Amazon is looking for a second HQ. Why not, Pittsburgh? (Indiana: calculated, quality of life)

[eschaton]

It's worth noting most official temperature readings are taken at a major airport, which can result in much of the urban "heat island" effect being canceled out.

[WhoIsStanwix?]

Originally Posted by gladhands

In addition to what the others have said about the busways, outside of New York, DC in Chicago, most cities have inadequate rail. Most of this country’s light rail systems focus on getting computers from the suburbs to the city, but offer really poor last-mile transit, with a good deal of the ridership having to drive to the trains. Seattle’s current rail system isn’t much better than Pittsburgh’s, but they have a good bus system to prop it up.

Light rail from the CBD to the airport puts Seattle's light rail way ahead of Pittsburgh's. I get that business travelers typically don't care about cost, but the reality is we do care about predictability so we don't miss flights. In that sense, just having the option when traffic may be unpredictable or worse, completely stopped as it sometimes is on the Parkway West, is definitely an issue. Not sure if it is a dealbreaking issue, but it definitely means something to some segment of the population.

[_Buster]

Originally Posted by Paul2421

hov lane in the north acts like a busway as well

Good point, I meant to point that out also. Due to the HOV lanes on 279 being walled off from the main highway, it is like a busway somewhat in that busses can use it to avoid traffic jams, although they do have some car traffic in there as well, I think it's usually not jammed in the HOV lanes regularly at all. Most cities don't have this either.

[MountainDewGuy]

Originally Posted by _Buster

I'd consider Baltimore and Miami roughly on par with Pittsburgh as far as the whole systems are concerned. They might have higher ridership but a lot of that is because of more people in the region , not significantly better service.

Indianapolis, are you joking? You must have typed that by accident. Indy doesn't have any rail service, and a barely used bus service. To compare, the first half of 2017 they had a total of 4.5 million passengers. Pittsburgh had 7 times that much ridership -- 31.5 million during the same period.

Cleveland's total ridership is a lot less than Pittsburgh's, by about 10 million during the first half of 2017. Their rail ridership total is just about on par with Pgh, but bus ridership is way behind.


http://www.apta.com/resources/statis...rship-APTA.pdf

I did make a typo. Thanks for finding it. I was reading the data sideways and somehow thought that Minneapolis was Indianapolis, or something.

Anyway, My point remains. While Pittsburgh might have a better transit situation than some cities in contention, it is far behind others, especially with rail. All this talk about how efficient the busways are might be true, but Pittsburgh is missing the main thing, which is a rail line to the airport and a rail line to the most dense part of the city, which also happens to be where the Universities are located and where most of the younger workers Amazon would target would tend to live.

It's a BIG problem that the city hasn't fixed. When they had a chance in the 90s, the city/county decided to nix the connector to Oakland, but go with the Northside connector at the request of the Steelers. Then, the Northside connector was supposed to extend into the Northside neighborhood and that part was nixed. Essentially, the money was spend on making it easier to get to Steelers games, which is completely ridiculous. Secondarily, it was a good opportunity for a parking company to make money.

Imagine if the political climate at the time had committed to build the rail line through Oakland and/or to the Airport. Yes, likely more expensive but then Pittsburgh would actually have a chance at landing Amazon. "We have busways" isn't going to convince them when other cities have good rail transit links.

[PghYinzer]

Perhaps I am just oblivious to this as I do not travel for my job that often, but are we still taking horse and buggy to the airport? I work with people who constantly fly in and out of PIT and have never heard one complain about the commute from downtown to the airport. They simply take an Uber or a taxi. None of them would chose public transportation over an Uber to get to the airport.

Also, what is the expectation of how many people from this new headquarters would be traveling on a consistent basis? If all they were going to be doing is flying out of PIT, then why would they even base it in Pgh?

[Paul2421]

Originally Posted by PghYinzer

Perhaps I am just oblivious to this as I do not travel for my job that often, but are we still taking horse and buggy to the airport? I work with people who constantly fly in and out of PIT and have never heard one complain about the commute from downtown to the airport. They simply take an Uber or a taxi. None of them would chose public transportation over an Uber to get to the airport.

Also, what is the expectation of how many people from this new headquarters would be traveling on a consistent basis? If all they were going to be doing is flying out of PIT, then why would they even base it in Pgh?

Yeah i don't understand the complaining about lack of rail and am not convinced that high income earners take public transit in pittsburgh either. air travel is a luxury good and i don't really see the benefit subsidizing rail to the airport when the region has other needs and uber is sufficient for now. east end to the airport is probably a pain though but you can take the busway in and uber the rest of the way during peak traffic times

[eschaton]

Except for at the heaviest capacities, buses are better than rail transit due to flexibility. A bus can be routed off of its line if there is an accident, for example, and a local route can use a dedicated bus ROW to quickly get outside of a city. The general hierarchy is as follows:

1. Streetcar
2. Surface bus
3. Light rail
4. Bus Rapid Transit
5. Heavy rail/subway

The one advantage fixed-rail transit has over bus transit is the operating costs are lower. However, the initial capital costs of setting up a fixed-rail system are much higher. Thus while it makes sense to continue to use historic rail lines, it's a waste of money for the most part to build new ones.

It's well known locally that there are still rail lines under the East Busway which could easily be converted to accommodate the T. This system could be linked up with the unused T station at Penn Station, allowing direct rail commutes all the way from the South Hills to Wilkinsburg. This isn't done for two reasons. One, the top speed of the T is slower. Two, it would necessitate the building of transfer bus stations in Wilkinsburg and Swissvale to get onto the surface routes.

Why is there a national craze then for streetcars and light rail? Because of nostalgia, along with the stigma buses have gotten (buses are for smelly poor people, rail is for professional commuters). Back in the 1950s, the roles were reversed - no one wanted to ride on a streetcar, and buses were seen as the middle-class transit option.

That is not to say that Pittsburgh does not need more transit options. But putting the money into a fixed-rail system would be IMHO a huge friggen waste of time unless they found some way to extend the existing T "stub" on the North Shore to somewhere actually useful.

[MountainDewGuy]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Except for at the heaviest capacities, buses are better than rail transit due to flexibility. A bus can be routed off of its line if there is an accident, for example, and a local route can use a dedicated bus ROW to quickly get outside of a city. The general hierarchy is as follows:

1. Streetcar
2. Surface bus
3. Light rail
4. Bus Rapid Transit
5. Heavy rail/subway

The one advantage fixed-rail transit has over bus transit is the operating costs are lower. However, the initial capital costs of setting up a fixed-rail system are much higher. Thus while it makes sense to continue to use historic rail lines, it's a waste of money for the most part to build new ones.

It's well known locally that there are still rail lines under the East Busway which could easily be converted to accommodate the T. This system could be linked up with the unused T station at Penn Station, allowing direct rail commutes all the way from the South Hills to Wilkinsburg. This isn't done for two reasons. One, the top speed of the T is slower. Two, it would necessitate the building of transfer bus stations in Wilkinsburg and Swissvale to get onto the surface routes.

Why is there a national craze then for streetcars and light rail? Because of nostalgia, along with the stigma buses have gotten (buses are for smelly poor people, rail is for professional commuters). Back in the 1950s, the roles were reversed - no one wanted to ride on a streetcar, and buses were seen as the middle-class transit option.

That is not to say that Pittsburgh does not need more transit options. But putting the money into a fixed-rail system would be IMHO a huge friggen waste of time unless they found some way to extend the existing T "stub" on the North Shore to somewhere actually useful.

I simply can't agree with this. The "one advantage" of fixed rail are the lower operating costs? That simply is not accurate. Rail lines are better when traveling through dense locations like Oakland. That isn't to say that no buses should be there, but a city really needs a rail line through certain locations that provides an efficient travel mechanism for commuters. It really is unbelievable that the city and county never built this into Oakland. I know they have excuses, but they are just that, excuses.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

I simply can't agree with this. The "one advantage" of fixed rail are the lower operating costs? That simply is not accurate. Rail lines are better when traveling through dense locations like Oakland. That isn't to say that no buses should be there, but a city really needs a rail line through certain locations that provides an efficient travel mechanism for commuters. It really is unbelievable that the city and county never built this into Oakland. I know they have excuses, but they are just that, excuses.

A light rail line is better than surface buses because it has a dedicated ROW, meaning it can avoid traffic signals (and traffic in general). But the question isn't whether a rail line is better than surface buses - its whether it's better than BRT line. And at medium-capacity levels, it just isn't - particularly when you consider the $2 billion price tag which has been put on a potential subway extension into Oakland versus the $200 million for the new Downtown/Oakland BRT line.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

...Rail lines are better when traveling through dense locations like Oakland. That isn't to say that no buses should be there, but a city really needs a rail line through certain locations that provides an efficient travel mechanism for commuters. It really is unbelievable that the city and county never built this into Oakland. .

I would have agreed with you at one time. As years go by, i have come to just forget about light rail. It is too expensive, and i believe we will yet see a transformation of oakland and downtown as the university expands (or contracts as people opt for distance learning, or society heads towards specialized skills rather than the breadth of a college degree), and buildings are removed and rebuilt to gargantuan scale.

All this may be problematic for an already in-place system.