Raised crosswalks are a new concept in Pittsburgh. If this one works, we could see more

PITTSBURGH — The crosswalk in front of the Jewish Community Center on Darlington Road in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood is getting an upgrade. The city is set to install a raised crosswalk between Wightman Street and Murray Avenue.

“The goal of raised crosswalks is to add the traffic-calming, speed reduction benefits of a speed table or speed hump with the safety benefits of a high-visibility mid-block crosswalk,” explained Nick Ross, a municipal traffic engineer with the city.

Ross said a traffic study conducted by the city found drivers were speeding down the stretch of road to make it through a traffic light a short distance from the crosswalk.

He said this $25,000 installation will make it much tougher for drivers to speed. That’s exactly what the Jewish Community Center wanted when it reached out to the city.

“When they came out and looked at it, they too were kind of alarmed at the traffic and how it was moving,” said Sherree Hall, the Jewish Community Center’s senior manager of facilities and security.

She said more than 300 children and many other community members cross Darlington Road near the Jewish Community Center each day.

“I think it’ll be a huge deterrent for people to come down this street that are using it as a shortcut because it’s going to slow them down and I think that it’ll also give a natural, higher-level crosswalk, giving more of a pathway for anyone coming through,” Hall said.

Raised crosswalks are a new concept in Pittsburgh, but if this one works, we could see more in the future.

“We want to make it as safe as possible. Adding things like this, additional speed humps, additional traffic lights are going to go a long way in making it safer for everybody,” said Councilman Corey O’Connor, who represents Squirrel Hill.

After several delays due to weather, the project is slated to be completed on Wednesday, Nov. 17. Darlington Road is expected to be shut down for a couple of hours.

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