[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh - think tank blasts possible new transit taxes

[Joshua Dunfield]

Derrick Brashear wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Sep 2007, Joshua Dunfield wrote:

> > How about some specifics?  Wae all know Pittsburgh pretty well.  Tell
> > us which routes are obsolete.  You don't have to tell their riders,
> > of course...
> 
> The problem is not necessarily one of "no riders there" but "the route 
> serves people, who really wanted a different route to serve them"
> 
> There's no good way to get from Highland Park to the Cardello Building, 
> for instance. In fact, there's largely no good way to get to the Cardello 
> Building. Yet it's an office building. A lot of people work there.

Oh, sure, there's a need for *new* routes, but the original criticism,
as I understood it, was that the old routes are still there.
(Except, for example, the Drake line.  And I think the bus that paralleled
it got cut in 2002.)

Barring complete economic collapse and the End of Pittsburgh As We Know It,
the 71A will continue to be a high-demand route partly because it still
makes sense abstractly and partly because people expect it to be.

But I don't see how making major cuts to the traditional route network
is going to help someone get from Highland Park to the Cardello Building.
Or from UPMC St. Margaret's to Squirrel Hill, which I had to do a few times.
(Took a while.  Involved the 91A.  91A isn't in remotely the right direction,
you say?  Yeah, no kidding.)

-j.