Pittsburgh isn't bad, but it would be way cooler with...

Decent mass transit.

How many times have you not gone to the city because you don't want to make the drive? Think about it... There are those times of day when you know no matter what route you take, the drive will be an intolerable hassle. I know coming from Greensburg, all of my options are currently terrible during anything but the late hours of the night. I can:

Take Route 30 all the way from Greensburg to Forest Hills: This is a nice straight line, but it involves accelerating from 0 to 55 about 9 trillion times, because there are actually more red lights on this stretch of 30 than there are in the entire state of Montana. For those of us who staunchly refuse to drive automatics, that means going through all five gears only to end up right back at a standstill less than 20 seconds later. You've also got a LOT of people who hang out in the left lane and do less than the speed limit. This path is really only an option for the true masochist, or traveling late at night.

Take Route 30 to the Turnpike in Irwin, ride that for the exorbitant fee of $.95, get off in Monroeville, and take the Parkway in: This costs money, which is step one to making it a turn-off. Also, this particular section of the Turnpike has this weird twilight-zone effect where it seems like the distance between Irwin and Monroeville is multiplied twofold. It's not really that far, but this stretch of the Turnpike takes a while to negotiate anyway. Also, there are a lot of Ohio drivers on the Turnpike. Bad news. After you've dealt with that, you are dumped onto the Parkway which is conveniently under construction all the way to Churchill. During much of the day, this makes it nearly impassable, or at the very least a bit frustrating.

Do the same Turnpike thing, but take Old William Penn from Monroeville to Churchill: This allows you to laugh at the people on the Parkway who aren't going anywhere, unless it itself is backed up. I once spent 45 minutes on this route. It does dump you on the Parkway again right after the construction ends, which is great, and you can also stop at Udipi (which I'm told is amazing) for some Indian food because it's on the way there. But it's not the easiest path to navigate if you've never done it before, and is still subject to horrifying backups.

Could you imagine if there were a fourth option? Maybe it'd go something like this.

You get on Route 30 and drive to the Greengate plaza where Wal-Mart is located. You park in the lot of a light rail terminal, and get on a train that runs parallel to Route 30, which for $10 per trip takes you all the way to Pittsburgh in 50 minutes. Know what you do for that entire time? Whatever you can carry with you that doesn't disturb others.

Unless you have very specific mobility requirements in terms of timing or you have a lot to carry with you, given those options it's pretty evident which one is most appealing.

I know Pittsburgh's a small city, but it's a large metropolitan area which is plagued, in terms of transit, by its sprawling nature. That is compounded by the constant decay of the roads and the relatively few vehicular arteries into the city. Ever tried taking 51 into Pittsburgh from the South Hills? It's hell. From each direction, there is more or less only one large (sometimes not even that large) road that enters the city. There's also not a lot of space to put more large roads in place to supplement them. We need to look at alternatives.

Every once in a while someone starts talking about light rail lines into the city. I think we should invest in a full-out Metro system, whereby light rail travels above-ground into Pittsburgh from points as far away as Latrobe, and upon entering the city descends below-ground to become a subway system. DC and Boston have awesome examples of a system like this operational right now, and there is no shortage of riders. Even if the system doesn't make money in itself, the economic loss of traffic jams is incredible, and reducing it could provide a lot of benefits that may now be difficult to estimate.

I think we should run trains down the US 30 corridor from Latrobe, down US 22 from Murrysville, down 28 from New Kensington, from Cranberry to Pittsburgh, from the Airport to the city, and we should attach it all to the already-present line that runs from the South Hills to the Pittsburgh.

I know it's a hard push to make in a cash-strapped city with a population so used to driving their cars places that they may be difficult to convince to get on a train, but with the right sort of advertising this investment could turn Pittsburgh into a city that is much more respectable by national standards, and much more accessible to locals and tourists. In the end, it would make it a lot easier for people to go to Pittsburgh to spend money, ergo local business thrives, etc.

So why aren't they doing this?

Oh, and I know we have buses. But I've heard from numerous reliable sources that they're a joke. I think a caveat to this plan should be that the Port Authority should have nothing to do with it.