Blocked sidewalk on busy Pittsburgh street causing safety concerns for pedestrians

A section of sidewalk under construction on Butler Street in Lawrenceville is completely blocking pedestrian traffic and caught the attention of an advocacy group.

“Thousands of people every week are forced to walk into traffic to get around this,” said Armin Samii, the chair of Better Streets Lawrenceville.

While this is already an issue for pedestrians, it’s even more concerning for people pushing strollers or using wheelchairs.

“I have very little visibility. I have to step all the way almost into traffic to be able to see around.”

The only other option is to turn back to the nearest crosswalk.

“Basically impassable for someone on a wheelchair, basically they’d have to walk a quarter of a mile back in that direction on that direction on butler and walk back on the other side of the street,” Samii said.

The City of Pittsburgh says the contractor for this project has been cited three times, including for sidewalk obstruction on Aug. 23, and having an opening in the sidewalk without a permit. But, nearly a week later, nothing has changed.

Councilwoman Deb Gross says most construction areas across the city are ADA complaint.

“A lot of times you’ll see orange jersey barriers so there is a safe route, we’ve been able to achieve that in lots of places and lots of construction... it’s really frustrating we haven’t been able to do that here,” she said.

Gross says they’ve been in contact with the contractor daily, who didn’t apply for the proper permit to install water and gas services.

Samii is concerned that the issues haven’t been handled leading into another busy weekend.

“Butler Street is a huge drinking spot on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. You’ve got drunk drivers and drunk pedestrians. Somebody is going to get hurt. It’s a huge fear of mine,” he said.

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