Driving in Pittsburgh

If you are stuck for a conversation starter with people who are visiting Pittsburgh, one tried and true approach is to complain about the driving. The folks visiting our sanctuary last week were glad to know that it wasn't just them that were having trouble.

Pittsburgh is notoriously hard to drive in. The folks with the automated cars noticed that and decided that if their cars could make it here they could make it anywhere. They didn't ask if it would add to our stress levels. They just did it. For nearly two years those satellite-dish-adorned cars have had the run of the place, and only managed to kill one pedestrian that I know of.

The hills are part of the problem, of course, but the age of the city has to be part of it, too. There are roads that go practically straight up--or down, jutting off at funny angles from the main roads. In most cities, the large roads don't have stop signs, but here, they often do. If they didn't, some people would never get to work.

It is rare to find a four-way intersection with perpendicularly oriented streets. Usually there are an assortment of left and right turns at various acute and oblique angles, which can make using GPS an adventure. Sometimes it will advise you to take a "slight right" but that rarely covers all the options. There are usually at least two roads that could qualify.

There are a multitude of intersections that seem like they could have been designed by a third grader. Sometimes two roads decide they like each other enough to have a sort of a rendezvous which does not qualify as an intersection, but isn't exactly a merger, as the two roads eventually part company again, usually involving hills and oblique angles.

I was discussing this all with a friend last night and he opined that you would have to ask yourself before driving "do you feel lucky" to which I responded "you have to feel lucky or you'd never leave the house!" He laughed.

But something interesting has developed among the drivers of Pittsburgh. Though there are occasional honks of impatience, there also seems to be an unusual degree of empathy and general maturity. I was stuck in traffic for 15 minutes because a truck, going down a hill in reverse, had impaled itself on the steep angular streetbed below, and not one driver honked even once. Something that is also common to Pittsburgh is how marvelously often another driver will wave a person from a side street or parking lot in front of them; otherwise, between the speed on the oncoming traffic and the habitually horrid sight angles, you'd never get in. Pittsburgh drivers do this because they all know that it is impossible to drive here; we are all in the same boat, and if we do it for other people, it creates a culture in which they'll all do it for us. Here, the Golden Rule isn't just a nice maxim to live by, it is a survival skill.

Then, of course, there is the Pittsburgh left. The way this works is that a person making a left turn does it in front of the oncoming traffic before they have a chance to go, rather than yielding and waiting his turn. This works at certain intersections because the streets are narrow and, in order to accommodate transit vehicles, the white lines at which you have to stop may be 40 feet away from the white lines across the intersection. Neolithic drivers must have reasoned that they could make a left and be well on their way before it was a concern of anybody else. They are usually right. However, I did see one unfortunate driver nearly get his clock cleaned trying to do this maneuver in front of impatient traffic. I have been lefted on a few times; I've been counting, and in the two years I've lived here I've made six of them myself. But you have to know when to do so. I don't think my insurer has a category for "Pittsburgh left" that gets anyone off the hook in case of an accident.

If you are traveling to Pittsburgh these are things to know. This is not new knowledge. At the top of the Duquesne Incline is displayed a column written by famous WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle before the war in which he lamented the difficulties of driving here. Things haven't gotten any better. The roads in the winter can be awful: last year we had chuck holes deep enough and wide enough to have their own zip codes. The city brought out what I assume were a herd of asphalt shitting cows to graze around the holes and produce chaotic piles of black tarry stones which were soon strewn all over everyone's cars and the rest of the city, opening the holes again a couple of days later. The following summer they came with the real equipment and managed to lay a brand spanking new surface in just a few days.

Those wishing to learn compassion and non-attachment can either travel to the Himalayas and learn it from the wise monks on the high mountains, or you can save some travel time and expense if you live in the United States by coming to Pittsburgh and bringing your car. Sometimes the best lessons in life can be had for only $3.69 a gallon.