By Mark Belko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)
DiFiore’s Ice Cream Delite on Shiloh Street is a can’t-miss Mount Washington destination. With its happy pink and white awnings, it would be nearly impossible to overlook.
Few do. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the shop and DiFiore’s Grand Brew Coffee in the same building are a huge draw for tourists who venture to Mount Washington to take in the view from the observation decks on nearby Grandview Avenue.
Owner Howard Todd estimates that those tourists constitute 95% of his business. And he insists the shop’s success rides not on the pink and white awnings — or even his incredible work ethic, having once toiled 2,012 days straight — but on his “silent partner”: the Monongahela Incline.
The historic 154-year-old funicular hauls more than half a million passengers a year. It brings riders from Station Square to Grandview Avenue just steps from Shiloh Street and its restaurants, bars and shops, including Mr. Todd’s tasty stop.
Its cars “made me. I need them. I love them,” he said standing inside his shop, filled with novelties like an old rotary telephone and movie projector. “I need them to do well for me to do well, for our business district to do well.”
When the incline, owned by Pittsburgh Regional Transit, is working, business booms like Fourth of July fireworks. But when it’s not, as has often been the case recently, traffic fizzles out like a spent sparkler.
“The way I would describe it is, you have a water faucet that’s on, and you shut it completely off when the incline is closed,” Mr. Todd said.
Mitigating the impact?
Repeated breakdowns over the last two years have taken a financial toll on the Shiloh shops and restaurants that depend on the mountain climber for much of their business.
Gene Mangrum, one of the owners of Shiloh Gastro, calculated that the shutdowns and breakdowns have cost some businesses along Shiloh about $1 million, or 40% of their overall business, over the last couple of years.
“It’s devastating when that thing is not in operation,” he said.
In response, PRT stated that it is aware of the impact its services have on businesses, communities, and riders. In the case of the Mon Incline, it has hired a consultant to examine the recent failings and to make recommendations.
“Any shutdown of the incline, a rail line or bus service can have a very significant impact. We look for ways to minimize these impacts, as we did this year by combining rail construction projects on the Red Line. We try to work with communities to find ways that might help mitigate the impact or help create a positive awareness or sharing of helpful information,” spokesman Adam Brandolph said in an email.
The woes for Shiloh Street merchants and riders started in August 2022, when the incline shut down for eight months for an $8.2 million renovation before reopening in March 2023. The project was supposed to take half that time.
That, it turns out, proved to be only the beginning of the ups and downs. Last year, the incline shut down after passengers got stuck mid-ride when a condensation buildup caused by an air conditioning unit triggered the emergency brake.
It closed for five weeks early this year because of a failure of a system that slowed the cars as they approached the stations. And it stopped again for about a month and a half starting March 5 after a pair of resistors failed, causing the incline’s brakes to engage when they shouldn’t have.
For Len Semplice, owner of Redbeard’s Sports Bar and Grill on Shiloh, every disruption is costly.
“It’s hard. We still got our rent, fixed expenses, utilities and all of that,” he said. “We’re also dealing with employees not getting any business. They end up quitting and you have to hire more employees. It’s a cycle.”
Losses pile up
A block or so from Redbeard’s, the display cases at Grandview Bakery are stuffed with donuts, pies, cakes, cookies, and other delectable treats. While the shop caters mainly to locals, it still feels the pinch when the incline is closed, losing 20% to 25% in sales on average, the bakery said.
On a busy Saturday, those losses could amount to $1,000, owner Darrin McMillen said. “Any time you restrict tourism, it affects us, especially on the weekends,” he said.
As the service interruptions grew, PRT moved earlier this year to address the issues. After the March closure, it formed a steering committee that included community stakeholders to help assess the situation.
It also hired Philadelphia consulting firm Talson Solutions to analyze the root causes of the electrical issues that have led to the problems and determine whether the corrective actions taken were adequate.
In a report released in May, Talson concluded that the various breakdowns “appeared to be a result of a series of non-systematic, sporadic and unpredictable causes” — and that some of them could have been avoided.
“There is evidence that several of the equipment failures (e.g., brake resistors, cabin doors, track lighting) may have been potentially avoided with additional analysis of the full design and related calculations to pre-existing known working conditions and/or existing equipment capacities,” it stated.
Talson added that the incline’s operations “have been affected by various significant and concerning issues,” including one in April 2023 during which a car struck the upper station bulkhead and the one last summer that left eight passengers stranded for more than an hour.
Among its recommendations, Talson urged PRT to enhance incline training, specific to the integration of new software and systems; improve communication among PRT staff and consultants, specifically related to site access, inspections, testing, and system modifications; and to enhance contract language to clarify engineer obligations for design and construction support services.
In his email response to questions from the Post-Gazette, Mr. Brandolph said that PRT is working on “corrective actions outlined in the recommendations” and will present them at the next steering committee meeting, which could take place in September.
“As the report indicates, the causes for much of the incline’s most recent issues have been varied; there is not one single source. So, the steps being identified through Talson’s review will be a large part of the ongoing changes,” he said.
‘We’re just eating that money’
The recent scrutiny appears to have paid some dividends. Outside of a few limited-duration shutdowns, the incline has been operating more reliably since April.
As to whether PRT feels it has gotten a handle on the problems that caused the stoppages, Mr. Brandolph replied, “We’re still working through the issues, but it would be fair to say we’re making progress.”
For merchants, the reprieve from trouble has been a blessing, particularly during the busy summer season. At the same time, the incline’s recent proclivity for breakdowns isn’t far from their minds.
“Now it’s been solved but who knows for how long,” Mr. Semplice said. “You’re on pins and needles. You don’t know if it’s going to be open one day and closed the next day.”
Mr. Mangrum, who is on the steering committee, said he has yet to learn what steps PRT plans to take in response to the Talson recommendations.
But he hasn’t been happy with the authority’s overall response to the repeated breakdowns.
“I don’t think they’ve been responsive at all. I don’t think they care about the damage they’ve done to the business district. I think the only reason they’ve taken these actions is because they’ve been shamed into it,” he said.
As one example, Mr. Mangrum said merchants weren’t notified until right before the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in March that the incline wouldn’t be open for it. By that time, restaurants had already stocked up in anticipation of larger crowds.
The random nature of such shutdowns “literally wipes out the potential for profitability” for restaurants operating on very tight profit margins, he said. Mr. Mangrumnoted that restaurants make staffing decisions based on anticipated volume.
“When the incline closes we can’t send them home. We’re just eating that money,” he said. “With the sporadic nature of the operation, it’s impossible to accurately forecast your business. You’re either overbuying and overscheduling or underbuying and underscheduling.”
Mr. Brandolph said PRT officials have had a “great working relationship with many of the merchants and stakeholders in and around the business district and have spent quite a lot of time talking to them, trying to understand their needs, and attempting to talk through, coordinate, and provide meaningful solutions.”
Shuttle service
In response to concerns, the agency did deploy shuttles to ferry would-be incline passengers from Station Square to Mount Washington after service disruptions.
But to the chagrin of merchants, it has refused to run the shuttle between the Mon Incline and the Duquesne Incline about a mile away.
Business owners said visitors to Pittsburgh who find the Mon Incline closed often take the Duquesne Incline instead, also owned by PRT, for the experience.
Having a shuttle to take them to Shiloh Street could help business, they maintained.
“It’s not really realistic to expect people to walk all that distance. In an ideal world that shuttle would be running all the time to bring people down here,” Mr. McMillen said.
But it doesn’t sound like that will happen. Adding a shuttle to connect Shiloh Street and the Duquesne Incline “is not a top transit priority,” Mr. Brandolph said.
“Our priority is to meet our scheduled service every day, and when a service is not able to be performed as scheduled, we operate special services on detours to connect riders to the places where our regular service operates,” he said.
“In the case of the Mon Incline, this means that our focus is on connecting the lower station to the upper station, not serving new pathways or creating new connections.”
Mr. Semplice said some merchants had considered a class action lawsuit or billing PRT for the losses they have incurred because of the incline service disruptions, though that hasn’t amounted to anything. He added that no one seems to care about their plight.
“We’ve been getting spanked. No one tried to find funds to recoup what we lost,” he said.
Just how closely the Mon Incline is tied to tourism on Mount Washington was evident on a recent sun-soaked Friday as Alan Alhades and Krista Ernst gazed at the Downtown skyline from an observation deck.
The out-of-towners, who split time between Texas and Virginia, said one of the things they wanted to do in Pittsburgh was to ride the incline.
They even planned to visit DiFiore’s ice cream shop.
“We’re big funicular fans,” Ms. Ernst said, adding, “I love it. Who knows why. It’s the old wood, the smell, the slow motion, the fear, the view.”
They added that they would have been less inclined to visit Mount Washington had the cable car been shut down. “I probably would not have come up here,” Ms. Ernst said.
Adam and Meghan Cesnik of Clayton, Calif., hopped on the incline with their three children to experience the ride and to take in the views at the top.
Had it been shut down, they said, they wouldn’t have visited Mount Washington.
“Honestly, the only reason we wanted to come up here was to ride the incline and check out the view. Driving to the view would take away from that experience,” Mr. Cesnik said.
For Mr. McMillen, there’s a lesson in all of that — make sure the incline stays open.
“That would be the answer, yes, to get it fixed and to keep it running,” he said.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com.
(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
