What Pittsburgh Needs: Says You

I wrote a column on what Pittsburgh needs in late June and held my breath:  did I step into it? am I about to be run out of town?  No and no were the answers and, to my delight, I received countless suggestions on everything else that needs to be done to make Pittsburgh a model for 21st century living.  Here's what resonated the most.

Food carts.  Quick, cheap and good is an equation that works in Pittsburgh, said one reader, and I couldn't agree more.  Where are the pizza trucks selling piping-hot slices  to Strip district shoppers and the Middle Eastern carts plating meat-and-threes for hungry downtown workers?  One enterprising soul hip to the need is Edgar Alvarez, the man behind the grill at Reyna's Taco Shack, a ramshackle food cart in front of Reyna Foods at the corner of 21st and Penn.  Open seven days a week, Edgar makes mouth-watering tacos with steak, chicken or fish and tops them with lettuce, tomato, queso fresco and cilantro.  The key?  Reyna's homemade corn tortillas.  Burritos are plump as can be, the stuffed poblano peppers a dream and nothing is over five dollars.  And!  Outdoor seating in good weather.  Beat a path to the Shack.

Taxis.  Pittsburghers are likely to find a cab at the airport or the Omni William Penn but how about on the South Side or the Strip on a Saturday night?  Admit it:  when your designated driver is drunker than you, it would be nice to have a Plan B.  According to Jerry Campolongo of the Pittsburgh Transportation Group, his fleet of over 300 Yellow Cabs is manned by independent contractors who make the call on where they go and yes, they do try to get to high-yield areas.  That said, they're fed up with unruly fares in the Strip.  There are two cab stands on East Carson Street (at 12th and 18th) happy to pick up party people well into the night and Campolongo is hiring so if you can't find a taxi, the answer could be to drive your own.

Mo betta jazz.  In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, Wylie Avenue in the Hill District was a nationally-recognized hotbed of jazz with big-name talent (Art Blakey, John Coltrane) frequenting the neighborhood's many clubs after a downtown gig.  Then came Mellon Arena and the wholesale displacement of a neighborhood and the music died.  There is hope, however.  The Crawford Grill, a venerable Wylie Avenue boite that closed its doors several years ago was recently purchased by a group of investors with an eye toward revival.  It's time we made beautiful music once again in the Hill.

Awareness of our rivers.  Many readers felt we had a long way to go in making our rivers the pride of the region.  Okay, make that the riverfront.  While the South Side bike trails that hug the Mon afford magical vistas, the water's edge along the Allegheny is a hodgepodge of scrap heaps and even Point State Park directs the eye inward as opposed to out.  Thankfully, there is a plan and it's the folks at Riverlife who are spearheading it.  Three Rivers Park will run from the 31st Street Bridge on the Allegheny over to the West End Bridge and down the Mon on the South Side to the Hot Metal Bridge.  This grand vision may take time, however, since there are many stakeholders along the way who need to be in agreement.  "People are starting to get that the rivers are one of our most important assets as a city," says Steven Bontrager, a Riverlifer whose passion for our shores is exactly what this project needs.

PIT as a hub.  Every time I go to Pittsburgh International Airport, I flash back to that movie "Field of Dreams" and James Earl Jones intoning "Build it and HE WILL COME."  Well, we built our airport but no one came – okay, someone did come but now they're gone (yeah, you, US Airways) and left the locals holding the bag.  I think Jet Blue should make Pittsburgh their next hub and I have a plan to insure their success:  Primanti Bros. opens a location at the airport and stocks every Jet Blue flight with just-made sandwiches that can be purchased for six dollars.  Oh, wrap the sammies in blue wax paper to fit Jet Blue's supahcool image.  People will be beating a path to fly through Pittsburgh and Jet Blue will eat US Airways' lunch.

Fewer municipalities.  There are roughly 130 municipal governments in Allegheny County and I'd bet at least half of those serve fewer people than you'd find at a Wednesday night Pirates game.  Why don't we simply consolidate and use the savings toward quality-of-life issues like better roads, more trees and, um, libraries?  Pittsburgh Councilman Bill Peduto has given this issue serious thought and acknowledges that we're an amalgam of fiefdoms whose chieftains are entrenched.  People also worry that a merger of services, while reasonable on paper, may cause a community to lose its identity.  How to bridge the divide?  Consolidate those parts of government that don't have a public face; e.g. trash collection, law, engineering.  There are limits to just how big government can be, says Peduto, and it's time we all worked together, even if the community next door is our dreaded football rival.

Every home energy independent by 2030.  Sure, it's a bold undertaking but in a region known for ingenuity and determination, we should relish the challenge and be first to rise to the occasion.  According to Vivian Loftness, Professor of Architecture at CMU, new infill construction is largely net-zero, or carbon neutral, putting us on a path toward energy independence.  Tackling the existing housing stock poses a greater challenge but by incorporating four key techniques (high levels of insulation, very airtight windows and doors, using sunshine as a free heat source, solar hot water systems), you can get to  carbon-neutral living.  We will need smart policies and capital investment in the form of write-offs and subsidies to make this happen and Loftness says there's no reason why we all shouldn't be mini-utilities, harnessing the sun's massive energy and feeding excess electricity back to the grid at a profit (SOP in Europe).  "We should set fabulous goals for 2030," says Loftness, whose bountiful ideas can help make this vision a reality.

Surely there's more.  We encourage you to email Pop City here with your thoughts on what Pittsburgh needs.

Elaine Labalme thinks a New Girl trumps an old dog and vows to never get catty.

People photographed: Edgar Alvarez; Vivian Loftness


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Photographs copyright Brian Cohen