Pittsburgh’s South Side swarms with massive crowds all year round; will a new plan lessen the impact on the neighborhood?

Sidewalk puke, garbage and broken windows are unfortunately common sights for South Side residents and business-owners the day after Pittsburgh’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The annual event is a sore subject for South Siders, who both relish and detest their neighborhood’s standing as the No. 1 destination for those wearing the green.

But what was once seen as a once-a-year struggle is now considered a microcosm of South Side’s issues year round — crime and parking congestion. City officials estimate the neighborhood sees 17,000 visitors a day, several times a week. That’s slightly less than the 19,000 fans who cram into the Consol Energy Center for a typical Penguins game. 

The complaints and desires of neighborhood stakeholders are varied. The South Side has the highest violent-crime rate and most bars per capita of any Pittsburgh neighborhood, and many have long clamored for a greater police presence to crack down on the behavior of bargoers who have been overserved. But others are worried that with so much attention being directed toward bars, the needs of restaurants and retailers are being ignored. 

“You need to be a magician to balance all the interests here. It is an intensely populated residential area,” says Michael Murphy, owner of Carson Street Deli. “It’s a very complicated problem.”

For several years, a solution has been on the horizon. The community has been anxiously awaiting the implementation of the Pittsburgh Sociable City plan, which was devised to better accommodate the increased traffic associated with the city’s growing social economy. South Side was selected as a pilot neighborhood.

But members of the community say information about the plan has been spotty. Many aren’t encouraged by the small pieces they’ve seen implemented to date, and they’re worried the city isn’t putting the necessary resources behind it. Ultimately, after all the time and money put into developing the plan, many are left wondering whether it will balance the needs of the wide range of interests impacting the neighborhood.

“We put all of our energy into this plan. We want to see it work,” says Jonathan Growall, president of the South Side Chamber of Commerce. “So we need a local staff to implement it and I think that’s very clear with the chaos that happens any time there’s a little piecemeal part of it that’s introduced.”

The Sociable City Plan is the result of a three-year, $400,000 study by the Responsible Hospitality Institute consulting group. According to Pittsburgh City Council President Bruce Kraus — who represents the South Side — the plan is an attempt to help the city capitalize on the neighborhood’s growing social economy.

“It’s about understanding the economic engine that nightlife is,” says Kraus. “We know definitively that the number-one growing economy in the United States is the service sector, it is nighttime economy and places for people to socialize. I have a fiduciary responsibility to protect those revenue streams.”

And because the South Side has long struggled with adapting to problems associated with its social economy, Kraus says it’s the perfect neighborhood to pilot a number of recommendations from the plan. 

One component set to be rolled out is a parking-enhancement district, where metered parking is enforced past the usual time of 6 p.m. Kraus says revenue from the meters would go toward increasing police presence and other initiatives.

“That money can only be accessed by the chief of police, our public-works director and those types of city officials to enhance and improve policing, public cleanliness, transportation and infrastructure,” says Kraus. “[Sociable City] has always been about creating a plan to manage and administrate this wonderful economic engine that is nightlife. Part of that of course is a police presence, but that costs money.”

One plan aimed at decreasing drunk driving is a shuttle from the parking lot on Second Avenue, in Uptown, to East Carson Street. The plan has been tested at events like St. Patrick’s Day.

“The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has deemed East Carson Street the sixth-most-dangerous stretch of road in the state, and it’s because of DUIs,” says Kraus. “Our hope with this whole transportation system is to get people out of their cars, have them use the circulator system. If they feel they might’ve had too much to drink that night, they’re welcome to leave their cars in that Second Avenue lot overnight.”

Kraus said the No. 1 crime in the South Side Flats is vehicle break-ins, followed by assault. He hopes that by limiting the number of visitors parking on residential streets he can reduce these statistics.

“One of the outcomes I expect to see is a drastic drop in crime,” says Kraus. “If we remove the vehicles from largely unlighted and unpatrolled residential areas … I offer up that we will see a drastic reduction in vehicle break-ins because we have removed the opportunity for crime to happen. 

“If we keep visitors from going back deep into the residential areas late at night, sometimes intoxicated, and transport them through our circulator system back to their cars … we’re going to show drastic reduction in assault.”

Another tactic for crowd control, which was recently implemented, is a taxi/ridesharing pickup zone on Carson Street. In an informal study of 80 people in the demographic of visitors to the South Side, Kraus says 78.5 percent said they use some kind of alternative transportation when they come to the South Side. Only 8.9 percent said they drive.

“With this system of parking-enhancement districts and paying attention to public safety and transportation, we are actually meeting the needs of the consumer that is using the South Side,” Kraus says.

While this all might sound good, the plan’s rollout hasn’t gone smoothly and residents have been airing their complaints at public forums, online and via media outlets.

At a monthly meeting of the South Side Planning Forum last week, South Side stakeholders had a chance to address some of the issues they’ve been experiencing with Allison Harnden, Pittsburgh’s night-time-economy manager.

“It’s a big plan. There’s a lot of parts to it and we have to prioritize what comes first,” Harnden said. “No one city has it right. Everyone is going back and retrofitting their daytime economy for a night-time economy.” 

One source of contention has been where revenue generated by the parking-enhancement district will be directed. According to the South Side Chamber’s Growall, RHI recommended the city use “night-time meter funds for staffing, implementation of night-time transportation initiatives, and cleanliness/maintenance crews.”

Growall says the current proposal to direct the funds toward increasing police presence isn’t in line with this recommendation, and says that funds should be used to hire staff to help plan for and manage night-time crowds, as is done in Lawrenceville. 

“A lot of us assumed the next step was finding a way to fund a permanent solution that would hire folks who are motivated to get these recommendations implemented,” says Growall.

In response to Growall’s concern, Harnden said, “I really think you’re at a disadvantage without having a staff person. Any night-time district that I’ve worked in has had that.”

But Harnden also emphasizes that improving policing in the South Side is an important step. “I can make a recommendation that public safety is the number-one issue,” he says. “There’s a certain type of policing that needs to be done differently.” 

From Growall’s perspective, having a staff to better plan for and manage night-time crowds would reduce the need for more police. He adds that the neighborhood’s tax dollars should already ensure there are adequate police.

“I think if you can get people out of the neighborhood when they’re ready to leave, it helps the neighborhood,” says Growall. “People aren’t wandering around causing problems.” 

Chief among Growall’s complaints is that although they were closely involved in the planning process for the Sociable City Plan, stakeholders haven’t been getting information on how it’s being implemented. One example Growall cites is the implementation earlier this year of a safety lane that limited parking between 12^th and 17^th streets after 11 p.m. Cars that parked in the safety lane on Carson Street were towed.

“There’s been no information on what is actually going to be done in the neighborhood and now we’re just seeing parts of this plan popping up without any notice, cars are being towed,” says Growall. “We’re just kind of in the dark.”

In addition, a lot of criticism has been aimed at elements of the plan that have been implemented, like the shuttle from the Second Avenue parking lot.

“I believe the whole shuttle thing is a bad idea because people are still going to be intoxicated and have to drive when they get back to the parking lot,” says lifelong resident Bailey DeGregorio. “I also heard there weren’t that many people on the shuttles this weekend. I think our requests have fallen on deaf ears.” 

Murphy, of Carson Street Deli, says that although the shuttle might be a solution to transportation problems for events, he doesn’t see it being viable long term. He also said it will do little to address the neighborhood’s overall parking problems.

“I think it’s a foolish idea for regular weekdays and weekends. I cannot imagine anybody’s going to park in that lot and get on a shuttle to go to [restaurants],” Murphy says. “I think there’s such a hyper-focus now on admittedly bad bar behavior, but there’s not enough thought given to other businesses. The retail businesses are getting crushed by the lack of planning.”

Murphy said a lot of the South Side businesses he used to cater for have moved out because of the parking issues, and he and others have been advocating for a parking garage. As a result, he says, he’s seen a decrease in walk-in, day-time traffic.

“Parking has become so constricted and so difficult with the residential parking restrictions,” Murphy says. “These businesses are moving out because they can’t find parking spaces. We have no parking alternative in the South Side, so company after company is moving out.”

Balancing the needs of business-owners like Murphy, who operate mostly during the daytime, with that of the night-time economy has proven difficult for decades. And among some South Siders, RHI’s Sociable City Plan isn’t the solution they were hoping for.

“We have so many great things happening here but this evening hour after 11 p.m. overshadows everything,” says Growall. “We want to have daytime business; we want to have evening business. Our cultural district needs to thrive. There’s so many components to this neighborhood that have nothing to do with the Thursday-to-Saturday crowd.”

This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2016.