I am a resident of a senior retirement community in Squirrel Hill and no longer able to drive, but friends here often take a number of us to the business area in Squirrel Hill so we can run a bunch of errands at one time. The small businesses in Squirrel Hill are nothing like Los Angeles, the city that apparently created the first “purple zones” in an effort to move people along and not let them linger in front of a business.
How are older people ever going to be able to visit the small businesses in Squirrel Hill if the friends who drive us have to move along after seven minutes? Why didn’t the city consult the people who shop in Squirrel Hill and the businesses who serve us?
I worked as a city planner in Florida for years before retiring and returning to Pittsburgh. Purple zones may have a use in places like Florida and California, where on-street parking is very limited and even unnecessary or forbidden, because there are major expanses of stormwater generation (otherwise known as surface parking lots) serving individual buildings and shopping centers.
The purple zone system makes no sense in an area heavily dependent upon on-street parking.
Is the city trying to completely destroy Squirrel Hill’s business district?
Sheryl Stolzenberg
Squirrel Hill