Planned Chaos Proposed for Downtown (Pittsburgh: hotel, store, suburbs)

[ferraris]

Erieguy, I think we are like 90% in agreement. I guess you just come across fewer people who whine and complain. Either way, it's not a suburbs vs. city thing or a city vs. suburbs thing.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by charisb

Living in the city, I rarely deal with parking, traffic, or paying for gas because I walk or bus almost everywhere. I just got my car inspected and I drove a total of 2,000 miles last year.

I live the same lifestyle. With all of the new retail options in the city I rarely have to leave the city. I walk, bike, or use public transportation. My mall of choice is South Hills Village do to the convenience of the T. I live in the extreme eastern edge of the city but the Busway and T makes the South Hills location convenient. I do drive to Ikea, Sams Club, and Ross Park Mall as needed.

[Lobick]

Route Fifty - Pittsburgh

[ny789987]

Originally Posted by Merge

Except when people do choose to go out of their way (like for day trips, vacations, etc.), people rarely ever choose to go visit the suburbs/exurbs. They visit the cities. Or the woods. Or the shore. Or a quaint small town. They don't go to Cranberry, Monroeville, Robinson... of course, unless they are cheap, and they want to sleep next to a strip mall and drive into the city during the day. Cities are the destinations.

I often make Robinson a day trip. It has a nice park with a small waterfall to walk around in, and afterwards it has every modern store that you could possibly think of, much more than a few overpriced hipster specialty boutiques. When I visit cities, my final destination in those places often involve the suburbs. Hotels tend to be cheaper, you don't have to pay for parking, and the surrounding environment generally tends to be safer overnight. Every trip to Pittsburgh should include a stop over in Cranberry.

[Goinback2011]

Originally Posted by Lobick

Route Fifty - Pittsburgh

Idiocy.

[UKyank]

I recently got back from Eastern Europe a couple of days ago & was in a town with a section that was akin to this shared road idea & saw one benefit that could be fitting to pittsburgh.

As here, most of the actual sidewalks in many areas weren't extremely wide. Since the sidewalk & road were not differentiated much, there were a number of cafes that built out large outdoor seating areas onto the sidewalk effectively cutting it off entirely but didn't really matter since walking around it onto the road part was fine.

Here, most places' outdoor seating is limited to a couple of tables on the sidewalk and even then (I know because I've heard them which boggles my mind) it causes some residents to b*tch about anything being on the sidewalk areas. I love outdoor seating & anything that increases such cafes is a big plus for me.

Note, I still don't like the idea of putting the plan in busy artery roads, at least initially & should be first tried out in quieter neighborhood areas.

[Merge]

Originally Posted by ny789987

I often make Robinson a day trip. It has a nice park with a small waterfall to walk around in, and afterwards it has every modern store that you could possibly think of, much more than a few overpriced hipster specialty boutiques. When I visit cities, my final destination in those places often involve the suburbs. Hotels tend to be cheaper, you don't have to pay for parking, and the surrounding environment generally tends to be safer overnight. Every trip to Pittsburgh should include a stop over in Cranberry.

This is absolutely hilarious. Why bother travel anywhere at all if you are merely going to stay in an exurb that has all of the same amenities (corporate-chain hotels, restaurants, and stores) as the town you already live in, as well as ever major metropolitan area in the nation? If you want to feel like you are at "home", why not just stay there?

[Blackbeauty212]

Originally Posted by UKyank

I recently got back from Eastern Europe a couple of days ago & was in a town with a section that was akin to this shared road idea & saw one benefit that could be fitting to pittsburgh.

As here, most of the actual sidewalks in many areas weren't extremely wide. Since the sidewalk & road were not differentiated much, there were a number of cafes that built out large outdoor seating areas onto the sidewalk effectively cutting it off entirely but didn't really matter since walking around it onto the road part was fine.

Here, most places' outdoor seating is limited to a couple of tables on the sidewalk and even then (I know because I've heard them which boggles my mind) it causes some residents to b*tch about anything being on the sidewalk areas. I love outdoor seating & anything that increases such cafes is a big plus for me.

Note, I still don't like the idea of putting the plan in busy artery roads, at least initially & should be first tried out in quieter neighborhood areas.

A setting like this is something I envisioned for the rebirth of Broad Street in EL between Centre Ave and Euclid Street.. It looks like it was intended to be a Ped Mall from the beginning, you can see it has the bones.

[ditchdigger]

In the same timeframe that Penn Circle was created, they did turn Broad St. between Highland and Whitfield from a street into a pedestrian mall.

[tyovan4]

Originally Posted by UKyank

I recently got back from Eastern Europe.

Where in Poland was this?