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Getting Around with Joe Grata Pittsburgh makes the list of 149 worst bottlenecks -- twice Sunday, December 05, 1999 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Last week, I spent three days in Washington, D.C., where getting around is easier than getting in or out via the Interstate 95 Capital Beltway.
D.C., a.k.a. the District of Congestion, was where the American Highway Users Alliance, a highway advocacy group, brought together what it called some of the world's best transportation minds to lead "Driving America: A National Conference on Mobility."
The group hyped the gathering as the decade's most important conference about traffic gridlock, suburban growth, safety, air quality and related issues. Not surprisingly, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation did not attend.
I'll be discussing some interesting presentations in future columns, but the one I want to discuss today is an American Highway Users Alliance study that identified the 149 worst traffic bottlenecks nationwide.
While the study didn't estimate the cost of untangling the mess, it said improvements would prevent 290,000 crashes, 1,150 fatalities and 141,000 injuries nationwide over a 20-year period. It also said delays at each location would be cut by an average of 19 minutes. Air pollution would be halved.
I'm glad to report that Pittsburgh made the pro-highway group's Top 149 list. But only twice.
The local "worst bottlenecks" were obvious choices -- at our tunnels on the Parkway West (Interstate 279) and the Parkway East (Interstate 376).
Based on 1997 information, the study concluded that drivers wasted more than 1.5 million hours a year as a result of congestion around the Fort Pitt Tunnel, ranking it 132nd.
The Squirrel Hill Tunnel did better, which, in this case, is worse. The study said drivers wasted more than 2.3 million hours in congestion at the hole-in-the-wall in our eastern suburbs. The Squirrel Hill Tunnel placed 97th, still far behind the San Diego Freeway, America's most clogged artery.
Of course, the study results are subject to interpretation and debate.
When Walter Funk of Irwin was driving in D.C. several weeks ago, he found the No. 5-ranked Capital Beltway (Interstate 495 at the Interstate 270 interchange) to be a far better driving situation than the Parkway East, even at the height of rush hours.
"Yes, Washington, D.C., has a lot of traffic, but it does one thing different from Pittsburgh highways," Funk said. "Traffic there moves, even in rush hours."
It amazes Funk that Pittsburgh found money to build two stadiums but can't find money to fix the Greenfield Bridge, which crosses the Parkway East near the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. Nets are suspended beneath the bridge to catch chunks of falling concrete. When the net gets too many holes, the city replaces the nets instead of repairing the structure.
"I have lived in several cities in the U.S., and I find Pittsburgh deplorable for its traffic congestion and inability to find solutions," Funk said.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Take the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, which the Highway Users Alliance targets as the source of the region's worst traffic congestion.
In the past, PennDOT has talked about building a third tunnel, adding a funnel-like tent at tunnel approaches, painting special stripes on tunnel walls and installing "pace lights" -- ideas to address the problem we see day after day, year after year: slowing down at the tunnel.
Once, PennDOT posted state police at the tunnel portals to wave drivers past, encouraging them to (get this!) go faster on the parkway. Otherwise, PennDOT has done nothing to speed traffic since the tunnel opened 46 years ago.
Drivers slow down as they approach the tunnel as a matter of natural behavior. Inside, there's the claustrophobic effect.
Both actions combine to cause the wavelike reaction that produces the miles-long traffic queues during the inbound and outbound rush hours.
I suggested in a September 1998 issue of the Post-Gazette's Benchmark series that PennDOT speed traffic a bit by widening the lanes inside the tunnel, thereby alleviating fears and perceptions about being squeezed into lanes that are no more narrow or no less safe than the lanes outside.
We're not talking rocket science here. We're talking about relatively cheap, fast modifications that can be made during off-peak hours.
The proposal is to remove the 47-inch-wide emergency walkway along one wall of each tunnel and the 21-inch-wide barrier along the other wall.
They would be replaced with 18-inch-wide barriers like those PennDOT installed inside the Liberty Tunnels several years ago, thereby picking up enough extra space to widen the tunnel floor by more than 2 1/2 feet.
If wider lanes were to increase driver confidence enough to "push" 10 more vehicles a minute through the tunnel -- not an unthinkable number -- backups would be reduced by 1,200 vehicles over a two-hour period. That's the equivalent of eliminating a two-mile backup, twice a day.
People in the highway business have told me it's not a bad idea. There is also precedent for it. PennDOT removed the sidewalk in the Liberty Tunnels in the 1970s. The Port Authority doesn't have a sidewalk through the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel.
But don't expect miracles. PennDOT isn't about to accept advice from a know-it-all transportation "beat" reporter.
It would rather pay $1 million to a consulting firm to make the same recommendation. Or wait until the American Highway Users Alliance makes us No. 1.
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"Is it 'bug and gnat,' self-deprecating humor from the young couple who own the car, or 'bug 'n 'at,' a bit of Pittsburghese?" Horgan asked.
Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post Gazette, or e-mail him at Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post-Gazette or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Please include your address and phone number for confirmation.
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