Cable Advisory Committee - public_hearing

Good afternoon and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's cablecast public hearing for Thursday, June 4th, 2026 relative to bills 2026-0487 and 2026-0516. Will the clerk please read the titles of the bills?

bill 487 petition from the residents of the city of pittsburgh requesting a public hearing before city council regarding reopening serpentine drive and shenley park to cars the squirrel hill historical society board and the people signing this petition feel that this road was intended for vehicular traffic including bikes but not trucks and not intended for pedestrians who have many nearby trails to walk on that go to go to the same places. Serpentine Drive is the only road on the eastern side of Shenley Park that keeps traffic inside the park instead of sending it on long, hazardous detours on nearby residential streets, including one that has no sidewalks. Except for the Panther Hollow Bridge, it is the only road that connects the north side of the park with the south side without forcing traffic to leave the park. It is also a safer connecting road to Oakland from the Greenfield Bridge. The petition is valid in accordance with the Home Rule Charter. In Bill 516, petition from the residents of the City of Pittsburgh requesting a public hearing before City Council regarding maintaining Serpentine Drive and Chenley Park as a pedestrian and bike only thruway. The petition is valid in accordance with the Home Rule Charter.

All righty. And for the record, we are joined by Council Member Strasberger.

Is there anybody online? I don't think so.

no i don't think so okay um so yes oh i'm sorry oh and councilman salinetro is with us online um so the first order will be testimony from our registered speakers when you come up to speak give your name and your neighborhood for the public record each registered speaker will have three minutes to address council and then if you're not registered you'll be able to go at the end and probably also have three minutes is my guess. Usually it's one, but that's fine. Okay, so our first registered speaker is Liana Krisoff.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm Liana Krisoff. I live on Bartlett Street in a small row house between Murdoch and Serpentine. I strongly support keeping Serpentine closed to car traffic. My family and I walk on Serpentine almost every day in all weather, often after dark, which is like 4 p.m. in the winter. It's a well-used space. I often sit on the wall and read, and I see people using Serpentine not just as a way to get from one place to another, but as a destination in itself. Walking and jogging up and down the road, riding bikes around the block multiple times, skateboarding, birdwatching. It's a backyard. It's a gym. It makes that part of Shenley Park easy to access, and it's part of what makes living in a dense urban neighborhood, in apartments and row houses, more pleasant and humane. Unfortunately, cars and bikes and pedestrians cannot safely coexist on serpentine. The weird and erratic car and pedestrian encounters my family and I witnessed when it was open to traffic would blow your mind. Opening serpentine to cars would close it to everyone else. You have an incredible opportunity here to easily and cheaply make Pittsburgh even more competitive with peer and aspirational cities by making it clear to residents and to people thinking about moving to Pittsburgh that we're serious about Vision Zero and about not fragmenting our green spaces. Nobody ever decided not to move to a city because there wasn't enough traffic in the park. All you really have to do is nothing. It costs nothing and it takes no effort to keep Serpentine closed to traffic as it is now. But I'm sure you all don't want to be back here in another six months hearing the same arguments. I'm asking you to formally and decisively declare it to be a bike and pedestrian only space. Make the barriers at either end look a little less temporary, a little less optional. Maybe put up a couple of those brown wooden signs to show that it's open to bikes and pedestrians. And publicize it. Instagram reel with the mayor. We're here at the newly restored Serpentine Drive historic trail and overlook. I'm going to try roller skating for the first time since I was 12. Come on down. Just let people know it's here. that the construction mess is finally gone and that we're welcome to enjoy this beautiful singular amenity. I appreciate your time and the care I know you'll put into this decision. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Travis Ben and then after that will be Thomas Haar.

Thank you all for the time. My name is Travis Ben. I live in Squirrel Hill. I'm a dad. I walk, I bike, I take the bus, and I even drive a car. Much of this decision around Serpentine Drive has been framed as a question of historic preservation, but that argument quickly falls apart because when Schenley Park opened in 1889, there were no cars in Pittsburgh. The first car wouldn't appear for another six years, and by 1910, there was only one car for every 636 residents of Allegheny County. And the idea that streets should be reserved primarily for vehicles rather than shared by people didn't emerge for decades. Bigelow designed Serpentine for low speeds, light traffic, horse-drawn carriages, and scenic recreation, not car commuter cut-throughs. So when the Historical Society claims they're defending its vision by reopening the road to car traffic, they're actually advocating for its opposite. The real question before council isn't history. It's whether we should prioritize cutting a few seconds from drivers' trips or preserve a safe, car-free connection through one of Pittsburgh's most heavily used parks. Keeping Serpentine closed asks car drivers to sacrifice remarkably little. Not fewer turns, just different turns. But reopening it requires pedestrians and cyclists to sacrifice so much more. That trade-off is getting harder to justify because new school feeder patterns to Greenfield will send more families and children along the route. And at the same time, the mayor has committed Pittsburgh to Vision Zero, a policy built on the recognition that roadway design should prioritize human safety over car convenience. All this is occurring while Panther Hollow Bridge is about to reopen. These traffic disruptions are temporary. The pressure to reopen Serpentine is temporary, but the consequences to reopen would match much longer. Historic preservation should not be used as a proxy for commuter throughput. I would like to hand you all 95 additional signatures of people who feel the same, if possible.

Thank you. All right, next up we have Thomas Harb.

Hi there. My name is Thomas Haar, and I live on Constance Street in the East Allegheny neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I'm the membership and donor manager at Bike Pittsburgh, a bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organization backed by over 4,000 members, working to make our city streets safer for everyone who uses them. I'm not only representing the views of Bike Pittsburgh, but I am here speaking as a Pittsburgh resident, a frequent park-goer, and the father of a 10-year-old. I would like to express our strong support for keeping Serpentine Drive free of motor vehicles. When you think of public parks, you think of green community spaces where you can hike, walk, bike, and play freely without worry. Public parks are not shortcuts. They're not alternate routes to speed to work, nor are they detours to traffic that will shave maybe a few moments from a commute. Not only opening Serpentine Drive to motor vehicles, it would convey the wrong message to who Shenley Park is serving, but it would make this popular biking, walking, and running route more dangerous. At Bike Pittsburgh, we share the same goals of the city, to better connect the bike and walking networks, giving Pittsburgh residents the freedom to choose how they travel. A pedestrianized Serpentine Drive serves as an example of the city's efforts in connecting the bike network and working towards Vision Zero. It would be a shame to reintroduce the noise and danger of cars to Serpentine Drive, especially at the expense of those who want to utilize the park as it's intended, for rest and recreation. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this matter, and I thank you all for your time.

Thank you. Next up we have Kathleen Weinert, and then after that, Mary Shaw.

Thank you all for the opportunity to speak today. I strongly support keeping Serpentine Road free of motorized vehicles. The timing of this hearing is unfortunate because so many people are frustrated right now by excess traffic caught in the neighborhood caused by bridge closures. But opening serpentine, if it's in response to the current heavy traffic situation, is short-sighted. If it's as a convenient cut-through, I believe that the needs of walkers and bikers in the park should take precedence. I walk with my dogs daily on Serpentine. I'm also a veterinarian. They're on two different levels of tick protection and I'm no longer able to walk in Panther Hollow because the quantity of live ticks that they pick up, while the tick preventatives have not yet worked, they sometimes tick up to 24 hours. So I use Serpentine as a tick-free route where I can get out and walk with my dogs and not have them pick up ticks. And then finally, there is no alternative pathway for pedestrians. So there are two paths, but they're for hikers, and they involve steep, rocky slopes, and you couldn't take strollers on them or a scooter. So there is no alternative pathway for pedestrians. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. Up next, Mary Shaw. Oh, she's online. Go ahead, Mary.

Am I unmuted now? No, we can hear you. Okay, thank you. My name is Mary Shaw. I vote in Pittsburgh every time, and I support keeping Serpentine Road closed to cars and reserved as a bicycle pedestrian route. I have lived within half a mile of Fenley Park, variously at Squirrel Hill at present, and previously at Oakland and Greenfield since 1967, and within 900 feet of Serpentine Drive since 2013. I bicycled, hiked, strolled, cross-country skied, watched fireworks, and done a lot of other things in the park. I travel between home and Carnegie Mellon by foot, by bicycle, and by car, and I have also on occasion driven on Serpentine Road when it was open, almost always using it as a shortcut to someplace outside the park. My family currently suffers from heavy traffic at rush hour because of the closure of Anderson and Panther Hollow bridges. This sometimes makes it hard to get into and out of our driveway. These bridges will eventually be repaired, and we are eagerly awaiting the reduction of traffic that should result. However, reopening Serpentine to motor vehicles would make this traffic good permanent, and we absolutely do not want that. I'm not sure why you're even asking the question here. In 2024, as part of the project to repair vehicle damage to Serpentine, Domi carried out a public process and decided that after repairs, the road would reopen for bike and pedestrian access only. That choice was overwhelmingly supported during the public comment period at the time. I believe the city and its residents are best served by reaffirming this decision and reaffirming the public process overall. My reasons for keeping serpentine car-free include many that others are talking about, and I won't repeat them here. I do want to question two unsupported assumptions that are being made by proponents of allowing cars on serpentine. First, that the right was designed for automobiles. In fact, it was designed for horses and carriages, as a previous speaker said. Second, that pedestrians were not originally permitted under the roads. To the contrary, it wasn't until the 1920s that the motor vehicle industry mounted a campaign to drive people, pedestrians, off the road by blaming them rather than drivers for crashes. But times change. It's a century later. And now we protect vulnerable road users. Pittsburgh has adopted Vision Zero to this end. So the decision on Serpentine Drive should be shaped by how to provide safe recreation and transportation options for vulnerable road users and not how to provide through the park shortcuts for commuters. This favors continuing to ban cars on Serpentine Drive. Although it's true that opening serpentine to cars would allow me to use it as a driving shortcut, I will instead happily give up that minor convenience in exchange for the benefits of keeping this part of the park an actual park and a safe place to bike and to walk. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next up, we have Helen Wilson, followed by Audrey Glickman.

Hi, Helen Wilson, Squirrel Hill South. Shenley Park has 456 acres with an estimated 14 miles of places to walk and only 5.5 miles of winding roads. Public Works Director Edward M. Bigelow deliberately designed the trails and roads in the 1890s to keep walkers safely separated from wheeled vehicles. His plan worked. Let's compare a trip going from the Greenfield Bridge to Forbes Avenue by the golf course over the past 14 years. Seven with Serpentine fully open and seven with it restricted. Going through the park using Serpentine when it was open, there were five crashes, none involving pedestrians. Using Bartlett Murdoch Darlington during those 14 years, there were 36 crashes, two involving pedestrians. Using Whiteman, there were 113 crashes, 16 involving pedestrians. That's over one per year. In the city of Pittsburgh High Injury Network, Domi identified Forbes and Whiteman as high injury corridors. And these routes have dangerous left turns. If the city is closing a park road that has few crashes and forcing drivers onto high crash residential streets, Was a signed, licensed engineering study done to assess the safety and mobility impacts of closing Serpentine? If so, can we see the study? Is the city committed to Vision Zero, or does it prefer possibly incurring the liability of sending cars on less safe streets where children walk to school or catch school buses? Serpentine is 40 feet wide, and it costs $2.5 million to fix it. In our frequent visits to the Neal Log House, we see very few people walking on it. So is Serpentine a trail for a few people to use because they can't find anywhere else to walk in the park, or should it be a road for people to drive through the park safely? And people say cars speed in Shenley Park. Would you rather they speed past your house? Thank you. Thank you.

Next up, Audrey Glickman.

Audrey Glickman, I live in Greenfield. Serpentine Drive has long been a main route, much needed by neighborhoods which are often cut off, treated as pass-throughs, and ignored. I've lived most of my life in Greenfield. Shenley Park was designed as a vehicle-friendly green space with many disparate amenities. Passenger vehicles can traverse from one spot to another. Driving through the park is not only expedient but pleasant. Rather than merging into the traffic from the parkway, Rather than wading through the trucks and the businesses or the narrow streets or the speed bumps or the cobblestones, residential streets with no sidewalks, or a three-light wait to turn left from Waitman on to Forbes, not to mention red lights at every block, we could take serpentine. We drove that route most weekdays for 14 years. Any people were on the trails or the grass. The alternate routes can add 10 minutes or more, critical when children are commuting, and they eliminate the beauty and the calm. Years ago, the city removed Pecusset Street for vehicles through Shenley Park. That route to the heart of Squirrel Hill was also well-traveled by Greenfielders, but the local neighbors didn't want so much traffic on their street, so those with influence had it permanently closed. Enough! The city parks belong to all the citizens of the city. We all pay parks taxes. Not all of us have the luxury of traipsing to them. This is not a local neighbor's matter. The immediate neighbors do not have more of a right to our parks facilities, including the roadways, than the rest of us. Just because they live conveniently close to the park does not mean that they can control how others use the park. It wasn't long ago that all those little streets that we now have to drive on instead had signs on them, local traffic only, as if all of us taxpaying outsiders were not welcome. And now there are speed bumps instead. Note that Beachwood Boulevard was designed as a pleasant driving route linking all the city parks to one another. Yet I live on that street and we see semis and stink trucks doing 50 miles an hour all day every day in our residential neighborhood. I don't get a vote to close my street down. Serpentine Drive was made for vehicular traffic. There are trails that traverse the park for walking. There are sidewalks on the streets. Locals must not get the sole vote on this. The parks belong to the whole city. We have to get from one place to another. Why is the city continually taking away the beauty and expediency of the trip? The road's very name is Serpentine Drive. Please reopen it to vehicular traffic. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Lori Fitzgerald. And after that, Martha Eisler.

Hi, I'm Laurie Fitzgerald. I live at 5563 Beacon Street near the intersection with Whiteman, about a half a mile from the bottom of Serpentine Road. I've already sent comments by email to all of you, but I will summarize those here. I walk the drive easily five times a week, five to 10 times a week, mostly mornings, sometimes the evenings. I've done so for probably 15 years. My experience is that it's very light use. I saw zero walkers this morning, one yesterday. It's a very generic light use. And I see very few bicyclists. And really, I have not witnessed in several years that families playing. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm just saying I don't witness it. But in general, most of my experience and most of the experience I think you've been hearing is anecdotal. and I don't want my city to make decisions based on anecdotal feedback. I want to consider an option that I've already sent to you, which considers a shared use. I think that the road is wide enough to accommodate cars and pedestrian bicyclists. I've sent you some graphics that I put together. I'm an architect, I'm not a traffic engineer, but I did go and measure the width of the roadway. It's about 40 feet wide, which allows plenty of space for two 13-foot wide car travel lanes, which is identical to the lane width that happens on West Circuit Drive, deeper in the park, closer to Westinghouse Mountain. as well as a bike lane that would vary in width from 11 foot 6 wide to 14 feet wide, which is wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic for bikes and pedestrians. The location that I showed in my photographs might not be the right location. Maybe it needs to be on the outside curve. That needs to be studied. Maybe the grade isn't perfect. Few streets in Pittsburgh are perfect for biking or walking. I just am in favor of, if we've made an investment that's reportedly two and a half million dollars, I'm in favor of that investment benefiting as many citizens as possible. And in my suggestion, that would benefit vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, walkers. So I ask that you consider opening the street and opening it to as many users as possible. And I have a printout of the information that I emailed to you as well, if that's useful to you. Thank you.

And Martha, are the eyes, oh, there, I didn't see you.

Good afternoon. My name is Martha Eisler, 5655 Darlington Road. I'm a little less than half a mile from Serpentine Drive. I'm here today to provide comments in support of keeping Serpentine Drive open to vehicles as it has been for the last hundred years. I'd like to reference a statement heard recently that Domi issued a notice for public comment. uh the concerning the opening of serpentine please know that i never had any knowledge of this opportunity i was on the board of the squirrel hill urban coalition we were never notified we were never notified by our elected officials and therefore i did not comment had i known i certainly would have submitted my comments so i don't know who domi told but it wasn't the surrounding neighborhood I have quite a bit of personal experience observing the use of serpentine drive while it was open only to cyclists and pedestrians. The following is anecdotal, but based on many days of observation of the activity on serpentine, I can honestly say that seeing a cyclist going down serpentine was a rare experience. Opportunity and seeing a cyclist coming up Serpentine was extremely rare. When seen, there was a conscious thought in my mind, if someone else was there, there would be a comment. It was, oh, geez, look at that. I observed the serpentine activity, or lack thereof, because I was at the Neolog House helping to coordinate the various aspects of the restoration virtually every workday for almost two years, excluding winter and excluding eight weeks off after I fell into a fence post hole and broke my leg. Otherwise, I observed walkers and dog walkers who mostly stayed on East Circuit Drive. Dog walkers never walked down, with packs, never walked down Serpentine. Pedestrians sometimes go down, but rarely come up Serpentine. When I did, it was a sighting when you saw that. Statements from others in the vicinity, including the construction crew working on the repairs, made the same comments. The lack of pedestrians or cyclists activity on Serpentine was obvious and it was worth a mention. A fact that's to remain to this conversation is that the city paid more than $2.26 million for the repairs to Serpentine. As a taxpayer, I can't even imagine a city administration deciding to spend over $2 million to provide 1,500 feet of paved road for bikers only. My understanding is that the repaired roadway provides sufficient space for cars and cyclists while maintaining safety. This is just as it was prior to the closure to vehicles during the repair. Another fact that I believe Council knows is that there are existing pedestrian trails that can be used parallel to Serpentine Drive. To summarize, from the very beginning of the park, Serpentine was intended to be a driving road. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you. Next up we have Maria Cohen and then Thomas Engel.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Maria Cohen, and I reside in Squirrel Hill South. I'm speaking on behalf of the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition. We appreciate your special session for this important issue. First, I want to acknowledge that the question regarding Serpentine Drive reflects a real and meaningful range of community perspectives. There are thoughtful and well-founded views on both sides, some community members who value the possibility of reopening the roadway to motorized traffic, and others who support maintaining it as a pedestrian and bicycle-friendly corridor. Because SHUC has not conducted a dedicated community engagement process specifically focused on this issue, we do not feel that it would be appropriate for us to take a formal yes or no position at this time. We believe our role in this moment is to reflect the diversity of perspectives we are hearing. rather than to speak definitively on behalf of the community. Because SHUC has not had an opportunity to formalize a stance, what we can support is a more structured and data-informed review of the question. We respectfully encourage the City to undertake a formal assessment that examines the full range of considerations, including traffic flow impacts, pedestrian and bicycle usage, safety conditions, and neighborhood connectivity. We believe the empirical data paired with thoughtful community engagement would provide a clearer foundation for any long-term decisions. Serpentine Drive is an important corridor, and decisions about its future should be guided not only by strong community input, but also by a comprehensive understanding of how the space is currently used and how it can best serve the safety, accessibility, and mobility needs of the neighborhood. as a whole while considering bridge and road closures currently impacting neighborhood traffic patterns. We appreciate Council's attention to this issue and encourage a transparent, data-driven process that allows for informed decision-making and continued community dialogue. Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration. Thank you.

Thomas Engel, is he on?

My name is Tom Engle. I live at Walden Street in Squirrel Hill. And I'm here to ask you to open Serpentine Drive to Cars. At first, I didn't care one way or the other. I don't ride a bicycle, and I walk in Homewood Cemetery. But then I heard something that changed my mind. What I heard was that this road is the quickest connection to Oakland. I looked it up. Of course it is. It existed in the 1800s as a dirt road and was called Serpentine. People rode their horses on it. At this time in history, Squirrel Hill was home to large farms and estates. Horses and wagons moved commerce between South Squirrel Hill and Oakland on Serpentine because it was the quickest route. Then came the horseless carriage. Henley Park was established and Serpentine Drive was formalized. What caught my eye is that it is the quickest road to the hospitals. So I asked the city paramedic if it was reopened to traffic, would the paramedics use the road? The answer was yes, especially with the bridges closed, especially if their patient lived near or near enough to serpentine to give the patient the extra seconds serpentine would give them to save their life. I'm an Army veteran who was trained to fight, but what most people don't know is that we were also trained to save lives on the battlefield. When your buddy is wounded, we would start first aid immediately until the medic arrives. Extra seconds saves lives. I'm also a retired news photographer. I often needed extra seconds, not for speeding, to get a live shot together. We all of us, in one way or another, need those extra seconds to accomplish something. But the greatest need of all can be the need to save a life. Please open Serpentine Drive. Open it to everyone as it first existed in the 19th century. Emergency vehicles will not be using it all the time, only if they feel they need these extra seconds to save a life. Serpentine Drive is a direct route and a pleasant one. Please open it to cars. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Chris Zyrowski, then David Mailer.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for listening to my concerns. My name is Chris Sarosky. I've lived at 5541 Darlington Road in Squirrel Hill for 26 years. My house is about two blocks from the Serpentine. I'm also a board member of Friends of Shenley Park, a volunteer group that formed last fall to advocate on behalf of the park. I strongly support keeping Serpentine closed to motor vehicles. My wife and I walk and bike on it often, and I visit the park almost every day. This past Sunday, while biking home on Serpentine, I stopped to take some pictures of the deserted Neal Log House, which is located above Serpentine's walls. A woman who was walking by remarked on the beauty of the scene. We got to talking and she told me that she lives in Brookline and makes regular trips to the Serpentine after discovering it during COVID. Earlier this week, I emailed some photos to the city clerk. One of the photos was of a group of bikers having a picnic on Serpentine. People used the car-free space for all sorts of outdoor activities, including a bagpiper who used to walk up and down while he was practicing. I also sent you a picture of an Amazon tractor trailer truck that was stuck on Serpentine's hairpin turn in 2019, and that was just three months before the wall collapsed. Another photo that I sent showed a city stonemason repairing the wall in 2021 following a crash during the vintage Grand Prix car race. It's Serpentine's stone walls, not the entire roadway, that are designated as a contributing element to Shenley Park's National Historic District. Protecting Shenley's health and its natural attractions is my main concern, and minimizing car and truck traffic wherever possible is best for the park. Personally, I made my peace long ago with Serpentine's minor driving detour, despite making regular trips through the park and tuned from the South Hills to visit my mom. When the Panther Hollow Bridge reopens, the inconvenience the drivers currently face when traveling between Greenfield and Oakland or Oakland and the Parkway will be gone. So I'm asking you, please support Domi's longstanding and well-considered decision to keep the Serpentine a safe space for walkers, bikers, families, and children. Thanks again for your attention.

Thank you. David Mahler? Mahler? Thank you.

My name is David Mahler. My wife and I live on Beacon Street, Squirrel Hill, roughly three blocks from the Bartlett Street entrance to Serpentine Drive. I am enthusiastically in favor of Serpentine Drive remaining car-free. Thank you for listening to my observations. Since moving to Beacon Street 20 years ago, my wife and I have not owned a car, choosing to walk, bicycle, or take public transportation for the majority of our travels. Serpentine has frequently been part of our bicycle route to Oakland, where my wife works. But today I want to take a few moments to talk about Serpentine Drive not as a way to get somewhere, but as a staying place. A road whose trajectory is toward whatever one notices. Come along to the Serpentine site. Various birds, I hear them and stop. to listen. I stop to look at trees and other greenery growing and changing with the days. I walk and I stop, marveling close up at the care that went into the construction of Serpentine's new wall. I'm surrounded by other people moving and stopping, the couple who walks this road every day, the woman quickly walking down Serpentine, the older man carefully but with assurance doing the same. The young couple walking with their two sons and pushing an empty stroller, starting their way up the hill. One of those boys is fairly new to the concept of walking. Good to have that stroller just in case. The jogger running toward me, who in a few moments will be running past me back up the hill. Bicyclists in pairs actually talking with each other as they ride. Walkers with dogs, the dogs as usual in charge of the pace. Notice that fluffy black and white dog walking like a circus star along the top of that wall. Or that sheep dog placing its front paws on top of a wall to look at what's below. No sheep down there. Serpentine Drive, as it's now configured, is a lingering place, and most certainly a social place. I rarely walk on Serpentine without a conversation breaking out with someone I'm happy to get to know. Thank you for taking time to consider what the future of this road should be, to listen to my experiences, and perhaps absorb a little of the pleasure I feel when car-free Serpentine Drive is where I am.

Thank you. Next up, we have Roy Weil and then Tim Godessart. Roy, are you online? Hello. Can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you.

My name is Roy Weil. I live at 533C Donington Road, which is adjacent to Schilling Park and almost a block from Superteen Road. I'm in favor of keeping Superteen closed to motor vehicles. Most of the time close to car is much safer to bicycle from my house to Square Hill using the park roads and apartment street established bike lanes rather than the direct routes using forums or busy gardens. Yes, there's only inconvenience with driving to places like the waterfront and others that are south east of me, but I'm willing to accept that that for the safer bicycle route, it's roughly an extra 500 feet of driving, which is small compared to the total distance. Closing separate to cars Also enhances the park's ambience. On Serpentine, I see hopscotch boards, chalk drawings, children learning to ride bicycles, and the neighbors strolling or just standing around and talking without concerns for our traffic. Also seeing skateboards learning tricks on Serpentine Road rather than the busy platters, busy plazas. In the last 15 trips that I've been traveling on Scrupertine Road, I have always counted at least three to four people on the road. And this is just, I've just started noticing this, just so that you're aware. And therefore, in favor of keeping Scrupertine close to motor vehicles, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Tim? Got us, sir?

Hi, my name is Tim Gattasort. I live on Birchfield Avenue in Squirrel Hill South. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their time and consideration as we discuss serpentine drive and its effects on vehicle and pedestrian interactions inside of Shenley Park. Bear with me, I'm not much of a public speaker here, but I do feel a great sense of honor and pressure as I kind of started this counterproposal and talked to a bunch of friends and neighbors and people that I've just kind of met going through the area. And in general, the feelings were very much for keeping it a public safe space for people to move in and out around the park freely, right? We see people through there all the time with kids, with biking around, right? I kind of did a quick look on Strava. There's 5,000 athletes. Anybody who logs on Strava who's gone up and down through that drive, there is 65,000 efforts. So it's very heavily used by just one app of tracking people who go through there. We believe that setting it aside as a pedestrian throughway is overall going to be better for the rest of the traffic throughout Shenley as well, right? I think one of the big concerns that I have would be What happens whenever it's not the local people driving through there, but the people who are not familiar with Pittsburgh? And Google Maps or Apple Maps, whatever, takes them through that park, and they go flying too fast through there. I know through the other sections of the park, there's a 15-mile speed limit coming down from the oval. I go down on my bike there at 15 to 20, and I have a car riding up on me all the time. So clearly, people don't respect the speed limits, so we should continue to make this as safe a space as possible. As we've talked about historical value of the road, I think it's important to remember that cars have changed a lot over the past hundred years, right? It's really easy to drive super fast now in a vehicle, whereas back in the 1800 or late, early 1900s, not really there. You can barely go very quickly. You can go faster on a bike in most cases. I understand the desire for a shorter commute, but this feels like a very temporary issue as both the Charles Anderson and Panther-Holler bridges will reopen and provide other avenues to shorten the commutes. I'll leave you with this, as we have a great opportunity in front of us to continue prioritizing our parks as a safe haven for Pittsburghers and their mental and physical well-beings.

Thank you. Next up, we have Sarah Elizabeth Wallace, followed by Tony Indovina.

Hi there. Good afternoon council members. My name is Sarah Wallace and I live in the Squirt Hill neighborhood here in the city. I'm here today to express my strong support for keeping Serpentine close to cars. I support keeping Serpentine the way it is now, which I find to be a safe and calm space for runners, walkers, cyclists, families, and kids of all ages, as many folks have already mentioned. A little bit about me. In 2009, I chose Pittsburgh as my home, moving here from out of state. And a huge draw for me in coming to Pittsburgh was its city parks and the general support for outdoor activities. Honestly, I can't imagine coming here without those things. Increasing the safety of our parks and neighborhoods is incredibly important to me, And to my friends who've formed important bonds running through Shenley Park during the COVID pandemic, a practice that continues now to this day. Keeping Serpentine car free, as well as careful consideration of park spaces in general, will help us as a city continue to recruit people to this great city. Keeping Serpentine car-free really isn't just about convenience. In my mind, it's about safety and about the kind of city we want to build. I find we have so few places where people can move about freely without the fear related to traffic. And this one right now is working. This place is working. I urge you to preserve the progress that's been made and keep Serpentine closed to cars so that it can remain a vibrant space for all. Thank you for your time and the opportunity to share my thoughts today.

Thank you.

And Tony and Davina?

And after Tony will be Rebecca Green.

Thank you for your time. My name is Tony Indovina. I currently live in Greenfield, 50 years in South Squirrel Hill. I'm on the Historical Society Board, also the president of Friends of Neil Logg House. So I submitted what I tried to make a very thoughtful letter in all the areas of concern to, I think, both sides of this hearing. And I want to very briefly summarize one or two points from each. The first is on neighborhood traffic concerns that our city parks exist for all city residents, most of whom need to drive to get to the park and to its many amenities. This has been said several times today. Bicyclist concerns. Personally, I'm really confused by the steadfast position of local biking advocates for not wanting to share a road that has been shared since the park was opened. I really believe bicyclists can share the road safely with cars, and I think that is to be determined. The need for pedestrians and recreational use. I see no justification for pedestrians to use their desire for another recreational outlet that would result in citywide residents who need to drive to the park to be able to do that and to be able to access it safely and directly. We've talked about other alternatives, other amenities, recreational amenities that exist very close by, the Bartlett Street playground, access to miles of trails, and I appreciate the fact that a parallel walk or the same walk from the bottom of Serpentine to the top by trail would be a very steep decline into that valley and out of that valley. I hope you look at my letter because we have personally walked on some ground that is adjacent to Serpentine Road and I believe determined that for not much expense, a Serpentine Trail could be carved out of a wooded hillside without displacing any trees or earth. I hope you take a look at that. My last comment is about the hearing that took place that was presumably the justification for Domi closing the road to cars. We heard the testimony that came from others of not being notified. I believe that that was properly advertised. But in reality, most of us hear about such hearings by word of mouth. And I believe the network of people who heard about that were the people who had already decided what they wanted to do. And I think that there is a need for our registered community organization to be given the opportunity to advertise to a wider body. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Rebecca Green, then Catherine Adams, and then Jesse Wilson.

Hi, my name is Rebecca Green. I am a resident of Greenfield and I am the mother of multiple small humans who like to use paved spaces to get places. And anyone who has ever ridden an unprotected bike lane with a small child on their own bike can tell you that this is not Ideal, not ideal. And so Serpentine Road has been a great thruway for us. Yes, it's steep, but it's a safe space. And so kids on scooters, kids on bikes, they can be there. And we as parents don't have to worry as much about a kid getting smushed. I just I would hate to see us lose a car for one of the few car free spaces that we have in Shanley Park. I don't think I have anything else to add to the conversation. I also would like the people to remember that as the bridges reopen, that will affect commuting in and out of Oakland and will hopefully resolve a lot of this. I also commute in and out of Oakland every day. I understand the pain. I deal with the pain, but I don't think this is the answer.

Thank you. Up next, Catherine Adams and then Jesse Wilson.

Thanks for the time and consideration. My name is Catherine Adams. I live in Greenfield on Montclair Street. I travel between my home in Greenfield to Oakland and Squirrel Hill multiple times a week. I own a car and I own a bike. I know every route in and around Stanley between these neighborhoods. I support keeping Serpentine car-free because we already have convenient driving routes and we need more safe biking routes. To share how convenient it is to drive between Greenfield and Oakland with the current road and bridge closures, here's the mileage and travel time on some routes from To level set, my house to the library via Serpentine is 3.3 miles. This is not the shortest way to the library. The windy turns add length to the distance. The shortest way is via Murdock. That's 3.1 miles. It takes 10 minutes to drive that route, but I don't use it because of the cobblestones and the left turn onto fords make it uncomfortable. The longest way is Boitman. That's 3.5 miles. This route also takes 10 minutes to drive. We're talking about fractions of a mile here, and Boitman is the longest route between my house and the center of Oakland, but because it's paved, wide, and straight, it takes exactly the same amount of time as the shortest route to drive. We don't need serpentine to drive from Greenfield to Oakland. The roads that are currently open to cars are already the most convenient ones to drive. They're the shortest and the fastest. We need soap and tea close to cars for safety. My car is a Hyundai Ioniq. It's a small passenger sedan. It weighs 3,472 pounds, which is actually much smaller than the average car, which weighs 4,300 pounds. My bike is a Salsa Marrakesh. It's actually a really heavy and large bike. It weighs 32 pounds. I'm not going to tell you how much I weigh, but when I drive my car, I'm not worried about a person on their 30-pound bike running a stop sign at 12 miles an hour and hitting my car. They're going to hurt themselves, and they might dent my hood. When I'm on my bike, I am worried about a person driving a car on a narrow and steep road, taking a turn too wide at 20 miles an hour, and their 4,000-pound car hitting my body. Right now, when I take Serpentine to go between my home and Oakland by bike, I know that's one stretch of road on which I'm not going to die. Please, vote to keep Serpentine car-free. We already have convenient roads to drive, but we need a safe forever bike. Thank you.

Thank you. And then Jesse Wilson.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for having this conversation. I'm Jesse Wilson of East Liberty, formerly Squirrel Hill South. I have three quick points I want to make in favor of reopening Serpentine to vehicular traffic. Number one, I used to work at Carnegie Mellon University, and Serpentine Drive was part of my daily commute from Squirrel Hill South. While other routes are drastically longer, as others have mentioned, I've chose to use Serpentine to avoid Darlington, which has no sidewalks and many people walking, and also And also to avoid the dangerous lefts, like getting on and off of Whiteman. I chose Serpentine because it felt safer, more scenic, and more direct. Point two, I read that the city spent close to $2.5 million of my taxpayer money on its reconstruction. That's a lot of money for a quarter mile long trail in a park that's full of them. And I know, I've hiked all of those trails. Are taxpayers going to be denied the use of a road that we all paid to rebuild? And point three, have any traffic studies been done to look at accident rates on Serpentine and the detour roads in Squirrel Hill? If the thought is to keep this road closed to continue to detour traffic onto pedestrian heavy and already congested roads in Squirrel Hill without the appropriate studies to ensure safety, then there would be a liability for a lawsuit on the grounds of negligence. Whiteman and Forbes are already listed as part of the city's high injury network, and I would think that the aim would be to utilize a safer alternative, such as Serpentine, if given the option. Thanks again for your time. I strongly encourage the city to reopen Serpentine Drive to vehicular traffic to ease the dangers of the city's residential streets. This isn't a discussion about closing Shenley Park. This is a discussion on a very small part of the park. And yeah, I thank you for your time.

Thank you. With that, if we have any unregistered speakers who'd like to speak, you can just come up to the podium. Oh, that exhausts the list of registered speakers. So if there's anyone else wishing to speak? No? All right. Well, I guess in that case, that wraps up our speakers. With that, I'll open the floor to council members. No, that's okay. Yeah.

Well, I... My name is Erica Strasberger, and I represent a portion of Squirrel Hill adjacent to this area, but not actually this area. That would be Councilmember Warwick. But close enough that I recognize a lot of faces in here, and I respect every single person who spoke today and who have taken the time out of their schedule to email the city and email the clerk's office, email us as council members directly. It's really remarkable how one fairly short road has garnered so much public attention and media attention because I think it's indicative and it's a microcosm of a larger conversation we're having about the way we move around the city and what roads are... who roads are for and how we move ourselves and who has more sort of a right to a space throughout the city. And I think what I've found through this conversation, what I've heard through this conversation is some valid concerns on both sides of the issue. I hear the call for additional data and study. I also know that we have many, many more issues that we need to work on throughout the city. And I believe it's time to put this to bed and to move on. I understand that some people were not made aware of the possibility of asynchronous feedback through weighing in on an Engage PGH page. And I'm sorry for that, but at the same time, we have had a very robust opportunity for the public to know with media coverage about this topic. And I think what we found through this process is both in the emails that we have received and the petitions that we received and to some extent, the comments we heard today, an overwhelming desire to continue on with the decision to keep Serpentine closed to vehicular traffic and open to all other users. That said, this is not a city council decision. This is a decision that has already been made. The reason we're here today is because anyone who wishes to hold compel council to hold a public hearing can collect at least 25 petition signatures submit it and if that's found to be valid this is the forum in which we can hear the people and so this is the forum we're in today but i do want to be clear this is not a city council decision i'm glad to have had this conversation i'm glad to have opened it up to further discussion and public feedback and but i do think that the decision has been made and we've heard i think nothing but a reinforcement of broad and deep public support for the decision that has already been made. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, so thank you. So I also want to thank everybody for coming out today. And I want to start just by talking a little bit about the public hearing process. You know, back before I came on to council, you know, one of the things that kind of, you know, got me interested in city politics was a park-related issue. It was an issue about a road through a park and whether or not vehicles should or should not be on this road through a park. And one thing I will tell you is we did not know that this was something we could do. we did not know that we could you know put together get 25 signatures and come down we didn't even really know that we could come testify in front of city council I mean maybe it's something we could have figured out you know what I mean along the way but it just So I really wanna thank everybody here for engaging in that process, right? And I wish that more people, there are so many things that we deal with here at the council table and I would love for the public to come out. And sometimes things that we vote on and sometimes things that we don't vote on like this, right? Like this is a, as the councilwoman said, this is sort of a decision that's already been made. I am glad that we've had this hearing. I know that this was on an Engage page before, but the Engage page is not. Again, one of those things, if you don't know about it, if you don't know that it's out there, then you don't know. It's always with the city. Once you're keyed into how the city works, it's like you want to know everything, but until you get there. So I'm very glad everybody came out. Just for anybody who is... wondering kind of about the numbers, right? So if, you know, say this was a public hearing, right? And we had folks come out on both sides of the issue. So, you know, as far as signatures on petitions, we had 175. to keep serpentine bike ped only. Emails, about 53. I know the councilwoman and myself, we had a few separate emails that came just to us, not to the clerk. And then speakers, obviously today there were 12. And then for opening it back up to cars, signatures, 38. Emails, four. And speakers today, seven. So just to kind of give some clarity around the numbers. You know, obviously, I'm personally a big proponent of Vision Zero, right? And there is sort of one point that I want to address about, because it seemed, I think maybe there's a little bit of misunderstanding about Vision Zero and the high injury network and how we are approaching as a city managing the high injury network. So the purpose of Vision Zero is to make, is first of all, keeping cars on the thoroughfares that are larger and intended for cars, not diverting cars to smaller streets, right, to residential streets, and then investing in the infrastructure improvements and also enforcement, right, with our, you know, whatever cycles and red light cameras and all this kind of thing, investing in the high injury network so that the infrastructure of those roads slows the cars down. So it makes the high injury network roads safer for the multiple modes of users not to sort of reduce accidents by pushing the dangerous cars into other smaller roads. So I just wanted to clarify that a little bit. And also with regard to Panther Hollow Bridge, is that August, September of this year? So there is a small light. I know that Charles Anderson is taking longer than expected, but Panther Hollow will be reopening soon in a matter of months. um you know knock on wood uh that you know all goes well but so that is at least something that we can look forward to there um and then again just sort of from from a personal perspective again as someone who rides a bike uh also drives a car um and walks a lot uh one speaker mentioned the actually the um the plan to uh to rearrange the school, to reorganize the schools. And I think that that is actually a really important point when it comes to who is going to be moving between Greenfield and Squirrel Hill. And the reality is that we are going to have a lot of middle school students who are moving between Greenfield. And we'll have a lot of little kids too, right? Like K through five and middle school moving between Greenfield and Squirrel Hill twice a day, right? And just for the sake of minimizing traffic alone, the more options, the greater number of safe options that we can create for families to opt for something other than their car to move those kids, whether that be their own bike or a family bike or walking or a pogo or whatever, the more car-free safe options we have, that will mean fewer cars moving between those two neighborhoods. I know, you know, even from a very personal level, my own son will be going to Alderdice next year, right? And, you know, I live in the run. I'm at the bottom of Greenfield Avenue. And there really isn't a very good option. I mean, there's like one bus if he catches it super early in the morning. I know I am not interested in driving him every morning to school. And so he's probably gonna bike, right? He's probably gonna be on a bike. And I have to be honest with you, it makes me very, very nervous, right? But now, luckily, at least on a part of Greenfield Ave, we have a little bit of bike lane. And I have to say that strip of Pecusset, Right over the Greenfield Bridge, we have bike lane and that stretch of Pecusset from the bridge into Squirrel Hill, that makes me feel a whole lot better that he is going to be able to bike on that stretch. So really the only kind of scary bit is going to be coming down Pecusset and then into that crazy intersection at Forward and Murray, which also is going to get redone as part of the Vision Zero and got a grant for that. Again, I just want to thank everybody so much. So many passionate arguments on both sides and also a real love for Shenley Park on all parts. I want to say that and I think that's great, right? Just like how much people love their neighborhood, how much they love Shenley Park and just the passion that everyone feels about where they live right here in Pittsburgh. So makes me happy to represent uh represent the area and uh and all of you at least the ones who live in my district so um thanks do you have anything else councilwoman all right oh oh i'm sorry that's right apologies councilwoman uh do you have any comments before we wrap up yes

Okay, I just want to thank everybody for their impassioned testimony today. I live and represent the west end of the city of Pittsburgh and it's not often that I get to hear the issues going on outside of my district and I'm happy for the opportunity to be able to do that. I want to thank everybody for giving me a vision of what you see and your impassioned love for Shenley Park. So thank you. That's all for me.

All right, thank you. And I really want to thank the Councilwoman for coming, right? Because that, you know, like, Councilmembers have lots on their schedule. So for Councilwoman Salinatro to come to listen to a fairly long public hearing on something that's not in her district, very much appreciated. So thank you for that, Councilwoman. You're welcome. Yeah. So I guess, yeah, so having exhausted the business of this public hearing, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.