posted by Joe Polk at 10:25 AM /
Take a walk along Mt. Lebanon's Castle Shannon Boulevard between Pennsylvania Boulevard and the Shop 'n Save and you might be one of the few people out there.
Lots of vehicles pass by -- about 18,000, according to a 2002 study by PBS&J, a civil engineering firm with offices in Coraopolis and Canonsburg. But not too many who drive them stop and shop at the 45 or so establishments located on the one-mile stretch of road.
"People forget we are a business community down here," said Cassie Gillen, 37, who owns Josephine Florals Furnishing Finds at 190 Castle Shannon Blvd.
Link: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/today/s_515642.html
Lots of vehicles pass by -- about 18,000, according to a 2002 study by PBS&J, a civil engineering firm with offices in Coraopolis and Canonsburg. But not too many who drive them stop and shop at the 45 or so establishments located on the one-mile stretch of road.
"People forget we are a business community down here," said Cassie Gillen, 37, who owns Josephine Florals Furnishing Finds at 190 Castle Shannon Blvd.
Link: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/today/s_515642.html
4 Comments:
Someday business owenrs will realize that people don't want to shop where 18,000 cars drive by a day. Castle Shannon, Uptown Mt Lebanon, I don't want to go anywhere near either.
Is it really 18,000 per day? Averaged over 24 hours, that's 12.5 per minute, or one car every 5 seconds, morning, noon and night.
However, the nationwide success of big-box retailers says you're wrong: people apparently want very much to shop in places where thousands of cars pass by. Your assertion also seems to ignore Beverly Rd, which is on Rt. 19, and also gets tons of traffic.
The difficulty with a Beverly-style shopping district on Castle Shannon is that the shops at the Shady Dr intersection and the shops at the Scott Rd intersection are separated by a long residential block. If the 200 block of Castle Shannon Blvd could be eliminated and the two groups of shops drawn together, you might be able to get a critical mass of shops.
It's hard to compare with Beverly, though, which has a great mix of shops for foot traffic: one short block with 4 or 5 restaurants, a coffee shop, and an ice cream parlor. On the other hand, even if Josephine Florals and the Ivy Inn were right next door to each other, I somehow doubt that there'd be a lot of foot traffic between the two.
I should have been more clear. I will go to big box retailers like Wal Mart, Best Buy, or a Grocery Store when there a thousands of cars going by. This is because I have no other choice. (Foodland on Mt Lebanon Blvd is not a valid choice)
But would I go to an ice cream shop with 18,000 cars going by and limited parking? No frickin' way. Stop for some coffee? Nope!
I understand counting cars and some retailers wanting to be next these to streets. For McDonalds it is basic math. 1 out of x cars go through the drive through. If the drive through has 5 cars waiting, 1 out of y cars go to the drive through. With that said, some retailers are better off being on some streets than others, especially when parking and convenience is involved.
Don't be shocked by the traffic volumes in Mt. Lebanon. My guess is that the numbers today are actually much higher than this 2002 study reflects.
Traffic volume is one of the single largest issues facing our community these days. Unfortunately, the streets and business corridors of Mt. Lebanon were not planned and developed with Upper St. Clair, Peters Twp., and the other new communities to our south in mind.
When Mt. Lebanon was laid out, it was pretty much the end of the line. Now we're roughly somewhere in the middle, and as a result we become more and more urban. For those of you that studied Sociology in college, we're a pretty good example of the Concentric Zone Theory at work.
http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/26
In the good old days, Mt. Lebanon was on the outer band, and faced fewer urban-style issues. These days, we're somewhere closer to he middle band, and with that comes considerably more urban issues, including increased traffic, etc.
I would also venture a guess that traffic on Beverly Road is not much lower than that on Castle Shannon Blvd. Cut through streets on either side of Beverly Rd - like Mapleton and N. Meadowcroft experience upwards of 5,000 cars per day and 230+ an hour during peak periods. Therefore, it stands to reason that Beverly Rd, a primary corridor between the South Hills and Downtown would experience a much larger volume of traffic. Fortunately for Beverly Rd, it is laid out in such a way that it remains conducive to causal shopping and foot traffic. I'm not certain Castle Shannon Blvd offers such ease of use.
Post a Comment
<< Home