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About a third of the households in Pittsburgh don't own cars. They don't need them--the public transit network is comprehensive and efficient. In addition to hundreds of bus routes, there are several forms of rapid transit, which for our purposes can be defined as anything that runs on rails or has its own dedicated right-of-way. The Port Authority, which runs the transit system, refers to these routes as "fixed-guideway systems," which suggests that English is not a bureaucrat's native language.
Light-rail routes 42L, 42S, 47 (currently closed for construction), and 52 begin in the subway downtown at Gateway Center and fan out into the South Hills. Three "busways," high-speed dedicated highways for buses, run east, west, and south. Finally, two "inclines" (the local term for funicular railways) run up the side of Mount Washington.
