We’re thinking of moving to Pittsburgh in the next 1-5 years.

[felser]

Best wishes for your move to Pittsburgh.  With the savings in rent, you'll feel rich!  Lots of colleges near where you will be (Pitt, Carnegie-Mellon, Duquesne, Point Park, Chatham, Carlow, Allegheny County Community College, so lots of book stores!).  So much of Pittsburgh is very hilly, so I'm glad you'll be in such good shape for the walk.  Hoping and praying for a good move and good weather for the move.    And do study up on the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Pitt Panthers, it's a football-crazy town.

[ejp626]

Congrats and good luck with the move.  I only visited once (and didn't make it to the Warhol Museum), but it seemed nice.  I liked the many Art Deco or Art Deco-inspired skyscrapers in the downtown.  I was also on campus and saw a bunch of sidewalk delivery robots.  I did find the transit system a bit underwhelming.

[felser]

1 minute ago, ejp626 said:

I did find the transit system a bit underwhelming.

Not a real big city (300K in the city itself, 68th in USA, though 2.4m in the metro area), and more midwest than East Coast.

[Rooster_Ties]

9 hours ago, ejp626 said:

 I did find the transit system a bit underwhelming.

The thing about Pittsburgh transit is that they didn’t/couldn't ever fund their main public transit corridor with light rail — instead opting for a protected rapid-transit busway (no other vehicular traffic) down in a valley that cuts thru the heart of the east end of the main part of the city (immediately east of downtown).

Back 50+ years ago, there used to be 4 or 5 freight rail lines down in that valley. Then in the mid-70’s, they tore out all but two of those freight rail lines, and replaced them with a 3-lane road for busses only (and emergency vehicles) — and said busses can get up to 40 even 50 mph, taking commuters to and from downtown in 1/4th the time of the city streets above.  They also treat and plow the hell out of the busway in the winter (when it snows).

I understand the busway actually moves a lot more people daily than Pittsburg’s light rail does (their light rail is called the “T”). And the busses on the busway run almost as frequently as some DC Metro lines (like every 10 minutes during rush hour, 15 minutes during the day, and 15-20 minutes later at night).

My wife and I will be in an apartment that’s just a 10-minute walk from one of the two busiest busway stops immediately east of downtown (one of the things we wanted to be close to).

Pittsburgh’s east busway was the very first bus-rapid-transit system in the entire US (built in the mid 70’s) — and its cost-per-mile to construct and operate is substantially lower than light rail or heavy rail (a bare fraction of the cost).

Nowhere near as sexy as rail — but in the right circumstances, it can be incredibly efficient — especially in this formerly freight-rail-only valley that never had vehicular traffic on it before in the first place.

 

Edited January 7 by Rooster_Ties

[ejp626]

>>Nowhere near as sexy as rail — but in the right circumstances, it can be incredibly efficient — especially in this formerly freight-rail-only valley that never had vehicular traffic on it before in the first place.

I'm sure it can be.  I don't have anything against busways in general, but my ride in from the airport to University of Pittsburgh was surprisingly slow and quite crowded.  Maybe they need some express buses on that route.

[Rooster_Ties]

51 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

…but my ride in from the airport to University of Pittsburgh was surprisingly slow and quite crowded.  Maybe they need some express buses on that route.

Yes, definitely. From what I understand, transit west of downtown leaves a LOT to be desired.  (And the airport is west of downtown.)

Pittsburgh’s transit isn’t as good as it could and should be — but that one busway east of downtown is easily overlooked (and better than bus transit usually is most places).

There are also some busways south of downtown too — which I know next to nothing about — and I have no idea how efficient they are (how isolated from other vehicles they are — or aren’t).

PGH’s transit is a mixed bag overall — but still better than quite a number of other cities that aren’t bigger than PGH.

[JSngry]

Keep an eye open for Paul Skenes!

[felser]

33 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Keep an eye open for Paul Skenes!

PNC Park is really nice, and from memory, there's pretty much always tickets available...

Here is the most iconic moment in Pittsburgh sports history:

[Rooster_Ties]

7 hours ago, felser said:

PNC Park is really nice, and from memory, there's pretty much always tickets available...

I’m sure we’ll take in 2 or 3 games a year — the view of downtown over the outfield is amazing!!

I’m on my phone (in St. Louis visiting my dad) — but the main photo on the PNC Park Wikipedia page is a pretty good example…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNC_Park

[JSngry]

9 hours ago, felser said:

PNC Park is really nice, and from memory, there's pretty much always tickets available...

Here is the most iconic moment in Pittsburgh sports history:

And Maz is still alive!

[JSngry]

Looks like y'all are soon to be a one-,,,part town)

Sorry to hear that

 We've been one for a few decades now and it truly sucks.

[felser]

The Post-Gazette was the big one, so truly a loss.

[Rooster_Ties]

Yeah, saw the Post-Gazette is folding — but oddly, they’re not even trying to do anything just online, not in any sort of reduced capacity even.

Hard to fathom a city the size of Pittsburgh without a newspaper of record.

We’re already trying to survey the PGH media landscape for where to get our news — hoping to find some enterprising, hopefully non-profit news-gathering source (which if they’re no.

I’m sure when we transfer our NPR support from here in DC to the Pittsburgh NPR station, we’ll double our yearly donation.

[Neal Pomea]

I understand that the health care system in Pittsburgh is very good, maybe better than the DC area. My brother in law moved there just before the covid pandemic and he's happy with it. He previously lived in a Maryland suburb of DC and was born and raised here. He was tired of the suburban life and wanted to live in a city with good health care, was walkable, had big city availability of arts and culture (though I bet DC has a better arts and culture scene). He likes the ethnic neighborhoods and the blue collar vibe. It's more affordable than DC and Maryland. He's moved a couple of times already because gentrification has resulted in raising his rent. My wife and I have visited twice to catch baseball games at the wonderful MLB stadium. We were surprised that there's not much of a nightlife or restaurants in that downtown area. There was a fun foodie scene in an area of town called The Strip -- an area that used to be the warehouse district for meat and produce but has gentrified over the years and is now the hot spot of the foodie scene. I can't speak to the music scene. My brother in law mostly likes roots music -- blues, old country, rockabilly, ethnic music like Irish and Ukrainian. I don't believe he's very knowledgeable about jazz.

Hope this helps!