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Old 07-15-2010, 03:45 AM
 
Location: Perry South, Pittsburgh, PA
475 posts, read 568,239 times
Reputation: 188

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnutella View Post
After that, make the Parkway West at least a six-lane highway -- and if you have to narrow it back to four lanes for the Fort Pitt Tunnel, then have people use PA 51 as an alternate route to points north and west of downtown. (Build a two-lane flyover ramp to give people the hint.)
51 is already miserable as it is.
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Old 07-15-2010, 06:21 AM
 
296 posts, read 558,141 times
Reputation: 126
The thread title is a bit deceiving. Rt 28 is already a nightmare, this just makes it a worse nightmare.

And, why couldn't they coordinate the 31st Street Bridge work with this project? Doesn't anyone do any advance planning? They couldn't have just thought this up yesterday...
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Old 07-15-2010, 08:01 AM
 
Location: ɥbɹnqsʇʇıd
4,599 posts, read 6,686,981 times
Reputation: 3521
There's only one way to properly fix 28:

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
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Old 07-15-2010, 08:21 AM
 
20,273 posts, read 32,877,652 times
Reputation: 2910
It would help as much or more to upgrade rapid public transit as a viable alternative to driving in the congested west/south corridors, in part because even small reductions in traffic volumes can sometimes have amplified effects on congestion. I'd suggest finishing the West Busway all the way into Downtown over a new bridge (as originally planned), and maybe extending it farther west with more park-and-ride spaces. I'd also look into a gondola route going from South Hills Junction over to Oakland, via the South Side Works and PTC (which would create a rapid public transit bypass of Downtown for people using the T or the South Busway).
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Old 07-15-2010, 08:40 AM
 
Location: The canyon (with my pistols and knife)
14,169 posts, read 22,596,535 times
Reputation: 17328
Quote:
Originally Posted by grimacista View Post
The thread title is a bit deceiving. Rt 28 is already a nightmare, this just makes it a worse nightmare.

And, why couldn't they coordinate the 31st Street Bridge work with this project? Doesn't anyone do any advance planning? They couldn't have just thought this up yesterday...
Funding, maybe?

Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianTH View Post
It would help as much or more to upgrade rapid public transit as a viable alternative to driving in the congested west/south corridors, in part because even small reductions in traffic volumes can sometimes have amplified effects on congestion. I'd suggest finishing the West Busway all the way into Downtown over a new bridge (as originally planned), and maybe extending it farther west with more park-and-ride spaces. I'd also look into a gondola route going from South Hills Junction over to Oakland, via the South Side Works and PTC (which would create a rapid public transit bypass of Downtown for people using the T or the South Busway).
Even the most public transit-friendly cities have a good road network. You need BOTH in order to be a top-notch city, and this goes for everywhere in the world.
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Old 07-15-2010, 08:53 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
1,035 posts, read 1,547,028 times
Reputation: 775
Well just as I got used to absolutely no congestion on Route 28 in or outbound at rush hour with the 31st Street Bridge being closed, looks like I can go back to sitting still on the Parkway East for my commute versus 28.

Also...the article regarding the Parkway West is comic. By 2025 backups could reach I-79...um, don't they ALREADY when the slightest little thing happens on the Parkway West! I'm ALL FOR widening that road to four lanes in each direction...it will have to be done eventually. That's one of the signs of Pittsburgh being really old...our highway infrastructure is extremely poor.
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Old 07-15-2010, 09:02 AM
 
20,273 posts, read 32,877,652 times
Reputation: 2910
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnutella View Post
Even the most public transit-friendly cities have a good road network. You need BOTH in order to be a top-notch city, and this goes for everywhere in the world.
I agree as a general principle, but in this particular case, I think in certain corridors we have invested far too much in highway-building without also investing in complementary rapid public transit, which is part of why we are getting all this congestion along certain approaches into Downtown. In other words, you rightly paint a picture of balance, but in recent decades we have had an unbalanced infrastructure investment policy, with predictable results. And we can't road-build our way out of this--we will just induce more car travel along those roads and get right back to the same levels of congestion or higher, and this cycle will continue until we start providing suitable alternatives.

So yes, we absolutely need both. But one side has been lagging way behind the other, and it needs to be caught up if we are going to achieve that balance.
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Old 07-15-2010, 09:14 AM
 
Location: The canyon (with my pistols and knife)
14,169 posts, read 22,596,535 times
Reputation: 17328
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianTH View Post
I agree as a general principle, but in this particular case, I think in certain corridors we have invested far too much in highway-building without also investing in complementary rapid public transit, which is part of why we are getting all this congestion along certain approaches into Downtown. In other words, you rightly paint a picture of balance, but in recent decades we have had an unbalanced infrastructure investment policy, with predictable results. And we can't road-build our way out of this--we will just induce more car travel along those roads and get right back to the same levels of congestion or higher, and this cycle will continue until we start providing suitable alternatives.
I'm not talking about building new roads. I'm talking about improving existing roads. Pittsburgh's highway system simply doesn't have enough capacity for a city its size.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianTH View Post
So yes, we absolutely need both. But one side has been lagging way behind the other, and it needs to be caught up if we are going to achieve that balance.
And our highway system lags way behind other cities of a similar size -- and even many smaller cities.
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Old 07-15-2010, 09:24 AM
 
Location: Just East of the Southern Portion of the Western Part of PA
1,272 posts, read 3,692,796 times
Reputation: 1511
All of you poor souls that rely on the Rtr. 28 corridor should consider buying a boat. This project should have been done 20 years ago. My thoughts and prayers to you and yours...
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Old 07-15-2010, 09:32 AM
 
20,273 posts, read 32,877,652 times
Reputation: 2910
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnutella View Post
I'm not talking about building new roads. I'm talking about improving existing roads. Pittsburgh's highway system simply doesn't have enough capacity for a city its size. . . . And our highway system lags way behind other cities of a similar size -- and even many smaller cities.
I'm not sure what measures you are using for these claims, but I don't think they are particularly relevant in any event. Getting commuters into Downtown, Oakland, and other central employment centers is a very particular sort of transportation problem. If you add more highway capacity to funnel car-commuters into Downtown, it is ultimately just going to lead to more congestion. That is because highways just don't have that much uncongested capacity when used by car commuters, and in situations like this uncongested highways tend to quickly induce usage to the point they become congested again.

To beat this problem you have to get as many commuters as possible into higher-capacity transportation modes, leaving the highways only to those who actually need them. And there are plenty of commuters already who could be using alternative transportation modes if we built them, and if we built them future development patterns would increase that percentage even more. It would also help if we initiated congestion-pricing on the relevant highways, but then of course you have to give people viable alternatives.

Generally, this really isn't about being anti-highway: highways can be great, in certain circumstances and used for certain purposes. But highways really aren't a good technology to use when the problem is getting commuters into central employment areas, at least not once you are hitting the point that there is congestion in the relevant corridors. We may well need more highway capacity in the Pittsburgh region for other purposes, but for this particular purpose it is a dead end approach.
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