How come drivers in Pittsburgh do not know how to merge? (York: construction, title)

[MissShona]

Yesterday I was driving on I-79 N coming from Washington and going to 376 into downtown Pittsburgh at around 4:30 pm. Oh my...I do not usually drive that route at that time and I was amazed and the horrendous merging going on before I hit the Fort Pitt tunnels! In one instance, a woman was coming onto 376 from an on ramp by the Carnegie area. I anticipated that she was coming, and figured she would speed up, so I slowed a bit to give her room to get in ahead of me. Well she slowed down; the ramp ran out and I sped up (she missed her chance -- I had given her about 15 seconds to come in with more than enough room). I checked my rearview and she was stopped, with about 6 more cars behind her. I feel like if this was South Florida, the sound of the horns would have been deafening.

Oh, and where you come off at I-79 coming onto 376...people just seem confused. They try to get over right away instead of driving until the lane runs out and then trying to merge (that way the traffic coming has the time to let you in....jeez...it's called 'flow' people).

I would not say that Pittsburghers are bad drivers. But why oh why don't they have a clue on how to merge?

[Drover]

This topic comes up periodically in this forum.

The simple fact is that the highways around the area were built long before modern traffic engineering standards were developed. Combine that with the area's unique topography and there are a number of ramps where it's very difficult to just "step on it and merge" because 1) the ramps aren't long enough, and 2) the view is obstructed by some big-ass hill. In fact there's the good ol' "Squirrel Hill Suicide Ramp" just before the outbound Squirrel Hill tunnel where merging traffic is actually required(!!!) to stop on the ramp before merging. So many locals have been more or less conditioned to stop on the bottom of an on-ramp even if there's sufficient room to get up to merging speed.

I used to work in Carnegie so I used that very ramp you're referring to every day to get home. And having learned how to drive in a nice, flat state with nice, wide highways with wide-open views and ramps with long acceleration zones, I was absolutely stunned the first time I came flying around that curve (having already started my merge acceleration before I got to the straight) to find some wally sitting on the ramp at a dead freaking stop. I had to fly around him on the right shoulder to avoid killing both of us. About a week later, same thing. It got to the point where I knew to expect it periodically, and to be prepared to fly by them on the shoulder.

Sure enough, if you check out a satellite image of Carnegie on-ramp inbound, there's 4 cars just sitting there at the bottom of the ramp.

[Heit]

Oh NO................yet ANOTHER "Pittsburgh driver's" post. Pick ANY state in the country and you will find clueless drivers...................it's NOT a Pittsburgh "thing".

[Drover]

Stopping on the bottom of on-ramps is a Pittsburgh thing. I have never seen this anywhere else I've driven.

[MissShona]

Originally Posted by Heit

Oh NO................yet ANOTHER "Pittsburgh driver's" post. Pick ANY state in the country and you will find clueless drivers...................it's NOT a Pittsburgh "thing".

Actually I think it is. New York, Florida, D.C. and many other places I've driven, I have not encountered these merging issues.

[Heit]

Originally Posted by Drover

Stopping on the bottom of on-ramps is a Pittsburgh thing. I have never seen this anywhere else I've driven.

It's NOT a Pittsburgh thing, it's an INDIVIDUAL thing.

[MissShona]

Oh no...there's a typo in the thread title...can someone fix that? (That's what I get for coming onto City-Data before having coffee!)

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Heit

It's NOT a Pittsburgh thing, it's an INDIVIDUAL thing.

Uh-huh. And a whole lot of Pittsburgh individuals exhibit this goofy habit unseen virtually nowhere else. So guess what -- that makes it a Pittsburgh thing.

[youngabe]

Take the Wilkinsburg on-ramp to 376 outbound. It's a NICE, acceptable on-ramp. EVERYDAY, people will come to a dead stop before the white line even breaks and try to merge in. The lane continues for quite a good bit of distance. That is just plain unacceptable and stupid.

In that same stretch of roadway, since the construction zone is further up at Churchill, that requires Pittsburgh drivers to create at least a 2 mile back up of traffic approaching the scene. So not only do I sit in traffic before the tunnel everyday, I get to sit from Forest Hills out to Churchill too. NO ONE uses the far right lane that ends before Churchill because it ends an entire MILE up the road, so merge left and sit still as fast as you can! That's cool...I'll continue to fly past stopped traffic in the right lane and then merge in at the end. I never have a problem doing it, that's for certain!

[Impala26]

Equally bad on-ramps on PA 28 include the one at Millvale outbound (has a stop sign and a bend in the highway that makes it difficult to see traffic far down the road) and Aspinwall inbound (the problem with this one is that thru traffic on 28 are forced into the right lane because of the Highland Park exit, so breaks in traffic are rare). Also, the two lane cross-over merge coming off of 28 onto the Highland Park Bridge is also harrowing at times.

Point taken though, the tight, slow on-ramps and cross-overs have ingrained in Pittsburghers' a tendency to drive slowly at on-ramps.