Unfare To Me

The Port Authority needs to hire someone to work on their marketing. You don't say this:

A fare increase "in line with inflation" is likely Jan. 1 in any event, he [Steve Bland] said.

In the next 18 months, Port Authority will be unveiling the results of their big study to streamline the bus routes and make them more efficient and profitable. Yet "in any event", we can expect a fare increase???

Give me a break.

However, I'm really excited to see these new plans introduced. There has been an extremely thorough investigation of all of the existing bus routes in Pittsburgh with some very practical recommended results. My favorite? Run the 28X every half hour. People getting off a flight shouldn't have to worry about looking at a schedule and meeting the bus at 9:42.

I'm sure there's going to be some major kick-back on a major re-routing of the bus routes in this city. I only hope that Port Authority sticks to their guns and actually implements the new plan without some major compromises. It would help if it got some local leadership support to push it through.

The Price Of Tea In China

Why should we be excited to be in the Super Bowl?

After the Olympics were in Greece, tourism sky-rocketed for that beautiful country. The recent Olympics held in China did more for opening up the world to the wonders of China than any marketing campaign ever could with athletes walking on the Great Wall and reporters sampling food in the markets.

These national and international events are not just about the sport. I remember in the 90s when the Super Bowl was held at the New Orleans Superdome and all-of-a-sudden Massachusetts was flooded with recipes for Jambalaya and Gumbo. What did that have to do with football?

The spotlight is on Pittsburgh, Arizona, and Tampa right now. Bask in the glow. Promote yourselves.

Why would the New York Times be writing articles about Pittsburgh?
Why would a St Louis beer program come on yelp to ask about Pittsburgh beers?
Why would the Miami Herald write an article about Pittsburgh?

The Steelers are in the Super Bowl.

We, as a city, have a symbiotic relationship with the Steelers. From the guys who freeze their asses off selling black-and-gold everything at the Strip to the head honchos that own the gazillion parking spaces adjacent to Heinz Field. The Steelers make money. We make money. We get publicity.

Why not embrace it?

A Sign Of Worried Folks

The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl and Obama was inaugurated this week.

So what is the theme of the "most e-mailed" stories from the Post-Gazette?

Most E-mailed Stories

1. Filene's Basement in Waterfront reportedly closing
2. Mountain View Inn closing in Westmoreland County
3. Highmark merger called off
4. Old Navy closing Century III Mall store
5. Mountain View Inn abruptly announces closing

Ouch. I guess we do care about something besides football.

On Population and Transportation

How many of us have invited out-of-towners to visit and had them be shocked about how nice Pittsburgh actually is? How cool the bridges and museums are? How sweet all the old architecture and stained glass is? How funky all the coffee shops and art galleries are?

For me, it's the never-ending story. (To which I respond, why else do you think I would have moved here??? Masochism???)

So maybe we should be focusing on getting more people here? It's a noble goal of VisitPittsburgh and the ever-green convention center. However, we all know those organizations are pretty pathetic and clearly they aren't getting the message across on a broad scale. Plus, it doesn't solve the actual getting-here problem.

The New York Times and Forbes are attempting to deal with the attitude problem.

So we're left with the problem of accessibility.

It's hard to get a non-stop flight here unless you're coming from Baltimore, NYC, or Boston - places that already have a gazillion non-stop flights. We can't even fly non-stop to Harrisburg.

The interstate and intrastate train and bus situation is horrendous. Either you transfer 3 times to get anywhere worthwhile or take about 3 times longer than the equivalent car trip. The brand-new Steel City Flyer is the one exception to the rule. And now we're tolling the hell out of people who dare to take the turnpike. Interstate 80 is barely holding on as the one bastion of free-riding left in the state.

Heck, we haven't even actually finished the Great Allegheny Passage, the bike route between DC and Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately, we are inconvenient and out of the way of every major tour itinerary around the country. How do we fix that?

I don't know. But it seems to me that intrastate and interstate initiatives are a good start. Why don't we start working with Cleveland or Philadelphia? Instead we're fighting Toledo's population count, and all these mid-size cities are fighting for their own pieces of pie instead of realizing that Toledo is a stop on the future high-speed train to Chicago. These are the big nation-changing projects that I'd love to see Obama's stimulus package devoted to.

This is a recurring theme on the Burgh Diaspora who loves the term Cleveburgh. And I'm coming around to the idea. Let's think bigger. Pittsburgh has a great central location. Let's stop Pittsburgh from being the end of the line.

Proud to be in Pittsburgh

Steelers going to the Super Bowl and Obama inaugurated. What a week.

Looking forward to seeing democracy in action unfold over the next year in Pittsburgh, too.

To those who doubt, realize that if a truly good candidate comes along, Pittsburgh will see it. Remember that the "ignorant" and "racist" city of Pittsburgh helped bring Obama to this moment. Not the suburbs. Not Butler county. Not Beaver County.

Today, I'm proud to be in Pittsburgh.

UPDATE: I won't be there tonight, but I wish I could be. I hope everyone celebrates responsibly.

Woooooo!

Tonight, I'm just happy we're going to the Super Bowl.

Screw you, Wall Street Journal.

I paid my drink tax tonight.

UPDATE:
It's hard to take sportsmania as a negative sign. There was so much goodwill and happiness (and drunkenness) last night. Who said sportsmania was a substitute for economic success? Can't we just like our sports?

And we do have a sweet football stadium.

On Property Tax

For those of you who may have missed it, Onorato attempted to address my property tax question during his cyber town hall meeting. I was pleasantly surprised to see my question addressed and not tossed aside. I was also pleased to hear him attempt to tackle other tough questions, and I was pleased to see him reaching out to the community, especially involving high school students, in such a down-to-earth accessible manner.

However, I have to say I wasn't completely satisfied with his answer.

He made many points (which I've paraphrased below.)
1) The 2001 and 2002 assessments were performed very poorly.

I have no idea why there were back-to-back re-assessments in this county. That was before my time. Clearly, there is absolutely no need to waste tax-payers money re-assessing every single year. I'd be perfectly happy with a planned 3-4 year cycle of re-assessments.

2) The city spent a lot of money and time on appeals relating to the 2001-2 re-assessments.

If those re-assessments were performed so poorly, then the team should be fired, and a new re-assessment team should be hired. If 180,000 people filed appeals, that's a broken re-assessment system.

3) He canceled the 2006 re-assessment (which he is proud of.)

Let me share a story. While I was living in Connecticut, the state found that the emissions testers were corrupt. They temporarily canceled all emissions testing in the state while they attempted to create a new clean system. Then a few years later, they re-started emissions testing with the new system in place.

If Dan Onorato were in charge of emissions testing in Connecticut, his analogous response would have been to cancel emissions testing forever because the particular system wasn't working. He would defend this stance for the rest of his term by pointing to how corrupt the old system was.

4) He said that 85% of property values increased when properties were re-assessed.

Let's get something straight. Housing prices (in a normal society) increase. It's perfectly natural and expected that prices will increase. In fact, if housing prices didn't increase we'd be in trouble. HOWEVER, the increased value of an assessed house SHOULD NOT mean increased property tax. When values go up, the county or the city or whomever, SHOULD adjust the mill rate DOWN so that the net result for them is about the same. Is there a law against that in Harrisburg???

He said: "County school districts and the municipalities all base their property taxes off the assessed values". If these school districts and municipalities refuse to lower their mill rate, then they are ripping off their citizens. That is where the offense should be - not the ridiculous stance of pretending property values haven't changed in 40 years.

5) Other counties around us follow the base-year assessment strategy.

In summation, Dan says all the other counties are refusing to fix the system, so why should he?
If all the other counties can break the law and propagate inequity, why can't he?

Dan, stop whining and do something about this unfair setup. That's how you'll prove you're capable of being governor.