During five years in office, has Mayor Peduto fulfilled his pledges to Pittsburgh?

During his time as Pittsburgh’s mayor, Bill Peduto has cultivated a persona as a leader who always has his finger on the pulse of progressive policies and cutting-edge technology. From driverless cars to fighting climate change, Pittsburghers have grown accustomed to hearing Peduto set bold goals to modernize Pittsburgh. And he regularly takes the city’s story to an international audience.
Five years into being mayor, has Pittsburgh seen results from Peduto’s ideas?
When the mayor was running for his first term in office in 2013, he cast himself as a policy wonk and issued 100 policy papers in the 100 days between February and the city’s Democratic primary that May. Some of those policy proposals — like reforming and modernizing the city’s Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections — have been resounding successes. He’s also had success guiding the city out of Act 47, diversifying city government and positioning Pittsburgh to fight climate change. In October, the city won a $2.5 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to aid the environmental efforts.
Other Peduto proposals, like his proposal to implement a system of city-run river taxis to get from one river shore to another, are nonexistent. He also said he wanted to implement inclusionary zoning in some neighborhoods; progress on that front has been slow. And his $100 million idea to run a train from Hazelwood to Lawrenceville is nonexistent. (The city is, however, pursuing a plan to run an autonomous shuttle between Hazelwood and Oakland.)
To measure how successful Peduto has been, PublicSource analyzed each of the 100 policy ideas the mayor published during his 2013 campaign, as well as press releases, city data and documents. We also spoke to current and former city officials and employees, as well as local leaders, experts and activists in a number of fields. While Peduto spoke on several key issues during his 2017 reelection bid, such as the planned Bus Rapid Transit project, the city’s land bank, lead in city water and homelessness, he didn’t issue specific policy statements like he did in 2013. As such, we’ve grouped each of those 2013 policies into seven main categories:

PublicSource spoke to about two dozen sources for this story. Roughly a dozen of them spoke to PublicSource on the condition of anonymity either because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media or they were concerned about workplace retaliation. Those sources described what they see as a gap between Peduto’s rhetoric and reality. That has left some of them disillusioned — both outsiders who used to support the mayor and former administration officials, and some have questions about whether the city needs new leadership when his term is finished. Peduto has publicly indicated he plans to run for another term in 2021.
READ ENTIRE STORY AT:
https://www.publicsource.org/during-five-years-in-office-has-mayor-peduto-fulfilled-his-pledges-to-pittsburgh/