east liberty station: realizing the potential - City of Pittsburgh

IMPLEMENTING PREVIOUSLY IDENTIFIED
INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS
Numerous essential infrastructure needs
have already been identified for East Liberty
through past planning. In some cases, such
as the Penn Circle Conversion, aspects of
these projects have been implemented.
Completing infrastructure improvements in
the larger district is key to realizing the TOD
potential in East Liberty and the creation of
a TRID can be a key mechanism for funding
infrastructure improvements.
ITS Infrastructure & Signalization
Upgrades
Traffic21 is a multi-disciplinary research
initiative of Carnegie Mellon University.
Its goal is to design, test, deploy and
evaluate information and communications
technology based solutions to address the
problems facing the transportation system
of the Pittsburgh region.
The Pittsburgh region will serve as a
“learning lab,” deploying solutions that can
be applied around the nation and the globe.
Traffic21 will leverage Carnegie Mellon’s
leadership in relevant areas such as critical
infrastructure, transportation access,
transportation routing, human factors,
artificial intelligence, web applications and
autonomous vehicles.
One of Traffic 21’s initiatives is the
development of smart adaptive traffic
signals. This includes technology that will
allow traffic signals to communicate with
each other and adapt to traffic in real time.
A simulation model was developed for
downtown traffic, and it has demonstrated
that adaptive signals are effective and
if even only a few lights can be made to
adapt their signal patterns to changing
conditions, substantial reductions in
congestion can be achieved.
A potential application of this technology
could be to adjust traffic signals to
prioritize routes around the TOD area and
make better use of the larger roadway
network. This could include roads such
as Penn Circle West and North, Highland
Avenue, Broad Street, Negley Run
Boulevard, and East Liberty Boulevard.
This technology can manage demand
so that some of the through traffic is
discouraged from using Penn Avenue,
and directed to other routes. This would
be advantageous to both the near-term
intersection modification and the longerterm
roundabout concepts.
Coordinated Smart Parking District
Currently parking in East Liberty is a
mix of publicly owned and managed offstreet
surface lots, on-street metered
parking, and private surface and garage
parking some associated with large scale
developments and individual businesses.
Parking is inconsistently priced and
underutilized. In accordance with TOD
principles, parking should be managed with
a coordinated district wide strategy. This
should include improvements to existing
parking resources such as the installation
of shared pay stations for on-street parking
and a coordinated graduated pay structure
both on-street and off-street parking.
Mobile technology applications should also
be employed to connect parking spaces
to provide real-time parking availability
information to incoming drivers. As new
parking garages are constructed, strategies
should be employed to created shared
parking resources when possible. Finally
provisions should be included for car
sharing services and bicycle parking.
Penn Avenue 2-Way Conversion
To date two of the four sections of Penn
Circle have been converted back to
bidirectional traffic from the one-way loop
implemented in the 1960s. While Penn
Circle South and East have been converted
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