This is what I've been trying to tell you (Philadelphia: living, costs)

[Heit]

It's NOT just Pittsburgh...................



Study: Pittsburgh traffic not as congested as other cities

[BrianTH]

Yeah, I think people sometimes don't realize how bad congestion has gotten in a lot of places.

That said, I'm all for taking reasonable measures to reduce congestion at our local bottlenecks.

[bboy36win]

Having driven in Boston, New York, DC, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis at rush hour, I can attest that this is true.

[nuwaver88]

Cool cities have a lot of traffic because people want to live there. I fully expect some naysayer to say something about how many people have left the metro, and how my argument is lame based on their data. Well, enough people still want to live here. I experience that every day on my ride in on 28. I know others experience the same difficulities on their commute form other major arteries. All of the above mentioned cities with traffic problems are considered cool or even "hip." Oh yeah, before someone else mentions it, we can still do a lot better with our infrastructure.

[JoeLeaphorn]

Bottom line, nationwide congestion costs the US $78 billion in lost productivity, annually. Pittsburgh produces less so its share is less, but it is still lost productivity. There is no nice way to spin that.

We may have fewer murders than other cities but I would not congratulate myself until we had none.

[ditchdigger]

....There is no nice way to spin that.

We may have fewer murders than other cities but I would not congratulate myself until we had none.

If you consider that some (whether you're talking about murder or traffic congestion), is inevitable, I don't think it's inappropriate to be happy that we're among the least bad.

People don't take the time to find alternate routes and/or use public transportation.

Alternate routes, if they exist, are rarely any better time-wise than the main routes. They may give the illusion of being so, because you're moving and not sitting still, but on balance, if they were faster, they would be the main routes, wouldn't they?

As far as public transportation goes, it's a case of all other things not being equal. It has it's own set of costs, downsides, and inconveniences. There are intangibles that factor into the equation for any given commuter's situation. Those who find sitting in traffic to be a more tolerable situation than using public transportation....sit in traffic.

[JoeLeaphorn]

You miss my point (about murders). Saying that Pittsburgh has less congestion than other cities is meaningless. The question is why? The answer is that our highway systems were designed for a time when the city had almost twice the population and a larger economy. Great that we have less congestion; we have less of an economy as well.

[BrianTH]

A smaller population and a smaller economy (in gross terms) doesn't necessarily affect me personally. Less congestion on my driving route does.

In that sense, it doesn't really matter from a personal standpoint why we have less congestion, it is just nice for those affected by congestion that we do.

[ditchdigger]

You miss my point (about murders). Saying that Pittsburgh has less congestion than other cities is meaningless. The question is why? The answer is that our highway systems were designed for a time when the city had almost twice the population and a larger economy. Great that we have less congestion; we have less of an economy as well.

Ok, I may have missed your point, but I think that's due to the fact that I don't see the correlation between the smaller population and the amount of congestion. If anything, I think we have more congestion than we did when we had a higher population.

When you talk about the congestion we do have, and understand that I'm speaking in broad generalities, I think you have to acknowledge that the Parkways East, West, and North, and 28 are the biggest problem areas. As far as the Parkways East and West go, the tunnels are the bottlenecks, and once clear of them things speed up quite a bit.

My recollection though is that 30 years ago, rush hour was defined by inbound and outbound congestion--in in the morning, and out in the afternoon. I'm sure it's due to shifts in where people live, and where they work, but it seems that these days the congestion exists in both directions during both rush hours.

[JoeLeaphorn]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

Ok, I may have missed your point, but I think that's due to the fact that I don't see the correlation between the smaller population and the amount of congestion. If anything, I think we have more congestion than we did when we had a higher population.

It is somewhat relative. When we had more corporate headquarters, downtown, and more mills along the rivers, we had people living close to where they worked (the mills), and the city asked businesses to implement shift times so that shifts would start ending at 3:00PM (and classes at Pitt, etc., hospital shifts, etc.). This smoothed the flow of traffic distributing it over a wider time period. You still see some evidence of this in the fact that the no parking zones downtown start at 4:00PM (at one time, many started at 3:00PM). Gradually, as businesses stopped participating in this arrangement, congestion started to creep back into the 4:30PM-5:30PM time frame.