Pittsburth Transportation Plan (MOVEPGH) out to bid (Pittsburgh: employment, neighborhoods)

[pman]

The city of Pittsburgh announced Monday that it's seeking outside help in writing a 25-year transportation plan.
The plan, to be called MOVEPGH, will guide transportation investment and strategy, including pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
The city on Monday released a "request for qualifications." ...

Read more: Pittsburgh seeking help with transportation plan

[BrianTH]

Seems like a good thing to outsource--transportation plans can get very political and/or emotional very fast, and it would be nice to at least start with a neutral, rational approach.

[Craziaskowboi]

Before you do anything else, expand capacity on the Parkway West. That's critical need #1.

[BrianTH]

I'm not necessarily against expanding capacity on Parkway West, but that will never be a long-term solution. Once you get to the point you are regularly getting significant congestion on an urban freeway, you need to start looking at alternative transportation technologies with much higher peak capacities, because it is very likely that you will return to congested conditions not too long after adding capacity to the freeway.

In fact the only proven way to deal with congestion on urban freeways is congestion pricing, which makes sense if you think about it--any time you are giving something valuable away for free in places where a lot of people live, you are likely to get long lines. The good news is that you can use the revenues from congestion pricing to help fund the alternative, higher-capacity, transportation technologies you really need.

[BrianTH]

Incidentally, here is the Request for Qualifications:

http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/cp/...RFQ-8-5-10.pdf

I think it is probably worth emphasizing this is going to be a City plan, not a metro area or regional plan. Of course the City can't afford to ignore the interests of those who live in the suburbs or farther out in the region and who make use of the City's opportunities and amenities on a regular basis, but it also doesn't have to be neutral about the impact of its transportation plan.

Anyway, it is an interesting read. They definitely want to make a shift to multimodal over autocentric, and they additionally want to build on Pittsburgh's growing identity as a biking and walking city. All this will eventually feed into the processes for getting state and federal funding, and at least the feds seem to be encouraging this direction right now (the state is a different matter, but I suspect it will get there eventually too).

Now if I can just get them to feature some urban gondolas . . . .

[pman]

I don't think I knew this

[SIZE=3][SIZE=3]
[LEFT]Based on the 2008 American Community Survey, the City is[/LEFT]
tied with Boston for 2[/SIZE][/SIZE][SIZE=1][SIZE=1]nd [/SIZE][/SIZE][SIZE=3][SIZE=3]in the Nation for residents who walk to work.

[/SIZE][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][SIZE=3]hopefully the mayor realizes that they need more than sidewalks, they also need jobs in walkable locations. that makes sense though, boston is very compact and so is pittsburgh. boston is the city pitt reminds me most of in terms of physical compactness.
[/SIZE][/SIZE]

[grimacista]

Perhaps this study will recommend that the city actually indicate whether some roads have 1 or 2 lanes in each direction (i.e. Second Avenue).

[BrianTH]

MOVEPGH is a subcomponent of PLANPGH, an overall comprehensive planning effort, and I bet PLANPGH includes a bunch of stuff about the need to locate jobs and people closer together in order to allow more biking/walking commutes.

Anyway, I think the fact that compact, mixed-use neighborhoods are considered very normal in the City explains why the biking and (particularly) walking commute scores are so high. And the thing is, we have just started unlocking that potential, since we have some underdeveloped residential areas near very dense employment areas, and underdeveloped commercial areas near stable residential areas, and even underdeveloped commercial areas near underdeveloped residential areas where at least the local building stock and infrastructure has potential.

So I think being very ambitious on these measures is a good idea, since we have an opportunity to really distinguish ourselves. Of course from the City's perspective, all that goes along with locating more people and business in the City, which it will view as an independent goal.

[rhondee]

[quote=BrianTH;15416410][spoiler]
Of course from the City's perspective, all that goes along with locating more people and business in the City, which it will view as an independent goal.[/quo

Which IMO should be goal #1. We have to continue emphasizing and developing the positive aspects of Pittsburgh while working to get rid of the negative features of the city ,to make business want to locate here and then hopefully the people will follow.
I think there is still too much negativity associated with Pittsburgh and is holding the city back.
Unfortunately, much of the negativity comes from Pittsburgh's own residents.