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Millcraft industries suggested recently that bus traffic be routed off of Fifth Avenue downtown. According to a Post-Gazette article, the company believes smog from the buses, loitering in front of buildings, and traffic congestion could hinder its plans for residential and retail development on Fifth.

As someone who wakes to the sound of "12A-Downtown" I can relate to the concerns. Diesel buses in Pittsburgh are also far less tolerable than the electric buses and streetcars in San Francisco. Replacing buses with more living-friendly forms of public transportation would be a great goal. However, the desire to eliminate the "clutter" of the street is as old and damaging as ever.

The desire to bring residents to enjoy urban downtown is welcomed, but the desire to make downtown into a suburb is misguided and harmful. Also mentioned in the article is a desire to eliminate "loitering." I guess that means waiting for buses.

Let's refer here to Jane Jacobs. Just when I thought she'd won, we need her more than ever.

"Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is the intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to a dance -- not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole."