By Bill Lucia
CityLab
The traffic can move fast as it flows along Pittsburgh’s Liberty Avenue, going to and from the Fort Pitt Bridge.
“You’re literally coming across the bridge at 55 miles an hour,” Jeremy Waldrup, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, said during an interview on Monday. Spanning the Monongahela River, the bridge is a main entry and exit point between Interstate 376 and the city’s downtown business district, which is known as the Golden Triangle.
Liberty Avenue is about 115 feet wide in some places here, with broad medians separating at least four active lanes of northeast and southwest bound traffic that cut between commercial high-rises.
“It’s basically, kind of, a large on-ramp for the highway,” Waldrup said, referring to the portion of the thoroughfare that is near the Fort Pitt Bridge.
But, after a recent workshop, the Downtown Partnership, and others involved in the city’s downtown planning and business community, are taking a close look at a concept that would involve radically altering this part of Liberty Avenue into what’s called a “shared space.”
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