North Shore Connector: Positives (Pittsburgh, Troy: calculated, trains, estimated)

[pman]

Originally Posted by GeneW

I could and do often but my wife takes the bus home from East Liberty late in the evenings a lot and won't want to walk up Allegheny Ave in the dark by herself. Plus, the point is that the subway is now going to make the commute into town for a lot of people slower instead of faster.

yep. though really, it's the lack of new money/legacy costs that's doing it. makes it all the more frustrating that the tunnel couldn't have gone one more stop into the neighborhood.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

And here we go again - You guys are complaining about having to transfer from the bus to the T to get into town as an inconvenience, well this is will be the ULTIMATE inconvenience....Get a load of these apples.

Yes, getting a nuclear bomb dropped on you is worse than getting poked with a stick. But I don't think that means we should deny that getting poked with a stick is annoying.

That said, I was just acknowledging that adding a transfer does impose a real cost on riders--I also think that all things considered it is likely a good idea to turn some northern routes into NSC feeder routes, assuming we can also do something about that nuclear bomb.

[dtw0592]

If there is anything positive I can find about the North Shore connector, I think that in the future it could eventually encourage the Port Authority to expand the system to other neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. I've heard they are not planning to extend the system into Oakland anytime soon. I wouldn't keep hopes up for any other extensions anytime soon. We can only hope the Port Authority will be able to fix the financial issues they are experiencing now, this is something that will take a long time, but I think Pittsburgh as a whole has a lot of potential for growth.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by dtw0592

If there is anything positive I can find about the North Shore connector, I think that in the future it could eventually encourage the Port Authority to expand the system to other neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. I've heard they are not planning to extend the system into Oakland anytime soon. I wouldn't keep hopes up for any other extensions anytime soon. We can only hope the Port Authority will be able to fix the financial issues they are experiencing now, this is something that will take a long time, but I think Pittsburgh as a whole has a lot of potential for growth.

Future expansion is a ways off, barring some sort of federal program to support it. The only "expansion" the T could see in the near future would probably be the restoration of the Brown Line. Even that seems unlikely, though.

[pman]

in this link on pg 4 they show a map of the nsc with the pnc station in a North-south alignment adjacent to PNC Park. If the station had been built at that location, a branch line to allegheny ctr/war streets would be able to use it, does anyone know why the station was later moved to its built location?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by pman

does anyone know why the station was later moved to its built location?

I don't know all the details, but circa 2005 the NSC was in some financial trouble and hadn't yet gotten its full federal funding grant. It went through a comprehensive review before it got the grant and the first major construction contracts were signed in 2006. It emerged from that review process with the Convention Center spur eliminated, and I think that may also be when they decided to shift the location of the PNC Park station to under the planned parking garage.

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by pman

in this link on pg 4 they show a map of the nsc with the pnc station in a North-south alignment adjacent to PNC Park. If the station had been built at that location, a branch line to allegheny ctr/war streets would be able to use it, does anyone know why the station was later moved to its built location?

Easily the worst/dumbest oversight by the committee who approved the final design. There is literally nothing but a parking lot there and a station could have been built there with that exact alignment.

That station could have still easily served the garage across the street and allowed for a line expansion into the rest of the Northside neighborhoods.

Man I hate bureaucrats...

[BrianTH]

So I was wrong about the timing. Looking at the maps in their periodic newsletters, the change occurred between Spring 2002 and Summer 2003. In Spring 2002, they announced after public comment that they were going to eliminate all at grade crossings by keeping it underground longer (as it went past PNC Park and curved over to Reedsdale). Even though the Spring 2002 map still showed the PNC station along Mazeroski, I wonder if that decision to further extend the tunnel is what eventually led to them relocating the station to under the parking garage (as reflected in the Summer 2003 map, where they were still discussing this modification).

Anyway, newsletters available here:

http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/Po...ore/letter.asp

Edit: I just realized that link included this lovely rendering of the PNC Park station along Mazeroski that was never built:

[pman]

at least they didn't build the people mover.
[LEFT]"Improves access for North Side residents to the T as well as enhancing pedestrian underpasses[/LEFT]
between the North Shore and North Side communities."

[Anonymous939630]

Originally Posted by airwave09

Easily the worst/dumbest oversight by the committee who approved the final design. There is literally nothing but a parking lot there and a station could have been built there with that exact alignment.

That station could have still easily served the garage across the street and allowed for a line expansion into the rest of the Northside neighborhoods.

Man I hate bureaucrats...

Couldn't have said it better myself. They've turned "transit-oriented development" into "car-oriented transit development."