Gondolas, autonomous vehicles, and yes, even bicycles — the Pittsburgh Parking Authority might get some new assignments if Mayor Bill Peduto can make it happen.
Mr. Peduto floated a plan Monday to turn the Pittsburgh Parking Authority into the “Pittsburgh Mobility Authority,” tasked with the mission of finding unconventional ways of moving people in the 21st-century Steel City.
“It’s not about parking cars. But it’s about marinas along the North Shore. It’s about a gondola system that allows us to get from different areas because of our topography in the most effective, efficient and practical way,” he said. “It’s about the use of driverless vehicles that run on electricity that are part of our inner mobility system. And yes, it’s about bikes because for a lot of people that’s their mode of transportation.”
Mr. Peduto made his comments during a Northwest Bank Developers Forum at the Union Trust Building sponsored by the Pittsburgh Downtown Community Development Corp.
Now in its eighth year, the forum on Monday focused heavily on transportation issues as they related to development. And, in what could be the biggest long-anticipated retail story of the year, there were hints that Target could be very close to signing a deal to move into the former Kaufmann’s department store on Smithfield Street.
In an interview after the forum, the mayor made it clear that the idea of supplementing the traditional role of the parking authority with a 21st-century vision was more than just a pipe dream.
He said he hopes to move the authority in that direction over the next five years, assuming that he is re-elected in 2021. The idea has been discussed within the city’s department of mobility over the past year.
Mr. Peduto said the authority, in existence since 1947, was created primarily to park cars. But with the emergence of self-driving vehicles and other modes of transit, there is a need to plan and partner with private enterprise to “expand accessibility.”
“This is really about how you get from the Hill District to the Strip District,” he said by way of example.
“There used to be an incline that did that. And there’s now an opportunity to potentially put a gondola there that could also link into Oakland. How can you connect different parts of the city in the most efficient, effective, and equitable way? We don’t have the vehicle to deliver that right now — pun intended.”
The idea is to build off existing parking assets to look at additional investment in marinas, gondolas, autonomous vehicles and “any other type of inner city transportation,” he explained. That could be done through partnerships with private investors.
As for whether parking revenues would be diverted to help fund some of the alternatives, it’s too early to say, Mr. Peduto said.
“I think as you look at expanding transportation authority beyond just parking cars, there would be a lot of different options where revenue could be generated,” he said.
That doesn’t mean the authority will de-emphasize building parking spaces. Mr. Peduto believes that will happen naturally as transportation evolves over the next decade.
“I think there’s going to be an absolutely critical need to continue investment,” he said. “However, what we want to do is also be prepared for different modes of transportation and have a vehicle that can help to expedite private investment and public investment.”
Mr. Peduto isn’t adverse to using a 19th-century technology that is part of Pittsburgh lore — inclines — to move people around.
“If somebody were interested in investing in the city of Pittsburgh to build an incline, I would certainly have that meeting,” he said.
As for Target, John Jackson, the Cushman & Wakefield/Grant Street Associates broker handling retail leasing at the redevelopment of the former Kaufmann’s store, teased the audience that Downtown is “on the cusp” of seeing some impactful retail while avoiding the “T” word.
“We’re very, very close with some impactful retailers,” he said afterward.
Overall, Mr. Peduto said the city has been experiencing at least $1 billion a year in development since 2014 and that it could surpass $2 billion this year.
But he described the situation as “one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake,” with some places, particularly in the East End, experiencing rapid development while others “are completely cold” and haven’t seen growth in decades.
Fueling the development, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said, are sectors like finance, artificial intelligence and robotics. “I’m very, very optimistic [about future growth]. But we have a lot of challenges that we’ve got to meet,” he said.
One of those challenges is transportation.
“The transportation issue is going to be huge,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “Figuring out how we’re going to invest and what we should invest in and how we are going to pay for it.”
Mr. Peduto stressed that there are going to be some “critical pinch points where past Pittsburgh has a different vision than next Pittsburgh and some of those will be discussions we have to have.”
Part of that tension, he said, involves determining how future regional transportation funds will be allocated, whether it is in highway systems in suburban and rural areas or public transit in urban areas. He argued that the heart of the region is the city of Pittsburgh.
“For the next 50 years, we have to figure out how to bring people into the city to work and not concern ourselves about bringing back the mills and the mines of the rest of southwestern Pennsylvania,” he said.
Imagine living on the Mon Valley riverfront, he suggested, surrounded by boats and marinas.
“We have to rethink what this region can look like. We have to rethink what its potential can be and not simply wed it to what the past was,” he said.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
Updated at 6:08 p.m. on Jan. 27, 2020
First Published: January 27, 2020, 9:10 p.m.
