Mobile toilets expected to help clean up Downtown Pittsburgh's streets
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The first of the city's temporary bathrooms are popping up on city streets.
The mobile toilets are expected to be a big help in cleaning up Pittsburgh streets.
It starts with this porta potty but it's only the beginning of a much bigger initiative: a public-private partnership aimed at transforming Downtown.
"Right now, I kind of stay in my sleeping bag in and around the area," Jason Cable said.
It's a first step: supplying bathrooms for people experiencing homelessness like Jason Cable who otherwise have few options Downtown. Starting this weekend, they'll have staffed units open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week.
"Anytime you clean up the blight or assist in making our city look more prosperous and hospitable, that's always a move in the right direction," Cable said.
But the bathrooms are only the beginning of a public-private partnership between the city and corporations and businesses to try to clean up and rejuvenate Downtown Pittsburgh.
The partners have already ponied up $2 million for the bathrooms and the expansion of the Downtown Partnership "Clean Teams" which have been powerwashing the sidewalks and alleyways all summer long. There are other plans in the works.
"We don't point fingers, we solve problems. Coming out of a pandemic, this was the ultimate test that we haven't had in 100 years and we can solve it," Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said.
Two months ago, Mayor Gainey and some of those corporate partners traveled to Cincinnati to observe the work of 3CDC -- a center city redevelopment partnership that has helped rejuvenate that downtown through cleanup, programming in public spaces and building development and conversions. It's headed by Steve Leeper, a former aide of Mayor Tom Murphy, who has now been hired in Pittsburgh as a consultant for our downtown.
"I'm sure it's going to be a multi-faceted approach so it can't be one thing that solves it. So hopefully they find the right combinations of things to fix the issues that all these cities are dealing with post-COVID," said Ryan McElroy of the South Side.
The mayor and the partners will be announcing the opening of these bathrooms but hopefully ushering in a new era for Downtown Pittsburgh.
