Getting Around: Pittsburgh party poopers

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Getting Around: Pittsburgh party poopers

Sunday, January 16, 2000

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

If Pittsburgh wants to become a "24-hour city," it shouldn't turn out the lights at party time.

When Downtown restaurants, bars and entertainment venues cry out for people, they shouldn't be closed for business.

If Pittsburgh wants to become the region's star attraction, it shouldn't act like a dim bulb.

When 60,000 people converge on Downtown and Station Square, they shouldn't be treated like ants at a summer picnic.

OK, I've vented. But all of that happened, and more, on Jan. 1, 2000. While Pittsburgh popped corks on New Year's Eve, it pooped out on New Year's Day.

Much of Downtown ceased functioning -- and Station Square didn't do much better -- despite the most spectacular fireworks display in city history.

I was there. Along with nine out-of-town guests who came to Pittsburgh for fun but who spent most of the day searching for a restaurant or any meal without a three-hour wait.

Because we stayed overnight at the Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers, we missed the traffic jams and avoided the closed Smithfield Street Bridge by taking the light-snail system, with its sporadic service, to shuttle between Downtown and Station Square.

Oh, those fireworks were awesome. The holiday decorations were fabulous. The nativity scene at USX Plaza was as impressive in daylight as it was at midnight, after we finally finished eating at the historic (and, thank goodness, open) Del's Restaurant in Bloomfield.

But let me share examples of how Pittsburgh shoots itself in the foot, based on a lack of preparedness, cooperation and leadership for Millennium Pittsburgh 2000, the first local attempt at a Jan. 1 celebration.

Reservations at Sterling's at the Hilton were honored an hour late. We left, not because of the quarter-size hole in a water goblet at our table, but because people at the next table graciously told us they had not heard from their waitress in 20 minutes.

The Funny Bone Comedy Club, where we hoped to go after the fireworks, held its only show at 8 o'clock -- during the fireworks.

One hungry couple, unwilling to take a cab to Bloomfield at 10:30 p.m., went to a fast-food place on Liberty Avenue, to be told, "Get out. We're closing," by a woman at the counter who said she wanted to "go home and smoke a joint."

It may have been a holiday, but private parking lot operators opened to gouge people with their bloated "events" rates.

Although the events centered on Station Square, the restaurant at the Sheraton Hotel Station Square was closed, the lobby bar ran out of beer and lines formed at every available restroom because toilet facilities were too sparse for the crowd.

Light-snail riders who boarded in the Downtown subway became a mob when they departed at Station Square and had to pay an attendant at a booth, because the Port Authority still hasn't adopted more modern payment methods used by so many other transit systems.

Station Square organizers of the Millennium Pittsburgh Celebration did not ask the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership to join the party. "We simply weren't informed or involved," PDP spokeswoman Wendy Dodd said. Therefore, it did not encourage stores and restaurants to do anything special, or even open for business.

An indication of how many people came Downtown lies in statistics provided by Pittsburgh Parking Authority Executive Director Ralph Horgan -- about 4,100 cars in just its eight parking garages, three filled to capacity. "When we saw the ads in the Post-Gazette, we said, 'Let's open the doors.' "

I realize it was New Year's Day. It also was a Saturday, a party night for the type of young people Pittsburgh officials say they want. And everybody from the 'Burgh knows that fireworks draw a crowd, especially if it's a millennium blast.

For whom the roads toll. "Hey, Melon Head. You were wrong," Mark Susick of Perryopolis e-mailed me about last week's "factoid" saying New Jersey, with a population of more than 8 million people, has only 110 miles of interstate roads. "I drive in New Jersey and I know."

The source of the information was Tim McGuckin, technology program director for the Washington, D.C.-based International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, representing the worldwide toll road industry.

After I contacted McGuckin, he discovered he failed to count both "urban" and "rural" miles, giving New Jersey a total of 420 miles of interstate roads. "I'll make the correction" in the next IBTTA "Tollways" newsletter, he said.

You would usually read this in the Post-Gazette's "Corrections/Clarifications" on A-2. But it came up late and it gives me a chance to chortle about the IBTTA. I haven't been the organization's favorite transportation writer since 1989, when I showed up unexpectedly on Majorca, a tourist island off the coast of Spain, to chronicle daily social activities at its annual conference.

Representatives of our highway cash cow, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, attended the party in Palma. Of course.

So long, Tom. I met Tom Foerster more than 30 years ago at (Leonard) Staisey's Lounge in Duquesne. We talked -- always candidly, often privately -- at many subsequent meetings, hearings, groundbreakings and ribbon-cuttings that were related to my transportation beat.

When it came to roads such as the East Street Valley Expressway (Interstate 279) and the Airport Expressway, when it came to Pittsburgh International Airport and the midfield terminal project, and when it came to the Port Authority light-rail system and busways, Tom Foerster was the difference that made them happen.

Plate du jour. Editor Jon Schmitz of Bethel Park recently spotted this Pennsylvania vanity license plate: SAHSIDE. The car was illegally parked on Forbes Avenue near Market Square. A typical Sahsider, ain't it?

Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com Include your address and phone number, please.