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Volunteer Mike Benton of AmeriCorps, left, plays basketball with Aidan Dawson, 11, of Mt. Lebanon on Brownsville Road in Brentwood on Saturday. A 1.4-mile stretch of Brownsville Road was closed so that people could enjoy the street as a public space.
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'Open Streets' catches on in Brentwood

Lake Fong/Post-Gazette

'Open Streets' catches on in Brentwood

A girl on a pink bicycle wobbled down the center lines of Brownsville Road through Brentwood Saturday morning. Running at her back with his hands out, her father called, “You’re gettin’ it, you’re gettin’ it!”

Learning to ride a bike is a big milestone, but that little girl can boast she made her two-wheeled debut at the first urban-fringe Open Streets event in Allegheny County.

From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Brownsville was closed to motorized traffic from the Brentwood Library to Brentwood Towne Square, a 1.4 mile stretch of typically heavy traffic.

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Instead, it belonged to kids on scooters, bicycles, skateboards, people walking dogs and pushing strollers, people shooting hoops, doing zumba exercises, dancing.

On a blustery day with relatively sparse turnout, the people who were there looked mildly exhilarated. Some of the dogs weren’t so sure.

“It’s strange for her,” Carol McKee, of Brentwood, said, nodding at Francie, a beagle-dachshund mix who is trained not to go in the road. “But I love it. A lot more people are out than usual.”

Adam Paulisick, of Highland Park, said he can see other neighborhoods better as a pedestrian.

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“You always find a restaurant to come back to,” he said, “or a store, or a cobbler or tailor, a service that’s hard to find.”

Three Open Streets Saturdays this summer in Pittsburgh, on Penn Avenue from Downtown to Lawrenceville, grew large crowds by July. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Darla Cravotta, his manager of special projects, asked Brentwood if it wanted to take the idea for a spin.

“Brentwood knew how to do this because they shut the street every year for a Fourth of July parade,” Ms. Cravotta said.

Greg Jones, executive director of Economic Development South, said borough officials considered “the idea of closing streets, police overtime, Port Authority reroutings,” he said, “and the borough manager was, like, ‘Sure!’ ”

“Brentwood is over the moon to be joining the list of locations that have hosted an Open Streets event,” said borough manager George Zboyovsky.

Open Streets grew out of a concept founded by Gil Peñalosa in Bogota, Colombia, in the 1980s. Mr. Peñalosa later founded 8/80 Cities, an organization that advocates for safe and enjoyable urban dynamics whether you’re 8 or 80.

Planning the logistics in Brentwood included scores of volunteers and Brentwood and Baldwin police officers directing traffic across at critical junctures to accommodate a confirmation at St. Sylvester’s Catholic Church and food pantry hours at Brentwood Presbyterian.

One group of neighbors pulled out a homemade game they call Street Bolf, a long board across which teams on each end roll a softball hoping to hit one of three holes.

“We’ve been doing it at the beach for years,” said Donna Werner. “When we heard about Open Streets, we said, ‘We should put this out!’ ”

Mr. Fitzgerald got off his bicycle to join the group and take a few turns with the softball.

“What I love is the joy on the faces of kids riding their bikes in the middle of the street,” he said. “What a feeling of freedom.”

“I think it has great possibilities,” said Paul Hayhurst of Baldwin. “You want people to get out and enjoy where they live. Communities get better because of that. They should do it again and anywhere they can.”

The biggest crowd, at Brentwood Towne Square, included about 35 youth moving in rows wearing PK’s School of Dance outfits.

Walking toward them, a man shouted into his cell phone, “They’re dancing in the middle of the street on Brownsville Road!”

Diana Nelson Jones: djones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1626.

 

First Published: October 18, 2015, 4:15 a.m.

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Volunteer Mike Benton of AmeriCorps, left, plays basketball with Aidan Dawson, 11, of Mt. Lebanon on Brownsville Road in Brentwood on Saturday. A 1.4-mile stretch of Brownsville Road was closed so that people could enjoy the street as a public space.  (Lake Fong/Post-Gazette)
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