Why is Erie, PA Sacrificing Impoverished Kids? Ask the City Council and the Mayor
Despite multiple accidents involving children crossing dangerous intersections, Erie, PA is preparing to tear down a key pedestrian artery connecting neighborhoods that are more impoverished and more diverse than 98% of other U.S. neighborhoods.
Located half-way between Buffalo and Cleveland, Erie is subject sudden, blinding snowstorms. Almost a century ago, after a child was killed crossing the railroad tracks that divide the city, plans were made to construct a 5-football-field long East Avenue bridge. Generations later, in 2005, a highway (Bayfront Eastside Connector 290) was cut through the city’s struggling Eastside — very near the “McBride Viaduct” Bridge.
In 2010, due to a lack of basic maintenence, the aging Viaduct-Bridge was closed to vehicles. While drivers were outraged (and many East Ave. businesses suffered) the absence of vehicles expanded foot traffic. Today, the Viaduct-Bridge is used daily for 200 trips by pedestrians, bicyclists, skateboarders and folks using wheelchairs or pushing strollers (and even shopping carts) to get to work, to shopping, to family and friends and to school.
Last month an 8-year-old boy was critically injured at a highway intersection during a hit and run; he remains in a Pittsburgh hospital. Once demolished, school children will be required to cross a multi-lane highway intersection at East 12th Street used regularly by 22-ton tractor-trailors.
Beyond the safety of children, there are other important objections to demolition:
COST: Tearing down the Viaduct-Bridge will cost at least $4.5 million while fixing it for non-vehicular use is less than $3 million.
JOBS: Demolition will produce few local jobs while fixing it will funnel most of the money back into the city.
CONNECTIVITY: Visionary Jane Jacobs and contemporary city planners including Dr. Mindy Thompson Fulliove have explained that shorter blocks offer multiple routes and foster urban vitality while cutting off streets and isolating struggling neighborhoods exacerbates poverty, crime, blight and hopelessness.
It should be noted that the city decided to tear down the Viaduct-Bridge in 2013. Two years later the city hired urban designers to create a comprehensive plan for the city. The 2015 Erie Refocused plan is built on four principles — all of which support fixing the Viaduct-Bridge. But the Mayor and City Council, to date, have refused to reconsider their flawed decision. Once the Viaduct-Bridge is demolished , a a safe route to school will be erased — forever.
Concerned citizens have formed ErieCPR: Connect + Respect, affiliated with the 501c3 Winds of Change. On Monday, June 12, at 2pm, concerned citizens from these two groups and CIVITAS, along with All Aboard Erie, Bike Erie, the Eastside Grassroots Coalition, the House of Mercy, Keystone Progress, Mothers Against Teen Violence, the Erie Chapter of the NAACP, Walking in Black History, the Urban Erie Development Corporation and the Youth Leadership Institute of Erie will be meeting in the parking lot of the former Erie County Farms at 2256 Broad Street, 16503 and participating in a MARCH FOR CHILDREN’S SAFETY on the Eastside Bayfront Connector path and over East 12th and then looping back over the Viaduct-Bridge to return to Broad Street.
