What Should Liberty Avenue Look Like?
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
- Special One Week Pop Up on Liberty Avenue Invites Input
- All Downtown Users Asked to Provide Ideas
For one week only/ Liberty Lab will pop-up at 813 Liberty Avenue as a hub to gather thoughts about the future of Liberty Avenue. Monday, March 20 through Saturday, March 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., visitors are invited to stop into the Liberty Lab to take a brief survey and provide vital feedback about the future of Liberty Avenue.
According to Mayor William Peduto, “Liberty Avenue is a key corridor connecting the office core to the Cultural District and we want to hear from people who use Liberty Avenue on a regular basis about how the street could be improved. Public engagement in this process is vital to ensuring we are developing a Downtown that meets the needs of everyone.”
Liberty Lab is a part of Life on Liberty, an initiative of Envision Downtown. The project targets pedestrian, economic development, and transit improvements for Liberty Avenue. Liberty Lab will provide an interactive engagement process that will allow participants to share their current experience on Liberty Avenue. Targeted areas to be tested in the lab include: bus stop improvements, transit priority measures, expanded public space, and improved access for individuals with limited mobility, among other issues.
“Liberty Avenue is a critical corridor for all Downtown users and we are excited to develop a series of projects to improve access and economic development opportunities on it,” said Sean Luther, executive director of Envision Downtown. “The outcomes of Liberty Lab will be a unique way to capture everyone’s current experience with Liberty Avenue and will help us to develop a vision to capitalize on Liberty Avenue’s strengths and improve upon its challenges.”
The projects to develop from the lab will take the form of demonstrations and pilot programs similar to the bus stop improvements at Smithfield Avenue and Sixth Street and Liberty Avenue and Tenth Street, as well as the Strawberry Way Mural and pedestrian amenities also completed by Envision Downtown during the last 18 months. Gehl Studios, an international architecture firm known for improving the quality of urban life by re-orienting city design towards people, has been working with Envision Downtown to develop a Public Realm Action Plan. Liberty Lab is an extension of this Plan.
Anyone who is unable to visit Liberty Lab is invited to participate by taking the online survey available at LifeOnLiberty.com.
About Envision Downtown
Envision Downtown is a public/private partnership between the Mayor’s Office and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership formed to accelerate Downtown’s economic growth and competitiveness. Envision’s mission is to advance mobility and livability in Pittsburgh’s central neighborhoods, by making it safer, more attractive and convenient for everyone to get to, through and around Downtown. The initiative leverages a team of committed civic leaders and a robust data development program to implement a series of short-term, accelerated infrastructure projects with the goal of informing longer-term transformation changes to the City’s mobility networks.
