PAT posts Transit Development Plan (Pittsburgh, Lake City: how much, neighborhood, construction)

[BrianTH]

For transit junkies in Pittsburgh this is like Christmas morning:

PAAC Transit Development Plan: Port Authority of Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, PA

I've just read the overview, but so far I am pleased with the basic approach. Now on to the details.

[BrianTH]

Well, one initial reaction: their map of proposed routes doesn't appear to use the new route designations, and that is making it very hard for me to match up the route recommendations with the map.

[ryanswindle]

I would think the initial reaction people should have is "The construction continues!" this place will have awful traffic no matter how much construction they do to improve the roads as long as they never stop doing construction to improve the roads. Ironic eh?

Note, I did not read your link or have any idea what you're talking about, but I feel compelled to make people read about my opinions anyway! Muaha, I win!

[Scientist Mom]

Thanks Brian - as an information junkie who uses transit, I appreciate the link. The proposed changes to the routes I use (esp. the improvements to the EBO) seem satisfactory.

I find proposal to completely remove service to Summerset (current 61D) disturbing on principle. Sommerset is unique in that they are trying to put in a large, new build, planned community within city limits. This has to be good economically but the city and county seem to be discouraging this. (The city doesn't consider Commerical Ave, a curvy road which is the only access to the neighborhood, as a primary route for snow clearance). Go figure.

[pcc09]

Originally Posted by ryanswindle

I would think the initial reaction people should have is "The construction continues!" this place will have awful traffic no matter how much construction they do to improve the roads as long as they never stop doing construction to improve the roads. Ironic eh?

Note, I did not read your link or have any idea what you're talking about, but I feel compelled to make people read about my opinions anyway! Muaha, I win!

Typical hater. The city is improving its public transit system and even talking about Bus Rapid Transit and it's hated before being read.
I'm sure you took the same approach to the healthcare bill.
Most cities have worse traffic than Pittsburgh.

[Tinare]

This may be a stupid question, but I don't speak transit and didn't have time to read everything, but does anyone know what "average headway" means? Is that the estimated time to make a roundtrip on the route?

[JoeLeaphorn]

Originally Posted by pcc09

Most cities have worse traffic than Pittsburgh.

True, but lets remember the rest of the story. Of the metro areas with a population over 1 million which had some of the lowest commute times Pittsburgh ranked 5th, however, among those cities, Pittsburgh had the highest percentage of people whose commute was more than an hour.

One of the reasons why Pittsburgh's numbers were so good is that, for a metro area of its size, it had one of the highest percentages (10%) of people who took public transportation to work. On the other hand, the number 2 city, Salt Lake City, almost 20% take public transportation (number 3, Milwaukee, it is 15%). Further, compared to larger metro areas, the percentage of people who take public transportation in the Pittsburgh region is among the lowest. Some of the other cities with the lowest commute times benefited from the city growing around the roadways (e.g. Richmond, VA).

By considering the metro area rather than the city, itself, the data were "skewed' somewhat by the fact that suburbanites commuting to other than city destinations have relatively short commute times.

Put it all together, and it says that Pittsburgh is better in terms of commute times both because of sprawl and migration to the suburbs and because the existing public transportation infrastructure, which is relatively weak among major metropolises, is adequate (not great) for the size of the city, currently.

I'm not trying to be a naysayer. But I am saying that looking at things like commute times and traffic conditions doesn't tell the whole story.

[pcc09]

I will say that I agree to an extent with ryanswindle that traffic will always be bad as long as they keep building more roads. In other words, if you build it, they will come. Bigger/more roads will just result in more cars which will result in more traffic.
The thing is, I don't think the plan has all that much construction involved. It's mostly service route changes and stop location changes. It's good to see the city overhauling it's public transit system.

[JoeLeaphorn]

Originally Posted by Tinare

This may be a stupid question, but I don't speak transit and didn't have time to read everything, but does anyone know what "average headway" means? Is that the estimated time to make a roundtrip on the route?

"Average headway" is an estimate of "bumper-bumper" distances by looking at the interval in time between the back bumper of a vehicle crossing a fixed line and the front bumper of the vehicle that follows. It is one of the measures used by transportation planners to estimate congestion (vehicle density) and capacities under various conditions.

It is useful because it is correlated with the speed of traffic, i.e., when speeds are low (as in congestion), average headway decreases, but it can also be used to look at the "recklessness" of drivers since, as the ratio of average headway to speed decreases, the "recklessness" increases.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Scientist Mom

I find proposal to completely remove service to Summerset (current 61D) disturbing on principle. Sommerset is unique in that they are trying to put in a large, new build, planned community within city limits.

I definitely agree Summerset should be supported, but apparently the ridership from Summerset on the 61D was very low. In fact looking at the chart in this link:

http://tdp.portauthority.org/paac/po...s/Eval/61D.pdf

It looks like the total all-day ridership from Summerset was something like 12 people. You can't really justify running a bus route for that many people.