I can't get down with the whole "Don't hold large companies more responsible, or they'll charge us more" thing. Stand up to the bully. If they fight back, stand up to that, too.

How can an organization that owns so much pittsburgh property and owns the insurance company used to pay themselves be a nonprofit? A health insurance company should not have their name written on a damn sky scraper. It's ridiculous.

Their Gorgonzola. The feta next door at stamoolis is good they also have this smoked caviar spread that comes in a 8 oz jar for like $6. I recommend it if you go to Penn mac

I can’t speak in generalities, but specifically in my case, my ex wife was a UPMC nurse. My operating engineer union healthcare is better than her healthcare, and I have UPMC healthcare.

I’m glad I have good healthcare, but the fact that it’s better than what their actual nurses receive is fucking lunacy.

Huntsman. It's English with Blue Stilton and Cheddar layers.

Saint Agur. Its a soft spreadable blue cheese. So good.

That double Gloucester is a staple at all of my family’s holidays! It’s so good!

All health insurance companies can suck a Dick, should just nationalize them.

> I don’t think they should lose non-profit status because if they make hospitals pay taxes, we will all pay in the end through higher hospital bills

fuck this. they should pay their share

edit: or at least do non-profit things like actually help people (for free)

The Welsh Cheddar is my go to snacking cheese.

Leonora is very similar and a bit cheaper. Always in stock when I stop.

Leonora

Double Gloucester with onion & chives, Cashel blue & Five counties.

I get that. UPMC will cover the taxes by increasing their income. But a lot of that income comes from outside the city, outside the county, outside the state, heck, outside the country.

Penn Mac’s gone down hill and the tall guy with grey hair is a complete asshole

Sprinter (rail line)

>Sprinter (stylized as SPRINTER) is a hybrid rail (light rail with some features similar to commuter rail) line operating in the North County area of San Diego County between the cities of Escondido and Oceanside, California, United States. The service uses the 22-mile (35 km) Escondido Branch of the San Diego Northern Railroad. Station platforms were constructed for the line's fifteen stations serving the cities of Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, and Escondido. The line provides service to California State University, San Marcos and Palomar College.

EBART

>eBART (East Contra Costa County BART extension) is the project name for a hybrid rail (light rail with some features similar to commuter rail) branch line of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in eastern Contra Costa County, California, United States. Service starts at Pittsburg/Bay Point station and extends to Antioch station.

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When I lived in San Diego we had a 22 mile DMU line. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprinter_(rail_line)

There is also a small 10 mile eastern extension of BART that uses DMU it requires a transfer to use the rest of Bart https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBART

Both these lines were in much bigger cities although the Ottawa line gets 10,000 riders. I have a hard time guesstimating how many people would use a train from new Kensington to downtown. One potential issue is both these US lines used dedicated tracks. Has the FTA ever allowed DMU trains on freight tracks in the US? I have no idea.

I look forward to the belt buses and overbrook to Oakland connections. Covid made planning difficult for transit agencies and they are moving slower than their typical glacier pace these days.

Considering what a mess the original West Busway project was and how badly they’ve bungled the Oakland “BRT” project, color me skeptical that the West Busway is going to get finished anytime soon in either direction. Though I do hope they make connecting it to Downtown a high priority, which shouldn’t be that expensive provided they can figure out the ROW around the West End Circle and then use protected bus lanes from West Carson.

The problem with the Oakland project is the bus lanes aren’t going to be protected. They’ll serve as dual right turn lanes at multiple points, and they’re not taking measures to protect the lanes that actually are dedicated, outside of some red paint.

With the full gondola proposal in Port Authority’s long range plans, the connection to the South Busway/Overbrook Line JCT would open up greatly improved commuting options for the South Hills to Oakland, and the connections for Hazelwood and the Hill to both Oakland and the Strip would be highly beneficial for both those neighborhoods, and the Oakland-Strip connection is a major missing link (with all due respect to the 54C).

I highly recommend that article on the Ottawa “O-Train” I added late to my last post. The problem is most North American transit agencies think of local rail service in terms of either light rail or heavy commuter rail, and are blind to the happy medium of regional rail that is significantly cheaper than both. It’s only feasible on lines with limited freight traffic that service some dense neighborhoods, but that’s exactly what the AVRR line is.

I agree on your last point about bus signal priority and exclusive lanes 100%. I’d love to see them start by enforcing the existing Downtown lanes and adding as much signal priority as possible. I’ll also give PRT it’s due on some of the “belt buses” they’re proposing. The east-west connection through Brookline and Beechview is something I’ve been clamoring for since I moved down here!

The report was discussed last week in another post

TLDR upmc grew super fast to control 60% of hospital beds in the area and they should be broke up to a more reasonable smaller size.

Im a little surprised that in Pittsburgh $15 is no longer a floor for wages and $18 in 2025 will also be too low with inflation. I wonder if upmc provides better health insurance for employees than other service jobs. Do other hospitals pay more than UPMC? I’ve heard the nursing pay is low. They probably need a union to get paid better.

I don’t think they should lose non-profit status because if they make hospitals pay taxes, we will all pay in the end through higher hospital bills

I would pay $0.50 extra on every single thing I bought for the next 5 years if it meant I could take a train from Station Square to the airport.

Listen, I live in Greensburg, and I haven’t been to the city since 2004, but let me tell you definitively and without hesitation exactly what Pittsburgh really needs. It’s more driving lanes and more parking lots that’re cheap. Not all these bike lanes and dreams of pointless light rail! Duh! Too many cars? Just build more lanes!

The prt 25 year plan in 2021 suggests studying rail versus bus for avrr so I don’t think they have decided either way yet. They will probably apply for a federal grant to do a study at some point. My concern with rail is all the transfers involved. From Dormont to Oakland takes an hour via the trolly downtown when I can drive it in 20 minutes in rush hour. Even if they built the trolly to Oakland they would have to alternate lines going to Oakland versus gateway and Northshore so service frequency might not be ideal

Humboldt Fog. Not sure if they still have it.

The 6-15 time frame is listed for extending the west busway at both ends to improve the 28x airport flyer.

As long as the Oakland brt has dedicated lanes it should be a decent improvement. It’s just so difficult to build dedicated right of way through Oakland for mass transit.

I like the gondola idea but I’m not sure it would match the communing patterns and how it could feasibly connect to Oakland

I suspect it might be too hard to do high commuter heavy rail with the current geographical distribution of employment. Most cities that have done heavy commuter rail are much bigger cities with dense concentrated employment areas and Pittsburgh is struggling to keep employers downtown lately. Many have left downtown for the strip and ptc/hazelwood robinson and south point/cannonsburgh.

It does appear the direction prt is moving is high frequency bus services which due to funding I think is probably the most realistic and best bang for buck investment. I would be so happy if they could implement more traffic light priority and bus only lanes so buses are on time.

I like most of their plans on page 54

https://nextransitdraftplan.blob.core.windows.net/finalplan/NEXTransit%20-%20FINAL-web%209-16-21.pdf

Not special to penn mac, but the black Diamond cheddar they carry is excellent.

i did a staycation with a bf once at the william penn and it was fun to pretend to be rich tourists. we had a really nice time.