Taxi or Rent? (Pittsburgh, Washington, Penn: how much, hotels, taxis)

[MemphisArtGirl]

I am sure this question has been asked several times before hand, but I couldn't figure out how to search through the threads...

I am going to be in Pittsburgh for Easter weekend and I want to know if you think I will be ok to take a taxi or public transportation to get around the city?

I could rent a car, but if I would rather not. Are there taxis readily available here? I will be staying at the Double Tree downtown and I wanted to get around just that area of pittsburgh.

[raynist]

Originally Posted by MemphisArtGirl

I am sure this question has been asked several times before hand, but I couldn't figure out how to search through the threads...

I am going to be in Pittsburgh for Easter weekend and I want to know if you think I will be ok to take a taxi or public transportation to get around the city?

I could rent a car, but if I would rather not. Are there taxis readily available here? I will be staying at the Double Tree downtown and I wanted to get around just that area of pittsburgh.

Taxi should be fine if you are just going to be in and around the downtown area.

[Tinare]

Originally Posted by raynist

Taxi should be fine if you are just going to be in and around the downtown area.

And downtown is really quite compact so you may find that it's just as easy to walk.

Taxis are readily available at the downtown hotels. If you venture out in a taxi and need to come back, you will need to call one as there really aren't hailable cabs around.

[Geeo]

You can also use the subway for free between the four downtown stations. It'll get you from the upper triangle to the lower triangle (uptown to downtown). Station is across the street from the Doubletree.

[steindle]

It really depends on where you want to go. I've never had an occasion to use a taxi in 26 years of living in Pittsburgh, but I do see them flying around all over the place (especially Downtown). On the other hand, the public transit system is actually not awful or particularly scary here (it's a lot more socioeconomically diverse than other cities -- i.e. you'll see both doctors and homeless people on the 61C toward Squirrel Hill).

Re: Getting around Downtown, I would honestly just walk. It's a very compact Downtown (though a relatively busy one, with about 150,000 people working there during the day), as was mentioned earlier. I work in the Strip District, about 4-5 streets past where Downtown really begins/ends, and I frequently will have lunch almost all the way Downtown (i.e. Stanwix Street) just by walking or biking down there. Literally everything Downtown is within 1 mile.

[fleetiebelle]

Getting around Downtown, I would honestly just walk.

If you do this, make sure you have a map. Since the city's not on a grid in the Golden Triangle it's not hard to get turned around. But it's also pretty easy to get back on track.

[MemphisArtGirl]

Ahhh! Thank you all. This advice really helps!

[TechieTransplant]

If you need to be anywhere at a certain time, the busses and train is more reliable than anything run by the Pittsburgh Transportation Company (ie Taxi). We had a very bad experience trying to simply get to a Penguins game in a taxi, never again.

[JoeLeaphorn]

Unless you are staying in town, I would not advise counting on taxis. There are very few taxi stands (the airport and the William Penn Hotel are about it), and when you call for service they will almost never guarantee you when you will be picked up.

I live about 12 miles from downtown and I called the day before to request a taxi to pick me up at 5:00 AM so that I could catch the 5:30 AM train to DC and was told that they couldn't promise me a cab at that time!

It is really a chicken and egg thing. Because there isn't enough demand for taxis, there aren't enough. Most of the cabbies get by because they have regular customers in addition to their unscheduled fares and these customers have priority. There used to be a number of shadow taxi companies who had separate cell-phone numbers and their own dispatchers, even though they used "Yellow" or other cabs. But many of these have dried up. If you come from the airport, you might ask your cabbie if he has a card/cell number but if the answer is "no" forget it.

As noted, before, there are a lot of great things to do from downtown that don't require a cab including the South Side, North Shore, Strip District and Mt. Washington. You can do these on foot but the bus service is not too bad and is more reliable than the cab service.

[fleetiebelle]

I was really surprised when I learned that one can't hail a cab in Pittsburgh. You hear about so many people with DUIs--just think of how much safer it would be if you could just pick up a cab on Carson St. or Penn Ave in the Strip without having to call 3 hours ahead of time.