New Development on Joncaire St.

The following letter was sent to the President
of OPDC’s Board of Directors on January 30, 2014.

I want to keep you informed about a new development on Joncaire Street.

On January 22 I visited The Pitt News and spoke with Managing Editor Megan Trimble. I suggested to her that the University of Pittsburgh’s maintenance department use its snowplow to remove the snow from the entire sidewalk area on the left side of this street, from the top to the bottom. The maintenance department, under orders from the university administration, has only ever removed snow from the sidewalk between the top of the street and the third telephone pole where the university’s property ends. The remainder of the sidewalk is property of the City of Pittsburgh. The university does not clean this section even though the vast majority of individuals who use this sidewalk are university students, faculty, and staff. I also suggested that if necessary, the city of Pittsburgh could enter into a hold harmless agreement with the university. This would protect the university from liability should someone be injured on the sidewalk fronting the city’s property.

Since the 1970s the university has owned a parking lot located on Boundary Street at the bottom of Joncaire Street. There is also a privately-owned parking lot nearby, and the combined parking stalls available between these two lots are in the hundreds. When snowfall was heavy, some university personnel who parked in these lots chose to walk in the cleaned cobblestone street and face the dangerous possibility of being struck by oncoming traffic, instead of walking on the nearly impassable snow-covered sidewalk.

After talking with Ms. Trimble, I called Councilman Kraus’ office and spoke with Kevin to pass along my suggestions. He called me two days later, saying that he had spoken with Vice Chancellor Paul Supowitz about the proposal. The Vice Chancellor thought it was a good idea and said that he would talk to the maintenance department.

On January 28, Pitt’s maintenance department cleaned the sidewalk area fronting the city’s property on Joncaire Street. Unfortunately they did not clear the entire width of the sidewalk, nor did they salt the area. However, this is a positive start and perhaps in the future the entire area will be cleaned in the same manner that the university completely removes snow from the sidewalks fronting its own property.

We should all be very grateful to Kevin and Megan for being willing to take action to create a safer environment on this street. I would like to request that OPDC monitor this issue so that the proper cleaning of this entire sidewalk area on Joncaire Street by the university becomes a permanent solution.

Carlino Giampolo

Note: Subsequent to the writing of this letter, it was discovered that city workers and not the University maintenance department who cleaned the sidewalk area fronting the city's property on Joncaire Street.