Still waiting for a real plan for Wilkinsburg

benfell

Pittsburgh

Annexations


Fig. 1. Wilkinsburg, photograph by author, November 25, 2020.

I still want to see a real plan, not mere neoliberal bullshit, for how a merger with Pittsburgh helps Wilkinsburg.[1] In February, the Pittsburgh City Council balked at a tight court-imposed deadline for moving forward on the earlier merger petition, wanting more time to study the idea.[2] So now, advocates are trying again.[3] But I’m still not seeing a real plan for how this would help Wilkinsburg.

Ryan Deto, “Wilkinsburg group restarts Pittsburgh annexation process,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 30, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/wilkinsburg-group-restarts-pittsburgh-annexation-process/

Infrastructure


Fig. 2. Post-collapse scene at the Fern Hollow Bridge, photograph by National Transportation Safety Board, January 29, 2022, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

The earlier closure of the northbound ramp from the Highland Park Bridge onto Pennsylvania Route 28 dumped an incredible amount of traffic onto Freeport Road, a two-lane road through Aspinwall. They’re closing it again.[4]

Their advice to motorists is to bypass the Highland Park Bridge entirely in favor of the not-so-far-away 62nd Street Bridge. It’s all part of a project to widen Route 28 at the Highland Park Bridge.[5]

Route 28 is a four-lane expressway. But at the Highland Park Bridge, the right lane northbound and the left lane southbound are exit-only lanes onto the bridge, creating a bottleneck as through traffic all squeezes into one lane. They’ve been working on adding a lane in each direction for a while now. And this is all part of a larger project that I actually mostly haven’t encountered but which is frustrating motorists[6] who typically exceed the speed limit on this roadway by no less than twenty miles per hour, regard themselves righteous as they do so, and are insufferable to anyone doing anything less.

Mary Ann Thomas, “Route 28 construction 70% done; the rest is coming — eventually,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 30, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/valley-news-dispatch/completion-of-route-28-construction-is-coming-eventually/

Megan Trotter, “Highland Park Bridge ramp to southbound Route 28 slated for long-term closure,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 30, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2022/09/30/highland-park-bridge-closure-route-28/stories/202209300091

Pennsylvania

2022 election


Fig. 3. There’s much too much of this kind of thing to be seen around Pittsburgh. Photograph taken by author through his windshield, May 17, 2022, just outside Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Oh yeah! Doug Mastriano has had a revelation and gone to Philadelphia to deliver it. The paleoconservative and social conservative appeals having failed to much move the Pennsylvania electorate, he’s trying some good old “law and order” paleoconservative (but also neoconservative) race-baiting. Oh, wait.

Of course, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of Philadelphia voting for Mastriano. He’d actually have a lot better luck with that line in Pittsburgh, which has had a spate of shootings this year.

About 75 people attended, with seats for at least double that. The appearance prompted about 30 people, including surrogates for Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign, to protest Mastriano’s visit outside the venue, the Deja Vu Social Club on Erie Avenue. The Philadelphia appearance follows a slew of bad news for his campaign in recent days, as strategists and GOP operatives have started questioning his chances, given a widening gap in the polls and little money. And as his floundering campaign has become the butt of late-night TV jokes.[7]

Mastriano seemed to be angling for the Latin vote.[8] Around Pittsburgh, at least, this population is very different from the one I encountered regularly in California. In California, Latin folks seem overwhelmingly to be from Mexico. Around Pittsburgh, they are much more often from Puerto Rico and other places around the Caribbean. Where some Mexican accents are instantly recognizable to me, I have a lot more trouble recognizing these accents. Eventually, I’ll recognize a Spanish word and that will be when I realize they’re speaking Spanish.

What I’m seeing is different even from what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:

Around 17% of the [Pittsburgh] region’s Hispanic population now lives in Beechview. A bulk of families hail from Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia, marking a shift from the neighborhood’s roots as a hub for Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants during the early 20th century.[9]

I’m not saying the Post-Gazette is wrong. It’s that I really don’t have a lot of contact with Latin folks here. I also don’t have any idea how Pittsburgh’s Latin population differs from Philadelphia’s.

“We’re out here today because Doug Mastriano has picked our community to push his extremist, extremist conservative views on education, on housing, on women’s reproductive health,” said Sage Cruz, co-executive director of Philadelphia’s One Pennsylvania chapter.[10]

So I have little idea how Mastriano’s appeal will play here. But even at seventeen percent of the Latin population, this population still only makes up ten percent of Beechview’s population. So I also don’t expect Mastriano’s appeal to Latin folks, even to the extent it succeeds, will be enough to sway the outcome. But maybe God has told him otherwise.

Julia Terruso and Marina Affo, “Doug Mastriano says ‘lawlessness is killing Philadelphia,’ as protesters outside call him ‘extremist,’” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/mastriano-hispanic-latino-town-hall-protests-20220930.html

Gig economy (neoliberal wet dream)

Bezzle


Fig. 1. “Clarkdale Classic Gas Station, Clarkdale, Arizona,” Photograph by Alan Levine, October 28, 2016, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

High up in a lengthy section on “why Lyft wins” in its public offering filing in 2019, Lyft identified the importance of being “driver-centric.” Despite this, many drivers today seem to prefer Uber. A July survey from UBS of more than 200 rideshare drivers found that, while drivers often use both apps, almost double the number of Lyft drivers use Uber as opposed to the inverse. Furthermore, the survey showed Lyft has a significantly higher percentage of dissatisfied drivers.[11]

It was relatively early in the pandemic when it came time for Lyft to do an annual background check on me. I can’t work for Lyft while Lyft runs its background check and I can’t work for Uber while Uber runs its background check. Both companies warned that background checks would take longer because of courts and other facilities being closed due to the pandemic.

Lyft accordingly took months to complete my background check. And then promptly decided it wanted another one. And another and another. Both Uber and Lyft use the same company for background checks; I have seen the report and there’s nothing to see—running it again won’t produce a different result. And when it came time for Uber to do my background check, they still completed it in under twenty-four hours. And didn’t want another one.

I have no idea what Lyft has against me. I have a 5.0 rating there. At Uber, it’s presently 4.93. But it was clear to me that Lyft doesn’t want me driving for them. So I don’t.

Laura Forman thinks that Uber’s diversity into deliveries is encouraging more drivers to work for Uber.[12] I won’t touch deliveries: The pay is about half what it is for passengers in an already very marginal business, there are parking issues at every stop (and a parking ticket would be enough to ruin my night), and the driver will, of course, be the prime suspect in any discrepancy between what the customer thinks they ordered and what the restaurant put in the bag.

Other drivers have told me that Lyft was sending them very long distances for very short rides. I did see that. In most cases, it seemed like the passenger saw it too and cancelled before I was long underway.

Both companies absolutely suck at user support (for both passengers and drivers). Both companies rely on what is essentially the same “independent contractor” scam for drivers. Both companies treat everyone, both passengers and drivers, as infinitely replaceable and utterly expendable. And neither of them is here for the long term;[13] their claims to profitability[14] are based on an utterly bogus “adjusted EBITDA” (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization).[15]

Laura Forman, “Why Lyft Is Eating Uber’s Dust,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-lyft-is-eating-ubers-dust-11664597545

  1. [1]David Benfell, “Wilkinsburg voters should insist on a better argument than ‘trickle-down’ for a merger into Pittsburgh,” Not Housebroken, April 1, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/01/06/wilkinsburg-voters-should-insist-on-a-better-argument-than-trickle-down-for-a-merger-into-pittsburgh/↩
  2. [2]Julia Felton, “Pittsburgh City Council votes down Wilkinsburg annexation, for now,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, February 8, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-city-council-votes-down-wilkinsburg-annexation-for-now/↩
  3. [3]Ryan Deto, “Wilkinsburg group restarts Pittsburgh annexation process,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 30, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/wilkinsburg-group-restarts-pittsburgh-annexation-process/↩
  4. [4]Megan Trotter, “Highland Park Bridge ramp to southbound Route 28 slated for long-term closure,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 30, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2022/09/30/highland-park-bridge-closure-route-28/stories/202209300091↩
  5. [5]Megan Trotter, “Highland Park Bridge ramp to southbound Route 28 slated for long-term closure,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 30, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2022/09/30/highland-park-bridge-closure-route-28/stories/202209300091↩
  6. [6]Mary Ann Thomas, “Route 28 construction 70% done; the rest is coming — eventually,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 30, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/valley-news-dispatch/completion-of-route-28-construction-is-coming-eventually/↩
  7. [7]Julia Terruso and Marina Affo, “Doug Mastriano says ‘lawlessness is killing Philadelphia,’ as protesters outside call him ‘extremist,’” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/mastriano-hispanic-latino-town-hall-protests-20220930.html↩
  8. [8]Julia Terruso and Marina Affo, “Doug Mastriano says ‘lawlessness is killing Philadelphia,’ as protesters outside call him ‘extremist,’” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/mastriano-hispanic-latino-town-hall-protests-20220930.html↩
  9. [9]Jesse Bunch, “In Beechview, a Latino influx transforms an old city neighborhood,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 17, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2022/09/17/beechview-latino-pittsburgh-city-neighborhood/stories/202209060070↩
  10. [10]Julia Terruso and Marina Affo, “Doug Mastriano says ‘lawlessness is killing Philadelphia,’ as protesters outside call him ‘extremist,’” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/mastriano-hispanic-latino-town-hall-protests-20220930.html↩
  11. [11]Laura Forman, “Why Lyft Is Eating Uber’s Dust,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-lyft-is-eating-ubers-dust-11664597545↩
  12. [12]Laura Forman, “Why Lyft Is Eating Uber’s Dust,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-lyft-is-eating-ubers-dust-11664597545↩
  13. [13]David Benfell, “This is not a business plan,” Not Housebroken, August 3, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/06/20/this-is-not-a-business-plan/↩
  14. [14]Laura Forman, “Uber’s Results Gas Up Rivals,” Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubers-results-gas-up-rivals-11659454009; Laura Forman, “Why Lyft Is Eating Uber’s Dust,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-lyft-is-eating-ubers-dust-11664597545↩
  15. [15]Hubert Horan, “Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Twenty-Two: Profits and Cash Flow Keep Deteriorating as Uber’s GAAP Losses Hit $8.5 Billion,” Naked Capitalism, February 7, 2020, https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-two-profits-and-cash-flow-keep-deteriorating-as-ubers-gaap-losses-hit-8-5-billion.html; Hubert Horan, “Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Twenty-Nine: Despite Massive Price Increases Uber Losses Top $31 Billion,” Naked Capitalism, February 11, 2022, https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-nine-despite-massive-price-increases-uber-losses-top-31-billion.html↩

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.