Moving to Pittsburgh, PA

Matthew said:
Depends what you're looking for. Squirrel Hill reminds me a lot of Brookline and Murray/Forbes is Coolidge Corner, essentially. It's a pretty nice area and it enjoys a very direct connection via the 61-series of buses. The supermarket is right on Murray. Shadyside is closer to campus and walkable but the 71 and 75 buses only skirt the Craig St area. On the other hand, CMU runs free shuttles that pass through that area too. You'd probably want to focus on places between Walnut and Ellsworth, or thereabouts. There are two supermarkets, one on Center and Negley, and one on Center and Highland.

You won't have any reason to use the light rail unless you are trying to, in all likelihood. The fare system is based on downtown commutes, and it kind of makes sense in that perspective. It avoids collecting fares when the bus is at the most congested point -- namely, downtown. It is terribly confusing for someone who isn't going to be doing downtown commutes, but you'll have an unlimited bus pass courtesy of CMU (and it's a great deal).
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It's a pretty chewed up transit system from abandonments when the city was at its nadir, which is why it lacks integration. Most of what's left are discrete pieces of the formerly very robust streetcar interurban network. Neat historical lineage not surviving in many places; you simply don't see many ex-interurbans in continuous operation. But yeah...left in disjointed state with a lot of work required to string it all back together. But at least they have a decent-size surviving system to work with if they can figure out what to do with it.

The Amtrak schedule there is pathetic. Skinflint and all too Philly centric state gov't won't fund more than one Pennsylvanian trip per day, and since it falls in that Amtrak intra-state loophole where it must be state-sponsored to run at all it's totally dependent on the political whims in-state. No matter what PowerPoints the feds print up about the Keystone west of Harrisburg being a future HSR corridor. They really need to get the lead out and commit here, because it would only take a couple additional daily frequencies to make that a really useful and well-patronized service.
 
I wanted to book my way back on the Pennsylvanian this spring but the 1 trip doesn't work for me :(

Kicking myself now a bit since I just realized I am going to want to stop off in NY right after Pittsburgh anyway.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The Amtrak schedule there is pathetic. Skinflint and all too Philly centric state gov't won't fund more than one Pennsylvanian trip per day, and since it falls in that Amtrak intra-state loophole where it must be state-sponsored to run at all it's totally dependent on the political whims in-state. No matter what PowerPoints the feds print up about the Keystone west of Harrisburg being a future HSR corridor. They really need to get the lead out and commit here, because it would only take a couple additional daily frequencies to make that a really useful and well-patronized service.
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There's also the absolutely garbage Capitol Limited service between Chicago, Pittsburgh and Washington, DC. One daily to DC arrives at 4:35 AM and departs at 4:50 AM, one daily departs DC at 4:05 PM, arrives in Pittsburgh at 11:48 PM, and departs 11:59 PM to Chicago. Travel time just under eight hours in either direction, likely at least in part because of the fact that entire track stretch is owned by CSX.

According to the mileage in Amtrak's timetable book, it clocks in at 780 miles - just 30 over the minimum for Amtrak/federal investment into the line. Somehow, though, I doubt that corridor's going to be seeing any investment any time soon either.

Frankly, I think that we would have been much better served had the PRIIA created a demand for state sponsorship on the long-distance routes instead, but that's a conversation for another thread.
 
There's already a contraflow bus lane on Fifth Avenue in Oakland. They just need to complement that and extend it. It's a heavy bus trunk line as it stands.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
There's also the absolutely garbage Capitol Limited service between Chicago, Pittsburgh and Washington, DC. One daily to DC arrives at 4:35 AM and departs at 4:50 AM, one daily departs DC at 4:05 PM, arrives in Pittsburgh at 11:48 PM, and departs 11:59 PM to Chicago. Travel time just under eight hours in either direction, likely at least in part because of the fact that entire track stretch is owned by CSX.

According to the mileage in Amtrak's timetable book, it clocks in at 780 miles - just 30 over the minimum for Amtrak/federal investment into the line. Somehow, though, I doubt that corridor's going to be seeing any investment any time soon either.

Frankly, I think that we would have been much better served had the PRIIA created a demand for state sponsorship on the long-distance routes instead, but that's a conversation for another thread.
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Tragic thing is the Pennsylvanian isn't that far off from being self-sustaining: http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/AmtrakRoutes. Like a lot of corridor routes its balance sheet has improved quite a bit into the not-bad range. Ridership growth over 30% last decade, and operating cost per-mile that's pretty good for the distance (helps that Norfolk Southern has a well-maintained mainline west of Harrisburg). As opposed to the Crap-it-all Limited which is your typical long-distance money sink.

Given the explosive growth of the Keystone service and the amount of money they're pouring into speeds and reliability east-of-Harrisburg a couple more Pennsylvanian frequencies could bring it in spitting distance of break-even without any new capital investment out there.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Tragic thing is the Pennsylvanian isn't that far off from being self-sustaining: http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/AmtrakRoutes. Like a lot of corridor routes its balance sheet has improved quite a bit into the not-bad range. Ridership growth over 30% last decade, and operating cost per-mile that's pretty good for the distance (helps that Norfolk Southern has a well-maintained mainline west of Harrisburg). As opposed to the Crap-it-all Limited which is your typical long-distance money sink.

Given the explosive growth of the Keystone service and the amount of money they're pouring into speeds and reliability east-of-Harrisburg a couple more Pennsylvanian frequencies could bring it in spitting distance of break-even without any new capital investment out there.
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I bet you can't guess which of these two trains NARP thinks it ought to throw its weight behind in full support!
 
Gonna be visiting! First time seeing how it's going with Peduto running things now.

Maybe I'll get to see how "Scott hall" is looking.
 
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