My Pittsburgh long Term Rail Transit plan (McKeesport, Wilkinsburg: apartments, employment)

[neurodistortion]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Again, how many people work downtown???

Commuter rail does not entirely have to be dependent on downtown... how about other major areas such as the airport, Green Tree, Cranberry, Monroeville? Lots of people work in those areas too, not to mention those places have tons of office space and act as the anchors of those suburban areas. Maybe someone who lives in Robinson works at the airport or perhaps someone who lives in the North Side works in Cranberry so they choose to use commuter rail to get to those destinations. It can definitely work both ways.

[Geeo]

I think there are about 120,000 downtown workers, and another 20,000 to 30,000 who come in for other things like appointments and shopping. No doubt it's an incredible density for something like 150 acres - which is why transit makes sense. Add another maybe 30,000 in Oakland, just three miles from downtown. I believe I read that there are more people working downtown than ever (makes sense, since there have been so many new skyscrapers built in the last 30 years). Scattered sub-urban areas with low density usually don't work for transit because there just arent' enough people in the same spot who want to get to the same place at around the same time. Overlay a 150-acre tract over Robinson or Monroeville or Cranberry and you might find a couple thousand people at best. Plus it's so car-oriented with acres and acres of asphalt surrounding those office clumps that there's no incentive to use transit.

[pman]

Originally Posted by Geeo

I think there are about 120,000 downtown workers, and another 20,000 to 30,000 who come in for other things like appointments and shopping. No doubt it's an incredible density for something like 150 acres - which is why transit makes sense. Add another maybe 30,000 in Oakland, just three miles from downtown. I believe I read that there are more people working downtown than ever (makes sense, since there have been so many new skyscrapers built in the last 30 years). Scattered sub-urban areas with low density usually don't work for transit because there just arent' enough people in the same spot who want to get to the same place at around the same time. Overlay a 150-acre tract over Robinson or Monroeville or Cranberry and you might find a couple thousand people at best. Plus it's so car-oriented with acres and acres of asphalt surrounding those office clumps that there's no incentive to use transit.

copanut is off his rocker when he says no one works downtown...the facts say otherwise. in a lot of ways, rail is necessary too aid growth in these areas. I woudl say that any project has to involve downtown was it is the only place with enough density to justify a rail line. if you can connect two suburban places on the way to or through downtown, so be it. the line doesn't have to be profitable, just allow PAT to move more people are lower cost than buses. to that end, some version of the spine line seems like the best priority (outside the AVRR proposal). why not just build a jct with the T and take lanes on the surface to Oakland via forbes or fifth? limited stops above ground, operates underground through downtown to the north shore (students to games, casino, ampitheater, downtown at night). are there any current buses that are overcrowded? could they be converted to larger rail vehicles?

[neurodistortion]

Originally Posted by Geeo

I think there are about 120,000 downtown workers, and another 20,000 to 30,000 who come in for other things like appointments and shopping. No doubt it's an incredible density for something like 150 acres - which is why transit makes sense. Add another maybe 30,000 in Oakland, just three miles from downtown. I believe I read that there are more people working downtown than ever (makes sense, since there have been so many new skyscrapers built in the last 30 years). Scattered sub-urban areas with low density usually don't work for transit because there just arent' enough people in the same spot who want to get to the same place at around the same time. Overlay a 150-acre tract over Robinson or Monroeville or Cranberry and you might find a couple thousand people at best. Plus it's so car-oriented with acres and acres of asphalt surrounding those office clumps that there's no incentive to use transit.

Actually Robinson, Cranberry and Monroeville's workforce population is more in the range of 10,000-12,000 people during the daytime according to City-Data graphs, with the highest concentration of people working along the major throughfares of each municipality which is comparable to the 150 acres in the immediate Downtown Pittsburgh area. In addition, Cranberry has Westinghouse which averages about 4,000-5,000 employees alone in its office park. Greensburg's population of 15,000 practically doubles during work hours within its 20-acre downtown area according to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article. In addition, Pittsburgh tops the state with nearly 140,000 people during the day and ranks fourth in the United States for cities of its size, behind Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Tampa. So to say that Pittsburgh is dead during the day is ridiculous. It also strengthens my point that commuter rail in the aforementioned areas is important.

[RockLobster]

Downtown Pittsburgh ( North, South Shores, Uptown, Strip, Golden Triangle ) continues to be the center of the region as work force population concentration goes. With a current number of downtown daily workers around 126,000. This is down from a high of nearly 137,000 in 2006. In the year 1996 downtown Pittsburgh was home to around 111,000 daily workers. Roughly eighty percent of the remaining fortune 500 headquarters in metro Pittsburgh are located downtown. About eighty five percent of the 126,000 actually work in the compact golden triangle area. Downsizing across the board and to a lesser degree corporate mergers and operations relocation have resulted in the drop in downtown's daily workforce since 2006. Recent additions to BNY and UPMC downtown should have numbers once again growing in the near term. As a percentage of the Pittsburgh market workforce, downtown remains the primary hub. A side note, as many of us know, the downtown residential population is growing after many years of stagnation.

[Craziaskowboi]

Regardless, there's no way that any grand transit plans can be implemented in Pittsburgh until the Allegheny County Port Authority goes bankrupt and restructures.

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Again, how many people work downtown???

137,000 as of 2006 which includes downtown, the Strip, North Shore, Southside, and Uptown. Downtown proper is about 110,000. That is 11% of the 5-county region jobs. That doesn't count other places like Oakland so there is a market to shuttling people to downtown and the immediate surrounding areas. It would also be useful for people wanting to go to games, concerts, and other events and not hassle with parking and traffic. The older generation was sold on the car generations ago but a new generation thinks more "green" and might embrace more public rail.

(***ooops, didn't see RockLobster's post. We have a down economy so that could explain the decline. ****)

I live in Atlanta and our Marta rail is so handy to ride as most of the stuff to do is in the city. Pittsburgh should focus on bringing more activities and nightlife to its center and rail will only help make that more acceptable. Easier access with rail transport should make the Triangle more appealing for companies to locate to. Less of a hassle to get downtown during snow and ice as well.

I wonder if it would be possible to make Penn Station more of a focal point for transportation rather than the Grant Street Transportation Center. I'd like to see a focal point of Amtrack, light rail, and bus with an express rail route from there to the airport.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by pman

copanut is off his rocker when he says no one works downtown...

Fine, I'm off my rocker. So riddle me this, when during the height of the City of Pgh population, the 50's and 60's, why did the commuter railroad in the East not work?

I grew up on the railroads, probably been on more trains than anyone on this board. But it has never been a commuter option in this area, for whatever reason.

The YMCA moved its main club form Allies Blvd to closer to downtown due to lack of patronage.

Look at all the industrial parks along the airport corridor, look at Cranberry and Westinghouse, Downtown is NOT what it used to be.

[Faer]

But its a commuter option right now, for a lot of the South Hills, and the T is used by lots of people working. While, yeah, a rail line going from PGH to McKeesport would ABSOLUTELY fail, I just can't really believe that a train going from, say, Downtown to Oakland (the third largest business district in the state) to Squirrel Hill to Regent Square would be lacking for riders. I tend to think the same thing about the T would be true about the North Hills. Anything else probably would have a tough time remaining viable (hence the "make-a-wish" tag).

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Fine, I'm off my rocker. So riddle me this, when during the height of the City of Pgh population, the 50's and 60's, why did the commuter railroad in the East not work?

I grew up on the railroads, probably been on more trains than anyone on this board. But it has never been a commuter option in this area, for whatever reason.

The YMCA moved its main club form Allies Blvd to closer to downtown due to lack of patronage.

Look at all the industrial parks along the airport corridor, look at Cranberry and Westinghouse, Downtown is NOT what it used to be.

That was a trend in many places. Even Atlanta saw a decline in its downtown population in the 60s and 70s. It is turning around now as more people are moving in. I guess people left the city in the 50s, 60s, and 70s for the lure of cheap land and more space (a lot more space). In the case of Pittsburgh, it also might have involved getting away from all that dirty steelmill air. The babyboom meant large families and they wanted a yard with many rooms etc. But some people are sick of the commute and spending so much time in the their automobiles. Back then it was just a different time with a different mindset. We are rethinking things and rediscovering citylife. Don't forget that in the 1950s and 1960s, the suburban life was heavily marketed as the life we should lead. GM bought up streetcar companies and shut them down and tire companies were involved as well. The suburban life was the hard sell. Now it is "being green". I guess Pittsburgh is just lagging this trend. I don't expect the suburbs will go away because there are people that like that but cities are making a comeback.