DirtNapsRevenge t1_itutfdp wrote on October 26, 2022 at 1:57 PM

Reply to comment by twolfe0 in Why is 28 the most dysfunctional road ever designed? by sudosudoku

You think that's good news? Lol! There are far to many examples to site in a single Reddit post, but I did give a few in my above post, of SWPA region being awarded plenty of money in the past for projects to improve and modernize the transportation infrastructure in the area. Virtually all of which has been redirected by local politicians and planners to projects that server their own political interest instead.

15 billion, 150 billion heck 1.5 trillion, you can give Penn Dot and Allegheny County all the money you can imagine and more and very little, if any, will ever be used to actually improve the mess around here. Do you know that the federal government has twice in the past allocated money for a beltway highway system around Pittsburgh? Take a couple guesses why it was never built.

Every penny of whatever they're given will be directed to serving the interests of downtown property owners and developers just as it always have been.

PigDog4 t1_ituuhsy wrote on October 26, 2022 at 2:05 PM

Whoah, PennDot doesn't give all of the money to downtown property owners and developers, the police take a big chunk of it, too.

DirtNapsRevenge t1_itv10yh wrote on October 26, 2022 at 2:50 PM

PennDot doesn't give ANY money to downtown property owners.

What it does is give money to local politicians and planners for projects with vaguely sketched out objectives and purposes and those local politicians and planners make sure the projects that serve their own interests and those of the developers who support them get funded.

You all need reliable transportation to the Pittsburgh "International" Airport? Sorry, streets around the stadiums, casino and apartment buildings nobody will ever move into get done first.

twolfe0 t1_ituv4tf wrote on October 26, 2022 at 2:09 PM

From what I gather... because I was thinking the same thing too ..is that the money will be dispersed differently than it was in the past. Basically the state has to show the federal government the project they want they money for and it has to be approved....and the feds are encouraging megaprojects. So it's not, "here's your money do with it as you choose".

With that being said...I'm skeptical myself. We'll have a better understanding in five years as to what they'll actually do...and if it's little to nothing to help to the average citizen then we need to make them suffer consequences... whatever they may be. LOL

DirtNapsRevenge t1_ituzxfw wrote on October 26, 2022 at 2:43 PM

Except that not how it actually works. The north shore connector is a pretty good example of how it does. Federal money is frequently given to regional planners for a stated purpose and the local planners make the final decisions on how to achieve the purpose.

Most everyone who supported doing so assumed it would be used for one of the proposals on the table to extend it to Oakland or the North Hills. It wasn't until after the money was approved that locals decided the tunnel to the stadiums was the best use of the money. Technically it meet the objective, it did expand the existing system but virtually nobody who sought or supported the funding imagined it being used is such a manner.

Same for the funding of the transportation to the airport, funding was provided as part of the airport project for the purpose of increasing access to the new airport site, not a specific project, and most everyone thought that would be one of several LTR proposals that had been made. Once the airport funding was approved locals opted to build a bus way instead which technically met the criteria of the funding. When all was said and done, one crappy bus route was all that came to be and the funding for that project disappeared down the rabbit hole.

That's how it always works for new projects around here, one big shell game.

twolfe0 t1_itv2m3s wrote on October 26, 2022 at 3:01 PM

Based on everything you're saying I think people like yourself or anyone else with similar knowledge should remain loud throughout this whole process. It's absolutely incredible how a lot of our states busiest roads have been ignored over the years, and to read that they had the money to do the airport light rail line and didn't do it is very disheartening. I read in the infrastructure bill that the money being dispersed has to be for quality of life improvements...so it may be a test of how corrupt these decision makers can get.

DirtNapsRevenge t1_itv49bq wrote on October 26, 2022 at 3:12 PM

Ahhh, but they haven't been ignored at all. What they have been is, designed, built and maintained in precisely the fashion local politicians need in order to achieve their objectives ...

Objectives which absolutely, unequivocally DO NOT including making it easier for people outside the City of Pittsburgh to get around.