P-G: Pittsburgh Complete Streets planners emphasize change at initial public meeting

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Pittsburgh’s First Complete Streets Public Meeting was Standing Room Only!

Last night’s complete streets kickoff was amazingly well attended. In fact, we had a previously scheduled Volunteer Appreciation event at Kickback Café (complete with free beer) and many devoted Bike Pittsburgh volunteers declined to attend the celebration in favor of attending the important public meeting.

We’re really not sure how we built such a wonderful community of people. Rock on volunteers, rock on complete streets meeting attendees! The Post-Gazette did a write up of the meeting.

By Ed Blazina | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One goal for Pittsburgh planners as they develop a Complete Streets policy for the city was to get the public involved. Consider that goal met.More than 150 people attended the initial meeting at the University of Pittsburgh’s Alumni Hall Tuesday night, interested to learn the types of steps the city may consider to improve street safety for motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users. The city is working with the National Complete Streets Coalition to develop a policy over the next 18 months and presented an overview of the project.

City planning director Ray Gastil stressed that the Complete Streets approach has been adopted in nearly 800 communities large and small, so it is “not a crazy new idea we are trying here.” He noted that nearly 5 square miles of the city’s 55-square-mile area is devoted to streets.

Read the full article at the Post-Gazette website.

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