Bridgeville- Western PA’s Borough named after a Bridge

I included the portion of Bridgeville that at least had some semblance of sidewalk connectivity. Areas of Bridgeville I excluded from the evaluation where areas east of New York Rd. and north of McLaughlin Run.

The village that eventually became Bridgeville gained its name after the first bridge built at the crossing of Chartiers Creek at the south end of what is now Washington Avenue. For nearly 100 years, Bridgeville was a village within Upper St. Clair Township, known for its one bridge over Chartiers Creek where people would meet to trade goods. This evolved into an informal name of the village that sprung up north of the bridge starting in the 1830s. As mining operations began in the 1880s  Bridgeville grew to around 1,000 residents in 1900 and shortly after was incorporated as a Borough. Its population quickly grew in the early 20th century to 4,450 residents in 1940 and maxed out in 1960 at just over 7K residents. Like many Western PA communities Bridgeville has seen a steady population decline but not as severe as other communities. Bridgeville now has just under 5K residents.

Bridgeville’s evaluation score was 90, the minimum level I consider to be an urban community. That’s because Bridgeville has a mix of positive and negative attributes from an urban perspective. On the positive side Bridgeville has a decent Dwtn area, with plenty of retail, many restaurants and bars, good mix of affordable for-sale housing, quality historic architecture, decent urban massing, and some walkability. However, it lacks good density, quality transit and bike infrastructure, has fair ADA and sidewalk infrastructure, only one walkable school, limited cultural amenities, and has a rather tired and dated looking streetscape. Obviously there are many areas for urban improvement in Bridgeville but the Borough has the urban bones and a strong enough housing market to become a solid urban community.

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Decent access to Dwtn. 20 min drive and 40 min bus ride.
* Great economic and generational diversity.
* Decent medium sized parks (McLaughlin and Chartiers Park).  Bridgeville Historic Society Park is centrally located but small. No swimming pools.
* Bridgeville is overall a safe community. Still a fair amount of grit and some vacancy, especially with commercial bldgs.
* Good mix affordable and moderately priced for sale housing. 1 & 2-bed condos sell btwn 60K-125K, 2-beds sell anywhere btwn 100K-250K, 3&4-beds generally btwn 150K-400K.
* Several affordable housing towers in town.
* Okay cultural amenities include several American restaurants & bars, a good # of cafes, the Bridgeville Historic Society, there is a cineplex just north of the Borough in Collier Township.
* Good retail amenities include a supermarket, a drug store, several boutiques, a couple antiques, a couple hardware stores, a  couple of banks, gyms, and bookstores, a bookstore, a public library, local post office. A major shopping plaza is just north of Bridgeport with a home depot, supermarket TJ MAX and lots of other stores but access is dicey for pedestrians.
* Good historic architecture.
* Mix of good and fair urban massing.
* Good tree canopy in the residential areas but pretty limited in the main St.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Density is pretty poor.
* ADA infrastructure is pretty decent along the Biz Corridor but very hit or miss along the residential streets. Plenty of missing ADA curbs and often missing segments of sidewalk.
* Overall transit access is so .
* Connectivity is fair.
* No bike infrastructure here.
* With 90% of the population as White, racial diversity is limited here.
* Bridgeville is in a good school district, Chartiers School district, but only a small elementary school is walkable and located within the borough.
* Some rental product but generally affordable. 1-beds lease btwn 700 & the low 1Ks, 2-beds around 1K but not many of them.
* Culturally Bridgeville is missing any art galleries, there are few museums, limited live music venues.
* Limited modern in-fill
* Streetscaping is ok but pretty tired.