You really go out of your way to be the biggest prick in this sub, don't you?

> Just stay behind them.
 

Cyclists have no obligation to "just stay behind" anyone. Driving is not a competition. Cyclists filtering ahead aren't doing it just to make you sad. They are doing it so they don't get killed.

So we don't die in squeeze crashes like this lady did.
 
https://www.wtae.com/article/arrest-in-oakland-crash-that-killed-woman-riding-bike/7479508

 
This particular thing exemplifies pointless driver rage in this city. Cyclists perform this innocuous act that harms no one in order to keep themselves from getting killed in a rear end crash, and drivers absolutely lose their minds over it. They act like cyclists are somehow doing it at them, instead of doing it to stay safe.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/oakland-motorist-bicyclist-road-rage-attack/
 
As long as drivers act like their commutes are a competition that they have to "win", our roads are never going to get any safer.

> Yeah well, you should check again cause they're now all clearing 100k.

 
And that is peanuts. It isn't 1965 anymore.
 
Every number I can find indicates that they're spending less than two tenths of a percent of the state budget to operate the General Assembly. There are bigger fish to fry.

So to be clear, you have no idea what you think it should cost to operate a legislature and you're just complaining like a Facebook Grandpa?

 
> And the rank and file representatives are all now clearing six digits in salary,

 
Woopty fuckin' doo, it isn't 1965 anymore. Their base salary is $90K last I checked. That ain't much.

 
If you're concerned about waste let's go after the PA State Police, who have a budget in excess of $831m per year and suck up a huge amount of our gas taxes that should be going to highways.

Tack on $22,770,000 for 253 General Assembly members' salaries and we've got $73.8m more or less, per year. Still less than two tenths of a percent of the state's entire budget.
 
What is an acceptable cost to run a legislature in your opinion? What is an acceptable salary for legislators if $90K is just excessive, in your opinion?
 
If you've got better numbers for the total cost to operate the general assembly than I've got here, you're welcome to show us. Because all I can see here is Grandpa yelling the clouds over a tiny fraction of the state budget.

Uruguay absolutely is.

To clarify, you think that ~$51m a year is an exorbitant amount to operate a legislature?
 
That is less than 1/10th of the city of Pittsburgh School District's yearly budget. It is 1/10 of 1% of the state's budget.
 
It isn't 1965 and bread doesn't cost a nickel a loaf anymore, grandpa.

> I wasn't talking about the state budget, I was referring to the actual legislative body,

 
Can you tell me exactly where you think the pay for the legislative body comes from?
 
This is a perfect Facebook Grandpa post. Short on numbers, long on ranting and feels.

Pennsylvania's entire state budget for 2022 was $42.5b. Ohio's state budget for the same year was over $80b for a smaller population and a smaller economy.
 
Pennsylvania's budget per capita is the third lowest in the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets

 

People in this sub, and on Grandpa's Facebook feed, love to hoot and holler about how wasteful the state government here is but the numbers don't bear it out.

Boy, do I have some good news for you about the climate here in twenty years.

So mad about taxes you're moving to the third world to avoid paying them lol. That is some Facebook Grandpa All-Star stuff.

"When I don't like something, it's communism"

Every other day there's a post here crying about this tax or that tax. Really makes u think.

They used to call capital gains "unearned income" for a reason.

You know I'm right, that's why you've got nothing except cursing at me.

I have family in the area and drive on 11&15 whenever I'm out there. It isn't congested in any sense of the meaning unless you're a country bumpkin who doesn't understand what real traffic looks like.

Ten new buses would cost about $7 million and move more people in any given year than your billion dollar highway from nowhere, to nowhere.

 
There are 80-100K people living in the entire area this highway would service. There are more people than that living within a twelve mile radius of me.
 
$1b so a few bumpkins can get home a couple minutes earlier from work is an insane amount of waste.

> Tell you what…look at a fucking map instead of worry about where I live/work.

 
You told us where you live and work. I checked a map. Driving from A to B takes sixteen minutes.

 
> There is a real issue with thru traffic that makes it damn near impossible to navigate that strip.

 

Apparently not, since people do it every day.

 
We don't need to piss away a billion dollars on a highway from nowhere to nowhere so you can get home four minutes earlier.

They have a catering service, too? Starting to think that if Knoebel's ever shut down the economies of Northumberland and Columbia counties would collapse.

> Can't speak for California. In PA more roads and lanes often do help.

 
Pennsylvania does not exist on a fundamentally different plane of existence than California, so no they don't. As any trip through the freeways in Philly will show you.
 
> but not building new roads / adding lanes isn't the answer either.

 
The answer is to remove vehicles from the road. That is the only way to alleviate traffic. Unfortunately, most Americans cannot imagine a life that doesn't involve driving alone an average of 40 miles a day.
 
> In my view, among the most promising is on-demand public transit. Instead of full-size buses running on a fixed routes, using a mix of vehicles from vans to full-size buses instead with flexible routes. Closest analogy would be Uber Pool. If done right, many would use it.

 
Congratulations, you just reinvented the jitney.

> The cvst is a better investment. 15 miles for $1billion

 
That may be a "better" investment, that does not mean it's a good investment. Fewer people live in the area that would be served by this abortion of a project than live in the Mon Fayette service area.

If PennDOT were proposing to give SEPTA or PRT > $1b for expansion the middle of the state would have a total shitfit.

Nobody lives in the areas served by this proposed freeway. Why piss away over a billion dollars to put a highway from nowhere to nowhere in?
 
According to Google Maps it takes sixteen minutes to drive from Selinsgrove to Middleburg. How much shorter a commute are you looking for here?

> More lanes often do help.

 
No, they don't.
https://www.planetizen.com/definition/induced-demand

 
Read this book:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865477506/suburbannation
 
In a nutshell, the problem is that our road network works on a trunk-and-feeder system. You've got a great many surface feeder streets and roads feeding into a limited number of high speed trunk highways. Adding more lanes to a freeway will not work as long as the feeder lanes exceed the trunk lanes.
 
https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innovation-system-information/documents/final-reports/10-12-2015-ncst_brief_inducedtravel_cs6_v3.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/widen-highways-traffic.html

 
California has been adding lanes to LA-area freeways for decades at this point and it's only made traffic worse.

 
> Not going to change your mind, but pointing this out for others. Many PA residents want and demand more highways.

 
Many PA residents don't know what they actually want. What they actually want is to not spend so much time in their cars, because driving is a shitty boring chore. Adding lanes won't do that for them.