5/Forbes Announcement

[tooluther]

Shhhhhhhhhhh look for an announcement tommorow. It has been decided who gets the URA properties and the 5th/forbes contract

[PghUSA]

". . . Then I want you to call the Wall Street Chronicle, extension 1804, you tell the man that Bluehorseshoe looooooves . . ." {Tooluther to supply answer}

Tooluther, you need to go into high finance with those kinds of connections .

[tooluther]

Told you...

Mayor Picks Developer

Sorry I couldn't give you all the details yesterday, but I was sworn to secrecy.

[TheGerbil]

Two years? I hope they do finish it that fast. But I definitely hope they abandon the idea of rerouting buses (that was them right?). Baaad idea, that.

[mjcatl2]

I was hoping to read a higher # of apartments/condos then this.

[tooluther]

Can't have sidewalk cafes on bus routes. Also, they need to reduce the bus traffic to reduce noice for residents. One of the reason some of the properties on Liberty haven't been doing all that well is because the bus noice is unbearable in those lofts.

[PghUSA]

^^good pt. on the tables and bus noise. Man I wish we could get a subway or a central bus center for every 5 blocks or so, keep those mass of busses to just two streets on the periphery of downtown.

[Evergrey]

Though I'm excited about this development... perhaps "sidewalk cafes" are not appropriate for downtown... and might be best left elsewhere... like Shadyside...

Downtown is the economic and cultural heart of a region of 2.5 million people... it's going to hustle... it's going to bustle... if it isn't... it's a failure... people don't go downtown for its slow and quiet pace of life... if you choose to live downtown... you know what you're getting into... all the conveniences and excitement of the heart of a major urban center... along with the "horrors" of bus transit!

I'm glad developers are finally taking an interest in downtown... but the city also must be vigilant... the city cannot let suburban developers suburbanize downtown with parking lots, reduced mass transit and cutesy sidewalk cafes (I have no problem with the concept of a sidewalk cafe... but not at the expense of bus service).

That said... I really love this project... but the young Piatt's statements about how you "can't see around those horrible buses" downtown really have me concerned. A bus is infinately more appropriate for downtown than the equivalent amount of automobiles.

[UrbaniDesDev]

Anyone who has been to Paris or even NYC knows that sidewalk cafes do exist along bus routes. Outside of rush hour, Liberty Avenue seems to be one of the quietest streets downtown. It is good that the bus routes will be thinned out tho. They have made Forbes and Fifth Avenues an annoying place to be. Much of the problem of buses are not only their noise, but the masses of people waiting for them at the corners. Buses making impossible sharp turns on narrow crowded streets are ridiculous.

The PAT system really needs to be overhauled. I'd like to say it needs streamlined, but I've been on buses that are packed from front to back. I think we are at a critical mass and we will have to start making some bold decisions that will deal seriously with what the future will be. Perhaps Buses coming from the South could be stopped outside of downtown and transferred to the subway at various stations. I think with the inevitable future of higher gas prices, people are not easily going to return to their cars. Pittsburgh has such a high density downtown, and will become denser. It is really time to think about how to get another metro line through downtown heading to Oakland. The line to the airport needs to go through city neighborhoods and not just skip by them on the way to the airport.

Buses simply won't be able to handle the traffic without downtown becoming unbearable because of it. Now would be a good time to start a big dig under Forbes and put a line to Oakland BEFORE this reconstruction begins. It could connect to the existing line at Gateway Center and continue to the North Shore with the other line.

We now have the interest. We now have the development going. Now we must talk about transportation. With all the city neighborhoods being transformed, it will have to be discussed, not only in how to get people in and out of the city but how to get from one part of town to another without a car.

I'm thrilled at the development happening downtown. The pieces are falling together, let's not drop the ball with transit infrastructure.

[tooluther]

I absolutly agree about bus-LRT integration in the south hills. It is so rediculous that the bus routes and T routes are basicaly the same past Dormont. Just looking the routes that go through Mt. Lebanon, I'd say there are about five major routes that could be truncated at Dormont and Mt.Lebanon Stations. Single T cars could wait at the extra Mt.Lebanon track to make sure the scheduals line up and that T cars don't get even more crowded.

Bus Count: If routes 41A,B,C,G 36A, &37A hooked up with their respective T Stations, there would be 126 less busses downtown on any given workday.

[mjcatl2]

I agree that downtown is supposed to be busy and yes noisy. Not everywhere of course and sidewalk cafes will have to go where it makes sense, but it doesn't make sense to radically alter PAT for it.

But yes, PAT does need to be modernized. However the South Hills T trains are already crowded. The fact is, once the system opened in the 80s, phase two should have been in some stage of development.

If it took another 20 years, we would now be seeing the opening of a new line, but instead they did nothing.

[wanderer34]

That was my basis of having a heavy-rail subway system and a commuter rail system in Pittsburgh. In today's world, with astronomically high gas prices, a bus is going to carry a lot of people, but it's still not that efficient as the primary mode for transit. I'm not talking about the South Hills trolley lines, but a subway system serving the East and North Sides, and nearby communities in Allegheny County.