Ride, Captain, Ride

Suddenly, this is turning into the Kennywood blog. (Which is better than when it was the Paul Winchell blog for a few days there.) The One and Only Roller Coaster Capital of the World is preparing a big announcement about major park expansion plans, the details of which are to be unveiled today.

A news release from Kennywood stated only that the park has purchased a 23-acre site and a former industrial area, or "brownfield," for redevelopment. Kennywood apparently is in the process of purchasing the old Kmart shopping center on Hoffman Boulevard, which the park has been eyeing for some time.

Early speculation among the Almanac's informed sources is that the brownfield is the old Union Railroad shop at Thompson Run, which abuts the park on the southeast. What exactly Kennywood might be doing with that property is unclear, since it sits in a ravine and wouldn't be that conducive to adding rides.

More speculation involves an expansion of the rides into the pay parking area, with a monorail or pedestrian bridges connecting both sides of the park across Kennywood Boulevard. (Sources tell the Almanac that Kennywood actually purchased a monorail from the "Dutch Wonderland" theme park a few years ago, and has it in storage.) We'll know for sure in a few hours.

Kennywood also has been buying up houses along Shadynook Avenue and Valeview Drive --- two little streets to the northwest of the park --- for several years now. In part, that was to buffer the park from complaints from residents who disliked the noise and lights from the rides and games. (One has to wonder about people who move next to an amusement park and then complain about the noise. Isn't that like buying a house next to the airport and complaining about the airplanes?) It's possible that the park is going to expand that way, as well.

All of this makes sense; Kennywood hasn't made a major capital investment since remodeling the Steel Phantom a few years ago, and even that didn't add anything new to the park, it merely renovated an existing space. The last time that new rides and attractions were added was with the creation of Lost Kennywood, and that was nearly 10 years ago.

Kennywood is a great, underappreciated attraction in the Mon-Yough area. Pittsburghers appreciate it, but I think people in the neighboring communities either take it for granted or even resent it a little bit. Like the man with the goose that lays the golden eggs, they seem to think as if they can kick Kennywood around and tax the living daylights out of it, but that Kennywood shouldn't demand anything in return.

It amazes me that despite this sometimes contentious relationship, Kennywood continues to be a good neighbor; park executives are involved in all sorts of community and civic organizations at every level. One suspects that if Kennywood were owned by, say, some big multinational company, and not by the same families that have owned it since 1898, that it wouldn't be such a good corporate citizen.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I worked for Kennywood, part-time, for six years, including one winter, so I'm biased.)

No matter what Kennywood does, however, to expand, the bigger question is what does the surrounding community plan to do to keep the park healthy? Driving to Kennywood takes a visitor down one of the worst-looking corridors in Allegheny County. Across the street from Kennywood are two abandoned fast-food restaurants; Kennywood Boulevard itself is a string of muffler shops, bars and marginal businesses like a coin-operated car wash.

You get to Kennywood either via Homestead (which takes you past the junkyard at the end of the Rankin Bridge); via Duquesne (past the remains of the U.S. Steel Duquesne Works, still rusting away 20 years after the plant's closing); or through Swissvale and Rankin.

I haven't been to Cedar Point lately, but I've been to Kings Island, and I can assure you that you don't approach that park by driving past miles of dilapidated, decaying structures. And yes, I'm aware that Kennywood is eager to get the Mon-Fayette Expressway built, in hopes that it will make it driving to the park easier and more pleasant --- but it could be another 20 years before we see the highway completed. Why should we wait that long?

Kennywood can invest all it wants, but that investment is going to be futile if the Mon-Yough area doesn't get its act together. The park doesn't exist in a vacuum, and unless the expansion plans include a giant protective plastic bubble and pneumatic tubes to shoot people there from Pittsburgh International Airport, it needs the cooperation of the elected officials to improve the Route 837 corridor to make it more attractive and more useful. That requires tax incentives for businesses to locate along the corridor, coordinated zoning and planning efforts, better traffic signals and signs, and increased code-enforcement.

Such improvements wouldn't just benefit Kennywood, of course --- they'd improve the whole valley, all year around.

Instead of waiting around for maglev, slot machine gambling, or the Mon-Fayette Expressway, the Mon-Yough area needs to capitalize on the assets that it already has. Kennywood's expansion plans present a perfect opportunity to make a lasting improvement on the region --- will we seize it?