- March 31st, 2022
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The City of Pittsburgh is encouraging residents to complete a request form for the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program. The primary goals of the program are to increase safety and comfort of travel by all modes and promote pedestrian, bicycle, and transit use. To meet these goals, the program's objectives are to reduce motorist speeds and/or volumes to increase safety, induce compliance from motorists, and provide traffic control that is self-enforcing (reducing the need for police intervention).
To be considered a potential project, a street must first have passed DOMI's initial Eligibility Screen – meaning that it must meet the following criteria:
- Be owned by the City of Pittsburgh
- Have a minimum of two travel lanes if a two-way street, and one travel lane if a one-way street
- Be a local street, collector, or minor arterial
- Have a roadway grade of less than or equal to 13%
Applications passing that initial screening will be evaluated by DOMI staff by collecting data on speed and volume of traffic – where they'll be reviewing whether the application passes the "Speed Threshold" (meaning that the 85th percentile speed must be 5mph or more than the posted speed limit).
If the 85th percentile speed does exceed the posted speed limit by 5mph or more, then the application is scored by DOMI staff using the following engineering criteria as well as the DOMI Equity Index:
- Speed
- Volume
- Crash history
- Pedestrian generators, and
- Presence of sidewalks
Applications are being reviewed monthly at DOMI and, according to DOMI's Neighborhood Traffic Calming page on the EngagePGH website, the turnaround on this data collection will depend on how many applications come in each month.
As of today, the following applications have passed DOMI's initial Eligibility Screen, been evaluated for engineering criteria, and have been prioritized based on an engineering/safety score:
- Bascom Avenue
- Stratmore Street
- Beacon Street
- Bedford Avenue
- Shady Avenue
- Haberman Avenue
- North Charles Street
- Termon Avenue
- Stanton Avenue
- Arlington Avenue
- Homewood Avenue
For additional local context: Pittsburgh District 8 Councilwoman Erika Strassburger spoke to the 85th percentile rule back in April 2021 as she introduced a Will of Council to urge the state to stop using the rule, citing it as unsafe for our urban streets.
Her plea even made international news via Reuters and other publications in June of last year as talks of President Biden's infrastructure bill were heating up – noting that, "like dozens of other U.S. cities, Pittsburgh is trying to tame automotive traffic and lower the number of pedestrians struck by vehicles, which average 250 per year for the city."
