Draft West Pittsburgh Mobility Plan prioritizes safety, connectivity and neighborhood placemaking; residents press for West Carson and Stuben fixes

City planners on Tuesday presented a draft West Pittsburgh Mobility Plan that focuses on pedestrian safety, closing sidewalk gaps, traffic-calming on priority corridors and new wayfinding and placemaking measures across four neighborhoods: Elliot, Esplen, Sheridan and the West End.

Kevin Brown, principal planner at the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, said the plan — now in its third engagement phase after walk audits, workshops and an online engagement page — is built around three priorities: safety, connectivity and placemaking. Brown described the prioritization criteria as crash history (including the city's high-injury network), proximity to destinations such as schools and grocery stores, transit access and a community-feedback factor that accounted for about 20% of project scores.

"This is a draft right now," Yan Rather, infrastructure engagement manager for the department, told the room, urging written feedback before the April 3 deadline and reminding residents that "your voice matters in all of this." Brown said some short-term projects (0–3 years) are intended to move into implementation quickly and added that "we have some money to move forward with one or more projects depending on where the community's priorities are."

Staff identified five priority corridors that scored highest in the analysis: Chartiers Avenue, Stuben Street, Wabash Street, Loren Avenue and Stafford Street. Short-term actions highlighted on the map include the Chartiers Avenue connector, a Stuben Street community connector and the Wabash Street connector; medium- and long-term work would pursue larger projects such as the Charters Creek Trail and other regional trail connections.

Planners said the Stuben connector would combine traffic calming, pedestrian enhancements and increased sidewalk maintenance after residents reported incidents of cars striking houses on that block. The Wabash project includes intersection upgrades, signal timing adjustments, better ADA ramps and improvements to bus stops, with potential ties to an incoming trolley trail and Sawmill Run connections.

The meeting also focused on several recurring questions from attendees. Residents asked whether traffic-calming treatments would slow emergency-response times; planners said traffic and safety studies will be completed at the design stage and that they coordinate extensively with public-safety agencies to avoid impairing response. When asked how "protected" bike lanes on Chartiers would be built, staff said design details are not yet fixed and will require data-driven design to avoid unintended impacts on a major arterial.

Several attendees pressed planners about coordination with state and regional partners. A participant asked whether the West Carson Street "community connector" would be limited to a single intersection; Brown said it is a corridor-level set of potential improvements and that staff would coordinate with PennDOT because West Carson is a state road. Gavin White, director of planning and projects at Riverlife, said Riverlife is "definitely working with the city and with PennDOT and are excited about pushing that project forward," including a federal grant application for a Sawmill Run Gateway parcel that could tie into the Stuben Street recommendations.

Community representatives raised questions about who represents neighborhoods at the table. Attendees discussed registered community organizations and whether one group speaks for multiple neighborhoods; staff pledged to follow up with specifics about outreach and named organizations they had contacted.

Local civic leaders also flagged nearby areas that were not included in the study boundary. Shemica Zire of the Wing Gap Charters City Civic Club said Windgap and Fairywood were not part of the four-neighborhood project area; staff replied those areas could be considered for a separate planning effort if community need is demonstrated.

Planners closed by noting some quick fixes are already being advanced (sidewalk gap repairs and localized traffic-calming opportunities) while larger projects will require design, coordination with utilities and state agencies, and grant funding. Staff pointed residents to the city's Engage page for maps and surveys and reiterated the April 3 feedback deadline.

Next steps: staff will compile and analyze feedback from the open comment period, refine the draft plan and seek funding and design opportunities for the highest-priority projects. Further design-level studies will evaluate technical constraints such as stormwater and drainage before construction.