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Or it will drive development and employment AWAY from the central city of Pittsburgh and into outlying areas such as Robinson, Murrysville, or Cranberry, or just simply out of the region entirely.
I am okay with that as well. As long as people are close enough to work to walk and ride a bike I am happy. Hope all this works as planned. This truly is great news to those of us that love the earth!!
Or it will drive development and employment AWAY from the central city of Pittsburgh and into outlying areas such as Robinson, Murrysville, or Cranberry, or just simply out of the region entirely.
I sympathize with your worldview Curtis, I really do, frankly I AGREE with it. But come on now, you know in America "old habits die hard". Virtually no one will be giving up their cushy McMansions and SUV's just because the Port Authority goes under or traffic on the parkways gets noticably worse. Trust me, I've wanted to think people will change, but as time goes on in this county, I just don't see it happening on a profound level... at least YET. Europe has some bright ideas when it comes to this, but even THEY have extensive transportation options outside of the private automobile. I think Brian's idea of "premium pricing" is a warranted experiment and I also think that any new truly massive transportation investments should be made in the form of mass transit. Essentially anything that's an incentive or decentive to stop as many people from driving solo through the region's major tunnels as possible.
And this is all coming from a guy who doesn't own a car, rides his bicycle virtually everywhere, and lives in South Oakland. I like how I'm living, but I'm convinced that the majority of Americans don't want to live the way I am.
I agree that this is true about the older generations, but it's different with younger people. Car ownership among young people is steadily dropping, and teens are putting off getting their driver's licenses into their 20s. And personally, I have yet to meet anyone in my age range who wants to live in a suburb. I definitely think the trend of living near your job will increase over the next few decades.
In short, there were plans, at one point, to take the burden off the exisiting highways. They were never meant to be the ONLY route, but, fast forward to 2012, and we have some terrible, terrible congestion for a metro our size!
I dont care if you're sitting in a car or on a bus - i cannot fathom how people deal with the wasted hours they lose out of their lives by commuting into & out of the city day in and day out.
I hate commuting by car but the bus isn't bad. I used to get a lot of reading done when I lived in Murrysville and took the HP bus everyday.
Not to mention, rumors about US Steel have been rampid. If they were to move out in that direction too, that would not help the congestion at all.
If U.S. Steel decides to uproot itself from Downtown and build a sterile "campus" setting in Findlay Township, then I hope its best and brightest younger workers---most of whom probably already live in the East End, South Side, Mt. Washington, and North Side---cut ties with their employer. I've become so enamored with sustainable city living that I know if PNC, my current primary employer, decided to hoof it out to Cranberry Township, Murrysville, The Strabanes, etc. I'd immediately start applying for positions at other organizations with greater loyalty to the city. I've spoken to colleagues who feel the same way, and as several others in this thread have already said I don't know of anyone in my age bracket (early-to-mid-20s) that is tiring of city living and is craving living in a taupe-colored townhome in Bumblescum.
As traffic congestion worsens on an annual basis those of us who are a bit more "enlightened" than others realize that we can become part of the solution by moving into denser habitats where we'll utilize motor vehicles less, helping to reduce congestion, stress levels, and air pollution. I grew up just south of Scranton, PA in a sterile sidewalkless suburban subdivision that jutted off a congested four-lane commuter belt. Nothing was within walking distance. It was horrible. I would never want to subject my own future adopted children to such a terrible fate of having to sit around all day doing nothing because they couldn't go anywhere without being driven.
It sadly seems as if most younger families who are inquiring about relocation on this sub-forum are immediately gravitating towards the newer suburban areas because of perceived superior public school quality (and little else). The Pittsburgh Public School District really needs an extensive overhaul (or perhaps just an image adjustment). I was working my delivery job in and around the East End last weekend and marveled at the thousands of families that were flocking to Oakland to partake in the Kids' Festival on Schenley Plaza. I grimaced when I realized most of them would be piling back into their Suburbans, Yukon Denalis, Range Rovers, etc. and heading back home to Fox Chapel, McCandless, Murrysville, Mt. Lebanon, Upper St. Clair, etc. Parents have no qualms bringing their children into the city to "play". Parents have no qualms bringing their children into the city to visit the National Aviary, Pittsburgh Zoo, PPG Aquarium, Carnegie Science Center, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Frick Park, Schenley Park, PPG Place Skating Rink, Highland Park, etc. Nevertheless parents won't touch Pittsburgh's Public Schools with a thousand-foot pole UNLESS they are affluent enough to live within the much-coveted Taylor Allderdice High School feeder pattern, and even then most parents still seem to prefer the 'burbs.
Sorry to become so verbose, but I've always been a strong foe of urban sprawl. The Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area declined sharply in population for decades while its land usage footprint exploded, meaning we've just been taking a dwindling population and needlessly spreading it out further and further away from established services and infrastructure (hence our congestion issues NOW when we're only experiencing modest population growth). I literally cry when I see places like Braddock sitting just miles away from sprawl. All of those grand old homes that were painstakingly built by our great-grandparents to house their families are rotting to the core---along with the memories contained within their walls---just because our fat lazy society nowadays would rather build larger newer McMansions on bigger lots in the exurbs to show off all their stuff. Conspicuous consumption, anyone?
Pardon me for not giving a damn that people in Robinson Township have to sit and wait longer in their SUVs because I-376 was already outdated when it was built.
If U.S. Steel decides to uproot itself from Downtown and build a sterile "campus" setting in Findlay Township, then I hope its best and brightest younger workers---most of whom probably already live in the East End, South Side, Mt. Washington, and North Side---cut ties with their employer. I've become so enamored with sustainable city living that I know if PNC, my current primary employer, decided to hoof it out to Cranberry Township, Murrysville, The Strabanes, etc. I'd immediately start applying for positions at other organizations with greater loyalty to the city. I've spoken to colleagues who feel the same way, and as several others in this thread have already said I don't know of anyone in my age bracket (early-to-mid-20s) that is tiring of city living and is craving living in a taupe-colored townhome in Bumblescum.
As traffic congestion worsens on an annual basis those of us who are a bit more "enlightened" than others realize that we can become part of the solution by moving into denser habitats where we'll utilize motor vehicles less, helping to reduce congestion, stress levels, and air pollution. I grew up just south of Scranton, PA in a sterile sidewalkless suburban subdivision that jutted off a congested four-lane commuter belt. Nothing was within walking distance. It was horrible. I would never want to subject my own future adopted children to such a terrible fate of having to sit around all day doing nothing because they couldn't go anywhere without being driven.
It sadly seems as if most younger families who are inquiring about relocation on this sub-forum are immediately gravitating towards the newer suburban areas because of perceived superior public school quality (and little else). The Pittsburgh Public School District really needs an extensive overhaul (or perhaps just an image adjustment). I was working my delivery job in and around the East End last weekend and marveled at the thousands of families that were flocking to Oakland to partake in the Kids' Festival on Schenley Plaza. I grimaced when I realized most of them would be piling back into their Suburbans, Yukon Denalis, Range Rovers, etc. and heading back home to Fox Chapel, McCandless, Murrysville, Mt. Lebanon, Upper St. Clair, etc. Parents have no qualms bringing their children into the city to "play". Parents have no qualms bringing their children into the city to visit the National Aviary, Pittsburgh Zoo, PPG Aquarium, Carnegie Science Center, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Frick Park, Schenley Park, PPG Place Skating Rink, Highland Park, etc. Nevertheless parents won't touch Pittsburgh's Public Schools with a thousand-foot pole UNLESS they are affluent enough to live within the much-coveted Taylor Allderdice High School feeder pattern, and even then most parents still seem to prefer the 'burbs.
Sorry to become so verbose, but I've always been a strong foe of urban sprawl. The Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area declined sharply in population for decades while its land usage footprint exploded, meaning we've just been taking a dwindling population and needlessly spreading it out further and further away from established services and infrastructure (hence our congestion issues NOW when we're only experiencing modest population growth). I literally cry when I see places like Braddock sitting just miles away from sprawl. All of those grand old homes that were painstakingly built by our great-grandparents to house their families are rotting to the core---along with the memories contained within their walls---just because our fat lazy society nowadays would rather build larger newer McMansions on bigger lots in the exurbs to show off all their stuff. Conspicuous consumption, anyone?
Pardon me for not giving a damn that people in Robinson Township have to sit and wait longer in their SUVs because I-376 was already outdated when it was built.
I don't post very often but I read this forum (Mt Wash resident) 3-4 days week. While somewhat wordy you bring up some very good points. Just last year my employer (Foster Plaza) implemented a work form home program. While only 3 days/wk (M-W-F) you wouldn't believe the savings on gas, food, and most importantly a piece of mind. From my office window I can see approach to the Ft. Pitt tubes. It's shocking how on office days the appraoch is backed up until around the time I got to lunch which is usually 12:15-12:30pm . I 've lived here since '99 and have seen this city make tremendous strides in appearance and image. The last hurdle is to have a stable infrastructure.
The last hurdle is to have a stable infrastructure.
We won't have a stable infrastructure if we keep subsidizing sprawl. I realize this is a "free country" and whatnot, but with that disclaimer out of the way I do still have the right to be upset about billions of tax dollars being squandered annually widening roads in an attempt to make commutes easier for outlying suburbanites. That's counter-productive, anyways, because once the commute is smooth-sailing more people are enticed to move nearby, increasing demand on the roadway and quickly overwhelming the additional capacity anyways so you just have an extra lane of stop-and-go traffic after a few years; the opportunity cost of more people who may have moved closer to the urban core in the first place to avoid the congestion woes inbound from the 'burbs instead initially moving to the 'burbs to utilize the extra lane capacity is one of the region's greatest threats.
A very low percentage of metro area residents reside within the city proper of Pittsburgh (isn't it like 305,000 out of 2.4 MILLION?) Even if you expand the definition of "city" instead to "urban core" (throwing in inner 'burbs like Wilkinsburg, Swissvale, Edgewood, Homestead, Millvale, Etna, etc.) the percentage within that "urban core" is still ridiculously low. We're not going to see our area's traffic woes wane until more people begin to favor the core over the outlying areas. We're not going to see our area's poor air quality improve until more vehicles are taken off our freeways via more people choosing to reduce their carbon footprint by living in the urban core and driving less as a result.
Sorry to sound like a jerk, but the worse we make the commute for our exurban dwellers the better in my opinion. I don't want to be breathing in exhaust fumes from the huge SUV of a power-commuter from 20 miles away who doesn't have a justifiable reason to be living that far from the core. I drive a hybrid. I live within mere minutes of my primary workplace and the office of my second workplace (although I am a delivery driver and NEED to drive for that purpose, which takes our customers' vehicles off the roads, anyways, as they otherwise would have driven to the restaurants). On a whim I drove out to the Tangier Outlets near Washington recently. On the way back into town (early-afternoon on a Saturday) I hit traffic congestion on the Parkway West. If there's gridlock here on the WEEKENDS, then that tells me there's already too many people living in our suburbs.
If this was true, a series of of more extensive Park & Rides should solve the problem.
You'd also want to extend the East Busway at least to Monroeville (which would arguably be the best bang-for-the-buck transportation project we could do in the region---note a busway lane has something like ten times the peak capacity of a highway lane). And that project is in fact part of the region's long-range plan.
But you probably can't solve the problem even with upgraded public transit--for that you will likely need congestion pricing, which in turn would help shift people to the available public transit alternatives.
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Anyone who has lived east of the city of Pittsburgh who has had to fly in and out of Pittsburgh International know what a problem it is.
But the airport just isn't that big of a destination for the eastern part of the region as compared to the main employment centers like Downtown and Oakland.
Generally this is why congestion pricing would make sense--instead of spending billions on a new highway to serve the relative handful of people using the airport, or any other particular users, with congestion pricing you can ensure an uncongested route for whoever really needs it.
If you were going to do anything to help out the airport corridor itself, it would be to extend the West Busway both directions (into Downtown and farther out toward the airport), which again would add much more peak capacity than a highway.
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This is when planning should have started on a major east-west highway to bypass the tunnels and downtown. The logical route at the time would have used part of the Turnpike and cut across the North Hills before extensive development took place.
Note that such highway belt systems in many other cities have become highly congested as well. What happens is that development clusters along the highway, and the fundamental problem is you are using a technology with a relatively low peak capacity, so it is relatively easy for its capacity to be exceeded.
Or it will drive development and employment AWAY from the central city of Pittsburgh and into outlying areas such as Robinson, Murrysville, or Cranberry, or just simply out of the region entirely.
Of course that is what will happen. We've pointed out many times there are not tens of thousands of empty housing units sitting next to Downtown just waiting for displaced commuters to move into, but of course h_curtis is immune to facts or logic when it comes to defending his Tea Party views.
I agree that this is true about the older generations, but it's different with younger people. Car ownership among young people is steadily dropping, and teens are putting off getting their driver's licenses into their 20s. And personally, I have yet to meet anyone in my age range who wants to live in a suburb. I definitely think the trend of living near your job will increase over the next few decades.
But a lot of these people will likely need transit commutes. Again, you can just look at the number of people already working in places like Downtown, and it immediately becomes obvious there can't be enough housing units within walking distance to accommodate all those employees.
Transit can handle that problem--in fact it already is handling a lot of that problem. But if you eliminate transit as an option then employers and residents will simply flee the region.
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