More than $800,000 is going towards improving one Pittsburgh intersection in Oakland near the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University campuses.
The signal upgrade will be at Fifth Avenue and Dithridge Street, according to a news release from city officials.
The changes here will reduce the potential for crashes and injuries, Mayor Corey O’Connor said.
“There’s always cars, there’s always pedestrians, there’s always students,” Pitt sophomore Noa Shimshi said.
Shimshi knows how tough walking in Oakland can be at different points during the day.
“It’s just a little frustrating sometimes,” she said.
The city is hoping to quell some of those frustrations. At the intersection of Fifth and Dithridge, countdown signals will go in, ones you can hear.
The city is putting in new LED streetlights, larger traffic lights that it said will make it easier for drivers to see, along with concrete bump-outs to make the crosswalk distance shorter and slow down turning cars.
“I usually stand like right on the edge, too, and sometimes have to back up if someone’s cutting it pretty close,” Carlow University junior Peyton Wilkerson said.
There has been a history of crashes at the intersection, the city said. Officials said someone even died here in 2020.
The money that will fund the improvements comes from a PennDOT program that funds road safety projects through money from red light violations.
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