Last week was a big week for traffic and community projects in Allegheny County with two programs awarding more than $10.1 million to 25 communities.
The biggest benefactor will be Pittsburgh, where six projects were funded worth $3.5 million for improvements in the Strip District, North Shore, Oakland, and around the Bakery Square development in Larimer and East Liberty.
The projects were funded through the state Department of Transportation’s Automated Red-Light Enforcement program and the Department of Community and Economic Development’s Multimodal Transportation Fund. The ARLE program uses money from tickets issued for red-light violations recorded by cameras at 38 traffic signals in Philadelphia while the multimodal program is designed to help communities with smaller transportation projects.
The largest grant in the city is $1.25 million for the next phase of a project known as the Larimer-Homewood Multimodal Greenway Extension. That project by the developer of Bakery Square is converting a former 1.5-mile section of road that served the Pennsylvania Railroad into a safe path to walk from Homewood and Larimer to the thriving development around the former Nabisco plant.
The $4 million project eventually will have an 8-foot protected two-way bike lane and 6-foot pedestrian sidewalk surrounded by rain gardens and a meadow with native plants.
That’s one of four projects worth $2.2 million funded through the multimodal fund. The others are $450,000 for lighting in an area dubbed AI Avenue; $293,000 for sidewalks around Carlow University in Oakland; and $250,000 to continue the extension of a bike lane on Smallman Street in the Strip District.
AI Avenue is a 1-mile stretch of Bakery Square on Penn Avenue from Fifth Avenue in Larimer to the Duolingo office in East Liberty that features other high-tech businesses such as Google, CMU Cloud Lab and UPMC Enterprises.
The two projects funded by the red-light fund are intersection improvements at East General Robinson and Sandusky streets on the North Shore ($647,050) and Centre Avenue and North Dithridge Street in North Oakland ($335,982). Both intersections have a history of numerous traffic crashes, the city’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure said.
On the North Shore, the project involves the intersection with The Andy Warhol Museum. Plans call for upgrading the traffic signal and possibly bumpouts to shorten the distance to cross the street.
The Centre and North Dithridge intersection currently is a two-way stop, but the grant will be used to install a traffic signal to improve conditions. The area is a busy residential neighborhood near the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University campuses.
The city couldn’t say how soon the projects will move ahead or whether the grants will cover the full cost of the work.
Across the county, the multimodal fund will help pay for 21 other projects worth a total of $8.8 million.
The largest grant is $750,000 to support the redevelopment of a 52-acre brownfield waste site in Sharpsburg into a development known as Allegheny Shores. The Mosites Co. is working with the borough to redevelop the 1.5-mile sliver bounded by the river, the Highland Park and 62nd Street bridges, and Norfolk Southern railroad tracks.
The state grant follows a $25 million federal grant awarded by the Department of Transportation last year to improve access to the site and reconnect the borough with the riverfront.
The other grants include $445,000 for Rankin to rebuild Rankin Boulevard; $496,092 for Pleasant Hills for improvements to East Bruceton Road and Winifred Drive; and $250,000 for sidewalk reconstruction in Glassport.
Statewide, the multimodal fund awarded $87 million in grants for 224 projects.
Two other red-light fund projects were approved in the county: $235,000 to Richland for a new traffic signal at Route 910 and Community Center Drive and $77,643 for improvements at Route 88 and Kings School Road.
Across the state, 31 projects were awarded $20.4 million.
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.