REGIONAL + URBAN DESIGN: Certificate of Merit PROJECT: McKees Rocks Chartiers Avenue Streetscape CLIENT: McKees Rocks CDC ARCHITECTURE FIRM: LGA Partners, LP ENGINEERS: Keystone Structural Engineers; Trans Associates DESCRIPTION: The original Urban Renewal Plan for McKees Rocks in the 1970s prioritized the automobile over the pedestrian, resulting in the disengagement between the pedestrian and the downtown district. This new streetscape plan for the district deemphasizes the automobile traffic, giving a more balanced approach to multiple modes of transportation, returning two-way traffic to the main thoroughfare, narrowing streets, and widening sidewalks where possible. JURY COMMENTS: The opportunity for the same team to revisit their own project 40 years later is rare and this solution shows how the goals, perceptions, and expectations of society change. The current response is well researched and intended to be realized with meticulous detail at the pedestrian scale. This project seems to place a high level of focus on the basic precepts of urban design that are user-based and that will have a tangible effect with an already existing space that needs some reinvigoration as it has matured.