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InfraredDiarrhea t1_itut2pk wrote

You mean you don’t miss that traffic signal at the 31st street bridge?

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itsjscott t1_itutryj wrote

Nope... nor do I miss the one at the 40th St. bridge. I also don't miss having to navigate through the traffic lights on the north side to get from 28 to the Ft. Duq / Ft. Pitt bridges. The Highland Park bridge construction sucks, but that's ALSO going to be 500% better when it's finished. The short-term sunk cost is worth the long-term benefit.

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PigDog4 t1_ituu7qc wrote

And they're making pretty good progress. I live near it and drive it regularly, used to be every day pre-pandemic. It's really moving along, just a huge job to reconfigure multiple on/off ramps and bridges.

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New_Acanthaceae709 t1_itvxxzu wrote

We know it's a huge job; they just seem to do bad project management.

Example: they just redid one side of the Highland Park Bridge. Why not do both sides at once for paving?

Example: they just redid the section north of the bridge, northbound. But they've taken several week-long pauses, while traffic pays the cost every day they're not done.

Do less at one time and do it well, which is a scheduling problem, but they have no accountability for that in their process.

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stoogemcduck t1_itw6gk7 wrote

… don’t you miss when it was a weird city grid with people trying to gun it in and of businesses and cars parked half on the sidewalk?

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mazhas t1_itxi1lf wrote

now I'm curious about this. are you saying there was a traffic signal below 31st directly on 28? I'm aware of the signals on 31st but never knew they had one on 28.

been here since 11 so before my time

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5TAR-LORD t1_itxu4t8 wrote

Yep. Very near the 40th St bridge on the Millvale side there was a bar/pizza joint (can't recall the name), a small DIY concert venue (Millvale Industrial Theater) and other businesses that stretched down at least to the 31st St bridge. Two stoplights to navigate between Millvale to Deutschtown.

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sockar101 t1_ityvcmw wrote

If you're thinking of the yellow brick building, that was at the light at the 31st Street Bridge and it was Lambro's Lounge.

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CL-MotoTech t1_itzmpsz wrote

Lambro's! I could not remember that name but I could picture it.

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BackmarkerLife t1_ity1atw wrote

Here's 28 in 2004 just before they started the massive upgrades.

https://imgur.com/fwPNbng (dotted line is proposal at the time)

40th, 31st, then a light at 16th was 28. You HAD to drive through the North Side to get on to 279, there was no easy way to get on to 579. (For some reason I'm misremembering if there was a random light between 31st and 16th for businesses or just traffic flow - there was a car garage, a historic church to consider in the construction as well.)

There were a fuckton of accidents in that corridor. You hear about accidents now due to speed, etc. There were major multicar accidents and head on collisions. There were no jersey barriers between North and South directions. At some point they added those flex posts that separate the bike lanes these days. Drivers drove just as fast on 28 in 2004 as they drive today: 80mph.

All of these bypasses below East to West did not exist and it made traffic hell in the North Side.

https://imgur.com/TF5kikq

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