, plants, trees, park benches, etc. This new "Center Campus" would be completely closed to all vehicular traffic at ground level. Within the tunnel, there would have to be special entrances to allow for deliveries to the now enclosed buildings in the Center Campus area. Try and picture a Pitt campus setting with the ability to walk across 20-30 acres without having to worry about being run over by a car or a speeding bus.

Part 2: Re-creating an intra-campus transportation system. Since we would be eliminating the bus lane, all public transportation would be underground with stop points at one end of the tunnel or the other. But for those who need to only go from one side of campus to the other, the Pitt trolley (PantherTrak) system would be built to transport students and local Oakland residents around and through the campus. The trolley would circle the Center Campus daily and once an hour would extend to the exterior sections of Campus. Student ID or evidence of local residency would be required. I would envision a two trolley system working simultaneously.

Part 3: If we remove the roads, how will the people get to the designated parking areas? The interior parking areas will be eliminated. These people can now park on the outside of the Center Campus area, and use PantherTrak to get across campus. I do see a need to increase parking with or without the implementation of any of these ideas. Several years back Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall built underground parking for its visitors. This concept could be used in many of the areas where Pitt has a parking lot, such as in between the Hillman Library and the Carnegie library.

A four-level underground parking structure would obviously quadruple the available spaces in the area. In this example, access to the Hillman parking lot would be from the east side. The current parking lot would be made into a park with (what else?) grass, plants, trees, park benches, etc. Security would have to be seamless in this scenario.

Mike Rizzo, BA Pittsburgh ‘88