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Getting Around: Is the Rt. 51 - West Liberty Ave. interchange a boon or a bane?
Sunday, February 13, 2000 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
So what do you think now about the new Route 51-West Liberty Avenue interchange at the south end of the Liberty Tunnels?
Is your drive through one of Pittsburgh's traffic hot spots much faster? Are you enjoying your commute?
Was the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's high-profile project worth the loss of 23 buildings, almost four years of construction-related inconveniences and almost $40 million in gasoline taxes?
Please share your thoughts with PennDOT, the city and all of the politicians who said while the changes might not be a traffic panacea, they would nonetheless improve much of what has been wrong at the busy bottleneck for the past half-century.
Send your comments to me by regular mail or by using the e-mail address at the end of today's column. I promise to pass them along to PennDOT. Please don't call; I don't want my phone line to burn up.
The overpass built to remove north-south Route 51 traffic from the congestion has been open since the July 4 holiday weekend. All other new ramps and the reconstructed approaches have been open since Nov. 19. That means you've probably had enough time and experience to form an opinion.
If you happened to have been caught in 15- to 30-minute rush-hour delays recently, most of the explanation may lie here:
* Since Jan. 18, the new traffic lights at the south end of the Liberty Tunnels have been placed in the "full automatic signalization mode." As a result of the (alleged) improvement, the city traffic cops who controlled the lights for decades out of the elevated booth at the intersection have been removed, leaving computers, detectors and other high-tech devices to run the show.
* Since the beginning of February, traffic cops who controlled the lights at the north end of the tubes also are gone. That's why the green lights have favored McArdle Roadway, seriously backing up tunnel traffic.
* When the project was designed, the city vehemently insisted on including two traffic movements that PennDOT engineers predicted would complicate things and, therefore, did not want. As you may have guessed, PennDOT lost the argument.
One movement involves installation of a traffic signal at West Liberty and Pioneer avenues; the other involves the rush-hour left-turn movements now permitted against prevailing streams of traffic.
You may have sensed impatience and frustration of drivers recently if you have been driving north on Route 51 during the morning rush hours. Drivers trying to get to the inbound tunnel form an illegal third lane, effectively blocking traffic wanting to use the overpass or the new ramp to West Liberty Avenue southbound.
The backup on West Liberty Avenue has been just as atrocious.
Unless the state and bureaucracy come up with a solution soon, the situation will grow worse.
First, many drivers who use the Glenwood Bridge as an alternate route to and from Pittsburgh will be detouring to Route 51 starting Feb. 29, when the county closes the bridge for seven months for deck repairs.
Second, as Bob Leffler of Pleasant Hills pointed out in an e-mail, when the Mon-Fayette Expressway opens north from Jefferson Hills in the fall of 2001, "Traffic will be dumped onto an already saturated Route 51 ... parts of which are the same as they were in the 1940s."
*
For adults only? The Port Authority sponsors a "Summer Ride" program to encourage children 18 and younger to ride buses and light-rail vehicles. School and youth groups introduce the benefits of transit to kids. Advertising and public service campaigns target young people. "Gold Pan Dan" is the authority's mascot.
The Port Authority says so: Today's kids are its future.
So why won't bus drivers stop for Hamilton Waldron of Mt. Lebanon and other kids like him when they're waiting alone at stops?
Waldron, who is about to turn 15, has been intent on landing a part-time job at a Galleria eatery, one of the few places that will hire someone his age. Since she won't always be home to drive him, his mom told the boy to get used to riding 41C Cedar Boulevard buses.
"After we went over the schedule and I made sure he knew when and where to go, he walked to the bus stop after school, yellow bus ticket in hand," said his mother, PG reporter Jane Elizabeth.
As the 41C approached him on Cedar Boulevard, Waldron said, he moved closer to the curb to indicate he was waiting. When he realized the bus didn't appear to be slowing down, he waved.
The 41C bus driver blew him off.
Luckily, a neighbor saw him walking and drove him to the Galleria. After he finished his business, he went to the front of the mall to hail another 41C bus to go home. This time, he stepped out and waved his ticket.
You guessed it. Same thing. Fortunately, another family acquaintance gave him a lift home.
Waldron told his mom, "I guess they just thought I was a dumb little kid waving at the bus." His mom told me, "He's never going to get that job if he can't count on public transportation."
This isn't the first time that people have complained to the Getting Around column about bus and light-rail operators passing up young riders when they are waiting alone, and sometimes in a group, at designated stops.
Not all authority operators deliberately leave kids standing at the curb. The kids offer this advice for those who do: Grow up!
*
Plate du jour. Reporter Barbara Vancheri of Mt. Lebanon spotted this Pennsylvania license plate -- LOOZN IT -- on a car heading from the South Hills to Pittsburgh during morning rush hour. If you drove Washington Road, Banksville Road and the Parkway West every day, you'd looz it, too.
Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post-Gazette or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Please include your address and phone number for confirmation.
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