Mt. Lebanon eyes improvements to ‘T’ gateway
Say you’re taking a light-rail ride to or from Pittsburgh and decide to stop at Mt. Lebanon.
Say you’re not all that familiar with the community except for just passing through, and you’ve heard some good things about it.
Your expectations might change abruptly as you get off the “T,” walk up a flight of stairs and find yourself on, for all intents and purposes, a back alley, complete with several dumpsters in plain view, with all the olfactory unpleasantness.
Welcome to Parse Way, which serves as a primary gateway to Mt. Lebanon’s Uptown Business District, one that local officials want to change for the much better.
“It is a street, an alley, that has to do so many different things,” Andrew Schwartz told Mt. Lebanon commissioners at their March 28 discussion session. “And honestly – I’m being very candid – it’s not particularly successful at any one thing.”
Schwartz is managing principal with Environmental Planning and Design, the Downtown Pittsburgh-based consultant for a strategic plan to improve Mt. Lebanon’s major business district, along Washington Road. And in a prominent place among recommended improvements is Parse Way.
“Unfortunately, it is your front door for so many people who come and go from the community because of the ‘T’ stop,” Schwartz said. “That experience really is kind of a key memory or impression that is cast to everybody.”
The portion of Parse Way closest to the light-rail station is pleasant enough, with a weather-protection canopy and landscaping among the amenities creating a relatively favorable impression.
Just beyond to the south, part of the municipality’s North Parking Garage extends above Parse Way, and the scene below resembles the type of place most people might prefer to scurry away from as quickly as possible. Unattractive walls and support columns flank a line of trash receptacles that extend sporadically all the way to the end of the street.
“Fix that dumpster problem,” Schwartz suggested as a way to pique interest in making improvements. “The notion of just the hygienic side of that changes people’s opinion, and they’ll say, ‘You know what? What else can we do back there?’ And that just adds to the momentum of, let’s do more.”
Parse Way connects Shady Drive East, across the street from Mt. Lebanon’s Public Safety Center, with Alfred Street, near the Clearview Commons area for community gatherings.
“It also is one of the few places that, in a Mt. Lebanon standard, is flat as a board,” Schwartz said about the portion of Parse near the light-rail stop. “It’s one of the only places that isn’t topographically challenged in the community.”
He told commissioners that the street is “envisioned as being a place that could, from time to time, be reimagined. It could be a place for food trucks. It could be a place for street festivals, those types of things. It needs to be treated differently, though, for that to be successful.”
Eric Milliron, Mt. Lebanon’s economic development officer and commercial districts manager, said that public transit could provide a boost to businesses along Washington Road.
“Depending on the time of day, we’re a 15- to 20-minute train ride from downtown Pittsburgh, which has exploding residential population,” he said. “And I think as more people are moving down there, it’s not uncommon to get on the subway and go to a different neighborhood.
“We’re going to have a great opportunity to tap into that exciting new market,” he continued, “which dials back to the whole notion that Parse Way has to be better than it is.”