Just over nine months after a pedestrian was killed in a crash in upper Oakland, new measures were completed last week to help make the streets around the University of Pittsburgh Medical School a safer place.
The city’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure painted wider crosswalks and clearly delineated parking spaces, and installed flex posts to restrict parking near driveways on Terrace Street from Robinson Street to DeSoto Street, and on DeSoto from Terrace to O’Hara Street. Crews also installed a protected bike lane on the medical school side of the street and down DeSoto as well as a bike lane up the other side of DeSoto to Petersen Events Center.
Three weeks after the Dec. 5 death of Pitt employee Jessie Maroney —the second pedestrian killed at Darragh Street and Terrace within a year — DOMI eliminated turns on red at that intersection and extended the time for pedestrians to cross the street there. But officials knew there was more work to be done.
Mike Maloch, the city’s traffic engineer, and Councilwoman Erika Strassburger, part of the city’s Vision Zero fatal crash response team, said the larger project was a cooperative effort among the city, the university, UPMC, residents of West Oakland and the student group Complete Streets at Pitt.
“This was a real model of collaboration,” Maloch said. “I think everyone knew something had to change.”
Maloch and Strassburger said it was a major help that Pitt already had commissioned a safety study of the area before employee Maroney, 37, died when she was struck by a box truck as she was in the crosswalk at Darragh and Terrace.
The changes completed last week used the recommendations from the Pitt study as a jumping off point for the stakeholders to begin discussions. The fact that those recommendations mostly called for inexpensive items such as paint, flex posts and rubber separation curbs also allowed to work to move quickly, Maloch and Strassburger said.
“Sometimes, recommendations call for complicated solutions that take time and cost a lot of money,” Strassburger said. “Other times, there are quick solutions. It can all be done with paint and flex posts.”
Additionally, Strassburger said, the fact that neighborhood groups led by West Oakland Fourth Block Club “spoke with one voice” made it easier to reach a consensus on how to proceed.
“It took having a network like West Oakland to facilitate this type of work,” she said.
The painted lines on Terrace accomplish several things: enlarged crosswalks; marked parking spaces that keep parked cars away from intersections and driveways, allowing better site lines for drivers and pedestrians; and driving lanes shifting left and right with painted islands in the middle of the street so motorists aren’t able to sprint straight down the street.
Bikers on the medical school side have the curb lane with rubber curbs separating the lane from parked cars that are adjacent to the travel lane.
Maloch said the wider design of Terrace Street — about 40 feet instead of the usual 34 or 36 feet — provided the extra space to add the bike lanes without taking away parking or driving lanes. The total project cost about $110,000.
Strassburger said the upper Oakland work is among the highest profile projects that the Vision Zero team has worked on since it began in March 2024, along with changes made after children were killed in crashes in Homewood and Hazelwood. But she stressed that in addition to those reactive responses, the program aimed at eliminating road deaths has done many more proactive projects to calm traffic with speed humps and other measures before crashes occur.
“I know after every fatality, there has been something done [to improve safety] immediately after every one,” she said.
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.