PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/tag/pittsburgh/)
PublicSource will report here about notable actions and conversations from the meetings of the City of Pittsburgh’s Planning Commission. The meetings are held at 2 p.m. on every other Tuesday on the 1st floor of the Civic Building at 200 Ross Street.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority [URA] presented three potential designs Thursday night for an East Liberty development meant in part to bring some former residents of the demolished Penn Plaza back to their neighborhood. But some attendees raised pointed questions about the community input process, which they felt excluded them. “The problem is ‘the community’ is the Village Collaborative,” said Celeste Scott, housing organizer at Pittsburgh United, referring to a community group that has had early involvement in the URA’s vetting process. “That is the problem that they’re not giving an answer to.”
A group of former Penn Plaza residents and community activists questioned why the URA had chosen Village Collaborative, a community group unveiled last year by the HELP Initiative. The collaborative is made up of faith leaders in the East End.
New Pittsburgh report examines racial and gender inequality together for the first time.
“Much of what I heard today was the same sort of fight that brought me here to council, that I was fighting 20 years ago,” said Pittsburgh City Council President Bruce Kraus. “It was protect the integrity and the sweat equity of generations of homesteaders that made that piece of real estate ripe for development.”
Members of the LGBTQ community reflect on their relationship with faith after facing rejection from religion.
Richard Morris, housing director of The Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, said the program is an opportunity for seniors in particular “to get some extra cash.”
“If you ask five questions on the same subject, you get five different answers. It's frightening, it really is.”
In the Pittsburgh region, neither Uber nor Lyft, its competitor in the ride-share industry, accommodate passengers who use non-folding or motorized wheelchairs. Although Uber said its drivers are expected to accommodate riders with folding wheelchairs, walkers or canes, the company does not offer WAVs for passengers who remain in their wheelchairs for the ride.
So while Pittsburgh is a proving ground for autonomous cars — the next leap ahead in the ride-sharing industry — wheelchair-using customers who try to call a driver with their smartphone apps are left waiting on the curb.
To explain how the program works, PublicSource broke down the costs and process and put together this step-by-step resource.
The changes of five key Pittsburgh neighborhoods seen through the eyes of residents and developers.
