Vision:
Cultural Restoration, images of a new relationship to stormwater and lost streams

Issue:
Water flow is a safety concern. Invitation for more people to view a natural phenomenon, means we have to address the safety concerns.

• Culvert steps should be designed for sitting and watching and provide access for maintenance vehicles
• Establish a warning system for storm surge, provide points of egress.
• Public art opportunity whereby/bells or other devices can be activated by storm outflows
• Establish a "stream mark" beginning at Braddock Ave. which can be used to outline the culverted stream in the upper watershed communities
• Create community ed center/info at foodland entrance
• Target homeowners to education about benefitting the stream
• Explore corporate sponsorship of homeowner retrofit
• Municipal partnerships should be highlighted here

Goals:

• Celebrate the water
• Create cultural connections
  
• Increase/expand access to the park
  
• Encourage community education through pro-active signage and icons

• Address difficult storm events
• Constrain access to the culvert
  
• Floatables control - collect debris, allowing for the flow of water
  
• Traffic at the entrance is a problem
• Action: Focus on the design as a local PEDESTRIAN access point
• Should allow maintenance equipment, and cleanout access to the stilling pond
• Maintain parking for business

• Ecological restoration which separates the stream ecosystem from sewer infrastructure
• Restore the floodplain, stabilize waterflow and minimize sewage impact
• Restoration model for region
• CSO management model for country

• Transform the lower Frick Park experience
• Create a better ballfield in a new location
• Add stream meanders and flood plain
• Use natural materials and minimize concrete wherever possible.
• Design, plan and institutionalize sustainability

• Interpret, information- education and establishing signage
  
• Trail design for mountain bikers
  
• Create limited walkways in sensitive areas for ADA access and education

Challenges:

• Reconsider parking- Fern Hollow Creek relationship
• Make sure peak parking use is accommodated
• Design with permeable surface or other appropriate stormwater applications

• Construct a Commercial Avenue pedestrian crossway just south of the parkway bridge with user-activated traffic control
• Use the Summerset entrance and its periphery for vehicular access and parking
  
• Create a sidewalk on the URA (slag) side of the road
• Put the interpretive center close to the stream but visible from the pedestrian crossing
• If the Commercial Avenue bridge is reconstructed, refurbish the underpass in such a way as to be wildlife friendly
• Design the playing field to mitigate stormwater flow
• Preserve as much meadow as possible
• Develop the interpretive center with an onsite steward and integrate the ecological reality of the site into the body of the architecture
• Explore the possibility of removing the concrete fill, and dropping the entire field to its historic floodplain
• Use no pesticides or herbicides in the management of the site
• No ballfield lighting, no sound sytem

Opportunities:

• Design the site for multi-benefit use, realize diverse human needs and create a threshold for the diverse audience to access an ecosystem based experience
• Explore the potential for the existing field to be lowered, allowing for dual function as playing field and ecologically designed flood plain
• Design the ballfield and its meadow environment in such a way that stormwater runoff from the Parkway and Commercial Avenue can be detained, cleaned and infiltrated into the groundwater

Challenges:

• Pedestrian crossing of the road is a problem
• Parking and vehicular entry onto Commercial is an issue
• Anything that adds to the traffic will negatively affect the wildlife
• The playing field will interrupt the ecosystem and minimize biological connectivity at a key point in the greenway -- this is counter to the greenway-plans stated vision and goals

Conflict and Resolution:
While the preference is for a meadow restoration, the community planners recognize the value of diverse human uses and recognize the need for ballfields in Pittsburgh. If there is to be a ballfield at this site, it must consider the above goals and guidelines.

Vision:
Restore the site through a mix of ecological and cultural processes. Target education, art and revegetation.

Opportunities:

• The stream (clean and ecologically restored!)
• Existing bridge and its downstream area
• Two areas of existing floodplain: shale cliffs, natural soils and Trillium on the North facing bank

Challenges:

• Equitable handicap access
• Integrating the Summerset bridge into the intent of the greenway

Goals:

• Renovate the existing bridge for pedestrians
• Provide public access to the stream
• Revegetate steep slopes using natural succession processes
• Celebrate the heart of the greenway with ecological art

Issue:

• Safe pedestrian connectivity between the slag entry and Duck Hollow.
• Bus service for residents and recreational users.

• Celebrate the entry to the slag site/trail.
• Enable public access to the stream and river.

• Army Corp of Engineers project to improve the aquatic habitat in the NMR embayment.
• Duck Hollow/flood plain wildlife sanctuary (complimenting the above).
• Celebrate the Greenway entry with a butterfly-habitat garden.
• Simple kiosk with water, toilets, fishermans sink, info board, locking bike rack.

• Mon-Fayette Expressway (Potential public trail investment opportunity)
• Pedestrian safety under the existing RR bridge.
• Property ownership.