I think that’s fair. You’re not a bad guy by any means, we’re all biased in such a way. I live about a two minute walk from market district in Shadyside and probably do 1/2 of my groceries in the strip and visit weekly or biweekly. Definitely glad to see people spending their money here no matter if they are from down the street or out of town though.

Yeah this is a bad take that ignores how urban areas function. The strip is not Pittsburgh’s fasting growing neighborhood because of out of townies visiting on the weekend. Like all parts of any urban area, the city of Pittsburgh and strip district included, most of the economic activity is done by locals.

You took the words right out of my mouth. The T for example does more to alleviate traffic on 51 and throughout the south hills than any additional lanes or highways to nowhere would.

Last year my wife and I were living by PPG and I can probably count on one hand the amount of times the HOV lane was up and running the way we wanted it to be when trying to go somewhere on 279. Like you said though it never matters as the highway never gets backed up.

True. Not to mention basically no one uses the HOV lane because almost everyone who drives to downtown from the North hills does so alone

They should honestly tear down 579 and change 279 into a surface level BLVD right after the McKnight rd exit. Then redesign everything else into a surface level Blvd with a maybe a tram lane for the T and bus lane down the middle out to McKnight. Yes it would absolutely increase traffic and travel time to some degree and remove the barely used HOV lane(which the only good argument against doing this would be to preserve that lane for bus travel) but it would also remove the open wound on the north side and between the hill and downtown. Not to mention the new bridge they’d have to build could actually be designed like an additional sister bridge(maybe named after mr. Rodgers) that would look way better than the concrete crap we have now.

It would be expensive but I can assure you that whenever that highway needs redone in a decade, it will be the cheaper option.