Negley Corridor - City of Pittsburgh

The City of Pittsburgh is fortunate to contain an abundance of parks and open space, allowing
residents and visitors to enjoy many outdoor and recreational activities within their urban neighborhoods.
Pittsburgh’s four regional parks - Frick, Highland, Schenley and Riverview - are significant
amenities for the city and represent an important asset used by the entire region. Maintenance and
management of the parks, however, continue to be the sole responsibility of the City of Pittsburgh,
with partial funding from the Regional Asset District. To guide the long-term management,
renovation, and maintenance of the parks, the City of Pittsburgh has received funding from the
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) to prepare master plans
for each of these parks. Community-based task forces have been established in each of the four
parks to provide input and guide the development of the master plans.
During 1999 and 2000, the Department of City Planning will work with the Pittsburgh Parks
Conservancy, park task forces, technical consultants, and other City of Pittsburgh departments to:
• Study the current physical, environmental and use conditions in each park;
• Develop a set of policy guidelines for each park; and
• Prepare a master plan for each park, which will include maintenance, management and
implementation plans.
Transportation Improvements
Traffic flow is a crucial component of this strategy because it has a
significant impact on quality of life. Negley Avenue is a major
transportation corridor carrying heavy traffic daily in each direction.
The streetscape improvements discussed above will improve the
environment for drivers by making crosswalks more visible and
increasing signage. We must go further, however, if we are to
significantly improve traffic conditions along Negley Avenue.
Negley Avenue traffic congestion at peak hours is especially problematic
at the intersections of Negley Avenue with Penn Avenue and East Liberty
Boulevard, where two lanes merge into one. This process of going from
one lane to two and back to one again seems to create congestion
because of the merging. A turn-only lane would be an improvement,
as it would allow for adequate flow through intersections without the
backup caused at merge points. The proposed solution is to allow street
parking along Negley Avenue so that there will be one lane of traffic in
each direction with turn lanes at major intersections. An added benefit
that is anticipated with this strategy is that the street parking would also
serve as a buffer between cars traveling on the street and pedestrians
walking along the sidewalk.
A transportation and urban design study is currently underway in East
Liberty, particularly focusing on creating options to improve Penn Circle.
As part of this study, traffic flow on Negley Avenue has been analyzed.
The study team will examine a variety of alternate traffic patterns for
Penn Circle and impacts on adjacent streets will be analyzed as well.
The information collected as part of the Penn Circle study will be useful
for making changes to improve conditions on Negley Avenue. With this
information, the city traffic planners and engineers can then better
determine, along with the community, whether to test and/or implement
the on-street parking and turn lanes.
26 Development Strategey and Action Agenda