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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 20

Location:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Issue Date:
Page:
20
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

HHnyiiyHyirn PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1996 B-5 THE REGION Racism is the rise, Trial Bigelow Blvd. closing set; traffic-snarl levels to be tested union couraging comments about the street closing's impact to assist the evaluation of whether to make it permanent. Those interested should call 255-8996 or write to Leslie KaplanBigelow, Department of City Planning, 200 Fourth Floor, Pittsburgh The following Port Authority routes will be affected by Bigelow's closing: the 54C North Side-Oakland-Mount Oliver will use Forbes Avenue instead of Fifth after entering Oakland from the South Side; the 56U Oakland-Greenfield will travel Fifth Avenue instead 3f Forbes to reach Morewood Avenue, but only during afternoon and evening trips; and the 84A Herron HiH-OaUand will use Oakland AvenDe instead of Bigelow Boulevard as its eastern terminus to turn to Fiftfi. More details can be obtained frgm PAT by calling 442-2000. By Gary Rotstein Post-Gazette Staff Writer.

University of Pittsburgh officials have been talking for at least 30 years about wanting to close a portion of Bigelow Boulevard. They get to try it for 30 days beginning Monday. After heated City Council discussions, considerable public criticism of the University of Pittsburgh's influence and a failed lawsuit to stop the test, concrete barricades will be in place by 6 a.m. to keep vehicles from traveling Bigelow between Forbes and Fifth avenues in Oakland. For the first time, students and others will casually cross between the Cathedral of Learning and William Pitt Union without looking both ways to avoid some of the 15,000 vehicles a day using the block.

The tradeoff is that the city is- giving up a primary thoroughfare between Schenley Park and North Oakland and covering about 90 parking meters on the alternate streets, enabling more lanes of traffic and space for turns. Pitt is to open a new parking lot with 20 parking meters at Fifth and Bouquet by Monday to help compensate. The experiment, which reroutes Bigelow's northbound traffic onto Bellefield Avenue and southbound traffic onto Bouquet Street and changes some Port Authority bus routes, could be made permanent next year, depending on the out come of studies of its impact on local businesses, traffic congestion and parking problems. The city Planning Department is surveying merchants and other walk-m businesses before, during and after the test to assess economic impact. Pitt is paying many of the direct costs associated with the test, such as installation of barriers and signs and providing officers to help direct traffic.

It also hired a traffic consultant, Trans Associates, to collect data before and during the test as part of the city's evaluation. University Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg asked university employees and students this week to "think through the most sensible approaches" to help make the test a success. He said that if the closing were made permanent, it would increase the attractiveness, and safety of the campus. While the university has no special plans for the street space during the test, it is likely that if the Murphy administration and City Council agree to give up the block, Pitt would landscape it and expand the open space of the Cathedral of Learning.

The Planning Department is en Warned here BIGOTRY FRQM PAGE B-l inciiie'nts wer known to involve organized white supremacist groups, up from 39 the year before. tensions situations are just the tip of an ever-increasing problem of intolerance and hate growing in our own back yards," Hcfmer Floyd, the commission's executive director, said in the report. "W6 see it in Pennsylvania as well as all across the country." Cochran, 38; said his epiphany Catfifin 1992, when his ex-wife Called him in 'Idaho to say their yottag son was having an operation to repair a cleft palate. His Aryan NatiOrts colleagues told him a boy with, a genetic defect would be put death if they came to power. clicked something in me," Cochran said.

"How do say that was-wrong about my son but it was all right for me to basically say the very same thing about people who are just born different from myself?" tfcf the past three years Cochran has traveled around the country speaking against the racism he once espoused. He tells the convention he will speak for gas and hotel money but acknowledged to a reporter that he made $12,000 last year" on such speaking engagements. Two weeks ago he harvested potatoes to make money. 1 How can orie change from a paid bigot "to someone who fights racism Cochran says the transformation tame slowly and is still under way. "The change doesn't come oversight," he said.

ji The United Electrical Workers is asmall union, that prides itself on bottoms-up democracy. Its spent much of their week in Pittsburgh debating and condemning discrimination against women, minorities and immigrants. libbert Clarlt, the union's secretary-treasurer, said he had second thoughts about being the first union to give Cochran a forum. But he said bigotry is often a wedge used to djvide workers on the shop floor. Jilt's what the boss is doing," Clcirk said.

''Cochran received applause and some thanks for sparking a spontaneous debate on social issues. But nottall of the delegates believed it was possible for him to convert. can say you've changed," McPherson said. "But I don't believe it." Cochran says the defection has put in danger. He says he receives threats by telephone and at hjs Potter County home from advocates 'of white supremacy.

Someone, he says; pulled a gun on him at gas station Coudersport. Ii. 'Regardless' of what you think of meas an individual, I can live with that," Cochran said. "But the message-1 bring that the racist is growing is true, and pursing cu(s kte criticized ftoRSINGfgpM PAGE B-l I I 'vm u' J-ul 1 i mi iir1J ri" 1 lii itf rr- -n Hi rtirirmriii ir Pr JmiMiiiMiiiiiiTin a-itf- ar irnnai Mi wm Mm MiMifitir win "TWiaWirinrWmimiw-- --irnnnw ii.ii.mi ii, iiiiniifi vania, said 'a team approach" to patient carejising unlicensed assis- tnfe could both cost effective aodrsafe with proper training and supervision, which they said hospitals-could do without, new laws. Adding additional 'regulatory bjirdens on providers; care will severely curtail health care profes-aonWabilityHo design and implement' new models of patient care," saidiRose Marie Kunaszuk, a nurse midwife at Gnaden Huetten Memo-fial fiospital in Lehighton, Carbon County.

Slit, in the day's most fiery presentation, the New York-based riuising journal publisher of Laura. Vonfrolio, asked the committee: "Would you board a jet when you knew that the highly trained and educated mechanic had been replaced by unlicensed personnel with only two, thrjee weeks training? Would you tfust those unlicensed mechanics with your life? 5 Then why would we expect patients to enter into a hospital that ha replaced their licensed, professional and educated nurses with unlicensed personnel?" i O'Brien said he was convinced of the need for hearings after talking with nurse Donna Gentile O'Don-e, deputy health commissioner of Philadelphia president of Bursts of Pennsylvania, and after Beading a February Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series on hospitals' Increased use of unlicensed aides to (Jo some nursing tasks. O'Donnell said yesterday that ljurses had been harassed, demoted and even fired for speaking publicly Mi ti Vt V4 Ml Vl Vl V. to lt 'A Vt tt Vi i Vi gbout unsafe conditions at their Ktt nffar Wa rolttruD rtflht tfl limit miantlUfiS 1 i Ijospitals. She recommended that nWnurses be, prohibited from do- Hi'drTitivncivp- nrnroritirps Kiirh as IPW! (C 1 SrawintJ hlnnri and insertinff urinarv SCHLAGE.

iatheters. She added that hospitals IbetrequiredPto develop objective i i i Vt sianawas ot nursing care..

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