Mobility Enhancement District FAQ

The Mobility Enhancement District is an ordinance written by Councilwoman Deb Gross and championed by Lawrenceville United & Lawrenceville Corporation that aims to better manage parking demand along the commercial district in Lawrenceville, while funding much-needed mobility and infrastructure improvements to make Lawrenceville safer, more accessible, and easier to get around for all community members, and increasing foot traffic that our small business community depends on.

• Read the legislation (read here) by Councilwoman Gross 
• This creates a dedicated, locally controlled source of funds for mobility improvements in Lawrenceville, which would come from: 
  • Nighttime enforcement of meters (“dynamic hours”)
  • Dynamic pricing that would capture extra revenue when demand is at its peak
  • Potential uses of the Mobility Enhancement District:
    • Safety improvements for pedestrians & cyclists 
    • Accessibility improvements
    • Traffic calming
    • Bike infrastructure
    • Bus shelters
    • Sidewalk repairs
    • …and more! 

1. Create positive, community-determined mobility enhancements to our neighborhood streets to benefit the community members and our visitors, including: sidewalk repair, bus shelters, parking solutions, etc.
2. Improve our public infrastructure
3. Manage parking demand more effectively

Firstly, no new meters are being added to the district as of now.

Parking meters are used across the country as a means to free up spaces in high-
traffic commercial areas and encourage turnover that’s important for businesses. Some studies have shown that a single parking space on a commercial district like Butler Street brings in $20,000 in annual sales to local businesses. When there’s no charge for parking, it permits vehicles to park in these valuable spots all day and night. Our small businesses lose this potential revenue, and it only further exacerbates the struggle to find parking in the neighborhood. By adding parking meters, the goal is to set the lowest prices that will leave one or two parking spaces open on every block.

Furthermore, all the revenue collected will go right back into the community, funding improvements to our streetscape that are aimed at bolstering foot traffic and making our community a more attractive place to live, work, visit, shop, and dine.

Pittsburgh Parking Authority has started to implement ticket-by-mail city wide as of November 2024. This means that tickets will be issued and sent to your home address rather than placed on your car. This helps PPA more efficiently enforce parking regulations and better protect their officers.

Yes! The funds would be exclusively restricted to uses in Lawrenceville and the Lawrenceville border of Bloomfield. A specific trust fund has been set up for this purpose. Early projections from the Office of Management and Budget estimate an upwards of $200,000 raised annually.

Per the enabling ordinance, the City is required to convene a meeting annually to“solicit community priorities and recommendations for projects to be financed using the Mobility Enhancement District Trust Fund. Community Organizations within the Mobility Enhancement District will be asked to participate and notice of the meeting will be made public no sooner than one month prior to the date of the community meeting.” The City is also required to publish a report annually on all funds received and disbursed through the Mobility Enhancement District.

The Mobility Enhancement District only affects metered parking areas on Butler Street. There are currently no proposed changes to areas off of Butler Street, although Penn Avenue may be considered in future phases. As part of Lawrenceville United & Lawrenceville Corporation’s engagement phase around the Mobility Enhancement District, we asked for input from community members on whether people would like to see changes to Residential Parking Permit (RPP) areas, but the results of the feedback were somewhat inconclusive. The City of Pittsburgh has recently dedicated funding for a parking study of Lawrenceville that would look more carefully at the utilization of parking in residential areas of Lawrenceville and propose potential interventions based on that data. In the meantime,  residents are welcome to apply for their street to be considered for adding or modifying Residential Permit Parking (RPP).

Lawrenceville United can explain the process to you in more detail if needed at info@lunited.org or 412-802-7220. 

A program that gives residents of a designated area a better chance to park near their home. A permit costs $20 per vehicle, per year. People without the permit are allowed to park in the designated RPP areas for one hour before being subject to a ticket.

The Mobility Enhancement District has been a conversation in Lawrenceville for many years, building off a lot of priorities reflected in many meetings and plans like the Butler Street Design Guidelines, surveys of older adults that identified mobility as a key quality of life issue, budget requests made by Better Streets Lawrenceville, and multiple parking studies in Lawrenceville. However, in the spring of 2023, an extensive community engagement process was facilitated by Lawrenceville Corporation & Lawrenceville United to specifically focus on this policy & get input.

This included two large community meetings, three open houses, a community-wide survey that received hundreds of responses from residents/business owners/workers, articles in the Bulletin that went to every address in Lawrenceville, door-to-door flyering of Butler Street & Penn Avenue businesses & key community institutions, mailings and robodials to older adults, inclusion in church bulletins, tailored communications through LU and LC newsletters & social media channels, as well as lots of individual phone calls and emails. Recordings and recaps from the community meetings are available here.

Within residents, business owners, and workers who completed the survey, more of each individual group supported the Mobility Enhancement District than opposed it. Once the legislation was passed at the end of 2023, parking utilization studies were completed of Butler Street to determine the exact scope of how the Mobility Enhancement District should be implemented. The results of these studies and the proposed implementation plans were presented to community members in June and August of 2024 and offered for additional feedback. Based on feedback received at these meetings, some of the implementation proposals were modified. 

Lawrenceville United and Lawrenceville Corporation have advocated for a district-wide parking garage that could serve many different types of users for years. However, the construction of new parking is extremely expensive and there hasn’t been much traction with these efforts. While the funds from the Mobility Enhancement District alone would likely be insufficient to finance a new parking garage, they could be used to more strategically utilize existing parking supply that’s underutilized. For example, there are large surface lots in several areas of Lawrenceville that sit empty exactly when parking demand is at its peak. Funds from the Mobility Enhancement District could be utilized to create more shared parking strategies or perhaps even offer a shuttle from these lots.