Submitted by sudosudoku t3_ydwvxr in pittsburgh
twolfe0 t1_ituj7r3 wrote
This is Reddit, so most responses you'll get will be to ride a bike or take public transit. As a road 28 is extremely similar to 76 in Philly (Schuylkill Expressway) in the way how it's wedged between a steep hill and railroad tracks, so widening will be more expensive than normal because it involves either a lot of digging and cutting, or the road can be double decked which would likely cost about 100 million a mile.
The good news is PA is eligible for up to 15 billion dollars over the next 5 years specifically for roads and bridges (another, separate 15 billion is going to public transit). That's a huge sum of money that can fix a lot of our road problems in the state. Not sure if they'll do anything with 28 but the chances certainly increase with large sums of money being given.
benji950 t1_ituq6ps wrote
I’m new here but grew up in the Philly suburbs. I now know all I need to know to understand 28 from your comment about the Expressway.
twolfe0 t1_itus24u wrote
If the state is smart they would allocate about 3 of the 15 billion specifically for 76 mainly because that's actually the busiest highway in the state, and theres a toll capture potential of around 50 million a year if they add express lanes. As far as 28 it wouldn't get that kind of investment but it wouldn't need it either
sudosudoku OP t1_itujjp3 wrote
fair enough. as far as biking is concerned, i'd have to leave 5 or 6 hours before work to make it on time, and public transport doesn't exist in the beautiful countryside
benji950 t1_ituq2di wrote
You’ll be in awesome shape with all that riding!
EnnuiDeBlase t1_ituwjxf wrote
I know that's a joke, but to pedant - with 12 hours of daily travel time + 8 work that leaves 4 hours. Assume an hour to eat/wind down/shower that's 3 hours of sleep a day - definitely awful for you.
I'm sorry I'm like this.
war321321 t1_itvgzs1 wrote
So what I’m hearing is get rid of the job 😎
Tre_Scrilla t1_itwdq5u wrote
Not to be pedantic but they have to be exaggerating. Unless they live in like Templeton but then they probably wouldn't be complaining about a 40 minute commute by car
EnnuiDeBlase t1_itxoz5p wrote
I feel like 40 minutes is just the margin of error for route 28. A friend of mine once referred to it as his favorite 20 to 50 minutes of the day.
Tre_Scrilla t1_itzxoet wrote
Ya idk where they live but I'm just saying they would have to live faaarrr out to be a 6 hr bike ride.
EnnuiDeBlase t1_iu01cu0 wrote
If you asked me how long it would take me to bike to RIDC park from Greenfield I wouldn't be able to give you a time-deterministic answer because I feel like the question doesn't have a valid Euclidean answer, tbh.
Tre_Scrilla t1_iu0bwxs wrote
I see what you're saying but typing that route into Google maps shows a few options around an hour. My point is I just doubt they live six hours away from downtown by bike.
EnnuiDeBlase t1_iu0cprc wrote
I plopped in a route and I'm with you right until we get to the Highland Park bridge. I drove on that for years, I would rather break my legs and go on disability that have to bike to work on that bridge every day.
Six hours is definitely too high, I'll grant you that.
TheLiberator117 t1_itxpjh0 wrote
Just remember that your taxes that you're supposedly paying for road maintenance don't go anywhere near enough to paying for the roads you're using! Your "beautiful countryside" living is subsidized by people living in cities.
ej6687 t1_itutfw2 wrote
Not sure there are many other projects left for 28 after this current one. They fixed the "death stretch" into the city and made changes to the Rt 8 area. This was the "final" piece to make it multiple lanes the entire way from the city to Harmarville. Unless they plan on doing something inbound between RIDC and Fox Chapel
Far_Room23 t1_itvceat wrote
It would be incredible if they actually attached it to 279. That transfer from one to the other is painful as it currently is.
twolfe0 t1_itvsnfw wrote
I always thought they should connect it to 579 and number the whole route as such. The 579 designation is way too short and if it were designated an interstate it would qualify for more federal funding
bluepisces1980 t1_itvvuto wrote
As someone who lives easy access to 79 in the north hills yes! I’d love an easy straight ramp to 28 as most of my family live off of 28 in FC, Blawnox, etc… instead I do the long way to rt 8 then a back way up 910… 🤷🏻♀️
DisFigment t1_itxjzqn wrote
I think some city councilman in the 70’s/80’s during 279 planning got them to avoid a 28 connector so as to dump traffic into the lower north side to hopefully drive sales at local businesses. Didn’t really work as the area is much worse now than the 80’s.
luckystinkynemo1 t1_itz8fzt wrote
This is way out of the county but I believe there is a plan to extend the expressway all the way to I-80 at Brookville.
jimbo_kun t1_itv91s6 wrote
> The good news is PA is eligible for up to 15 billion dollars over the next 5 years specifically for roads and bridges (another, separate 15 billion is going to public transit).
Thanks, Biden!
not28 t1_ituutg4 wrote
Kinda weird how the only responses here that mention biking were denigrating it.
mizu_no_oto t1_itvmjkp wrote
Seriously.
The fundamental problem with cars and traffic in a city is throughput per lane.
A fully saturated car lane at maximum flow might be able to transport 1,900 vehicles per hour - which is one car every 1.9 seconds. Usual throughput is much lower than that because people usually like to have more than a second or two of following distance.
A fully saturated 3.3 foot bike lane might be able to transport 2,600 bikes per hour, on the lower end of estimates. An 8 foot car lane can transport more than 5k bike riders.
A dedicated bus lane with frequent service can transport something like 6k people.
And grade-separated light rail can transport something like 30k people per hour.
If you're in a car because you live way out in the country and work in the city, what you really want is awesome public transit and bike infrastructure that will get other people out of their cars so you're not stuck in bumper to bumper traffic with them. Or a good commuter rail + bike/transit network you could take.
AWrenchAndTwoNuts t1_itwzdmq wrote
Dude I am still waiting on the HSR from the airport they promised us 20 years ago.
DirtNapsRevenge t1_itutfdp wrote
You think that's good news? Lol! There are far to many examples to site in a single Reddit post, but I did give a few in my above post, of SWPA region being awarded plenty of money in the past for projects to improve and modernize the transportation infrastructure in the area. Virtually all of which has been redirected by local politicians and planners to projects that server their own political interest instead.
15 billion, 150 billion heck 1.5 trillion, you can give Penn Dot and Allegheny County all the money you can imagine and more and very little, if any, will ever be used to actually improve the mess around here. Do you know that the federal government has twice in the past allocated money for a beltway highway system around Pittsburgh? Take a couple guesses why it was never built.
Every penny of whatever they're given will be directed to serving the interests of downtown property owners and developers just as it always have been.
PigDog4 t1_ituuhsy wrote
Whoah, PennDot doesn't give all of the money to downtown property owners and developers, the police take a big chunk of it, too.
DirtNapsRevenge t1_itv10yh wrote
PennDot doesn't give ANY money to downtown property owners.
What it does is give money to local politicians and planners for projects with vaguely sketched out objectives and purposes and those local politicians and planners make sure the projects that serve their own interests and those of the developers who support them get funded.
You all need reliable transportation to the Pittsburgh "International" Airport? Sorry, streets around the stadiums, casino and apartment buildings nobody will ever move into get done first.
twolfe0 t1_ituv4tf wrote
From what I gather... because I was thinking the same thing too ..is that the money will be dispersed differently than it was in the past. Basically the state has to show the federal government the project they want they money for and it has to be approved....and the feds are encouraging megaprojects. So it's not, "here's your money do with it as you choose".
With that being said...I'm skeptical myself. We'll have a better understanding in five years as to what they'll actually do...and if it's little to nothing to help to the average citizen then we need to make them suffer consequences... whatever they may be. LOL
DirtNapsRevenge t1_ituzxfw wrote
Except that not how it actually works. The north shore connector is a pretty good example of how it does. Federal money is frequently given to regional planners for a stated purpose and the local planners make the final decisions on how to achieve the purpose.
Most everyone who supported doing so assumed it would be used for one of the proposals on the table to extend it to Oakland or the North Hills. It wasn't until after the money was approved that locals decided the tunnel to the stadiums was the best use of the money. Technically it meet the objective, it did expand the existing system but virtually nobody who sought or supported the funding imagined it being used is such a manner.
Same for the funding of the transportation to the airport, funding was provided as part of the airport project for the purpose of increasing access to the new airport site, not a specific project, and most everyone thought that would be one of several LTR proposals that had been made. Once the airport funding was approved locals opted to build a bus way instead which technically met the criteria of the funding. When all was said and done, one crappy bus route was all that came to be and the funding for that project disappeared down the rabbit hole.
That's how it always works for new projects around here, one big shell game.
twolfe0 t1_itv2m3s wrote
Based on everything you're saying I think people like yourself or anyone else with similar knowledge should remain loud throughout this whole process. It's absolutely incredible how a lot of our states busiest roads have been ignored over the years, and to read that they had the money to do the airport light rail line and didn't do it is very disheartening. I read in the infrastructure bill that the money being dispersed has to be for quality of life improvements...so it may be a test of how corrupt these decision makers can get.
DirtNapsRevenge t1_itv49bq wrote
Ahhh, but they haven't been ignored at all. What they have been is, designed, built and maintained in precisely the fashion local politicians need in order to achieve their objectives ...
Objectives which absolutely, unequivocally DO NOT including making it easier for people outside the City of Pittsburgh to get around.
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