As a Stanton Heights resident who drives a Honda Fit, your comment is painfully accurate.

“Supply and demand pricing is bullshit for a basic survival need.”

Say it louder for the people in the back.

Tangential— I work in healthcare and see firsthand how the “free market” doesn’t apply in my industry. What is the limit you would pay to save a loved one, treat your child’s cancer, or help yourself walk again after something catastrophic? For most sane people, the answer is “everything I have, and then some.”

You can’t build a fair market when the demand is essentially infinite. There’s parallels in the housing market, too. We can argue that certain types of housing are luxury goods, and that people do need to be able to make money landlording (or no one would), but at the end of the day, people need a roof over their heads. There needs to be ethics involved in these decisions too, not just pure profit motive.

And now the sidewalks are taking their revenge.

For whatever reason, the UPMC shuttle schedule is on their internal employee Infonet, not the public-facing websites.

Parking near the hospital is limited and relatively expensive, unless you are one of the lucky ones to have parking included as a benefit.

A lot of UPMC employees park at the Towerview garage, which is like a ten minute walk down a hill to the hospital. I don’t know what the cost is off the top of my head, though. There’s another employee lot near the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, but again, I don’t know prices offhand. It’s about the same distance, but much less hilly.

Honestly, if you live near the Children’s Hospital, the shuttle is a viable option for you if you don’t mind riding a bus to and from work. I don’t know exactly where it stops in Oakland these days because there’s so much construction around Presby, but it usually has multiple stops within a block. I did that exact commute during med school when I lived in Lawrenceville for a summer, and it was really easy (and free!)