Let’s be clear: Downtown Pittsburgh and the Strip District belong to the people who live, work, and spend time in the city. Not to folks commuting in from the suburbs who think they get a say in how we use our streets. If you live in Cranberry or Upper St. Clair and only come into town twice a year to see a Penguins game and complain about parking, this plan isn’t for you. This is about building a better city for the people who are actually here every day, breathing the exhaust, dodging traffic, and trying to cross intersections that feel more like obstacle courses than public space.

Pedestrianizing Downtown and the Strip is not radical. It is common sense. These are dense, walkable neighborhoods full of small businesses, markets, and cultural landmarks. They should be places where people can move freely, safely, and comfortably. Not places where cars crawl through at five miles an hour looking for parking while blocking buses and endangering cyclists. We don’t need more traffic lanes. We need more room for people. If that upsets someone who thinks they’re entitled to drive their SUV straight into the heart of the city and park for free, they’re welcome to write a strongly worded Facebook post about it. Meanwhile, we’ll be out here building a city that actually works.

People keep asking if we can add bike lanes to the busways. And I get it. It sounds reasonable. But let’s think bigger. Let’s stop trying to squeeze bikes into leftover space and start designing infrastructure that puts them first. That’s why I’m proposing we convert the East and West Busways into the East and West Bikeways. These corridors are already grade-separated, already connected, and already underutilized by the standards of what they could be. It is time to flip the script.

The new Bikeways will be primarily for bikes, with dedicated bus lanes included where they make sense. Not the other way around. This is about building a real, citywide cycling network that treats bikes as transportation, not decoration. Imagine riding from Swissvale to Downtown without a single car in your path. Imagine a protected, continuous route from Carnegie to the Point, with lighting, signage, and space to breathe. That is what the Bikeways will deliver. And if anyone says it can’t be done, I invite them to take a ride and see how much space we’re wasting by not doing it already.

The Fort Pitt Bridge is not a free ride anymore. If you want to drive your private vehicle straight into the heart of Pittsburgh, you should help pay for the privilege. Every day, thousands of cars pour into the city across that bridge, burning gas, clogging streets, and wearing down infrastructure that the rest of us are left to maintain. Meanwhile, the people who actually live in the city are stuck breathing the fumes and dodging the traffic. That’s not fair, and it’s not sustainable.

Putting a toll on inbound traffic across the Fort Pitt Bridge is a simple way to start shifting the cost of car culture back onto the people who benefit from it most. The money raised will go directly into building better bike infrastructure, improving public transit, and making our streets safer for everyone who isn’t behind the wheel of a two-ton machine. If you want to keep driving into the city every day, that’s your choice. But choices have costs, and it’s time we stopped pretending otherwise.

Pittsburgh is a serious sports town, and it deserves a professional baseball team that takes the game seriously. We have one of the most iconic ballparks in the country, a fan base that shows up no matter what, and a city that knows what real competition looks like. What we need now is a team that reflects that spirit with real investment, real effort, and a real desire to win.

That is why we should start exploring new options for professional baseball in Pittsburgh. If there are ownership groups out there ready to bring energy, ambition, and accountability to the field, we should be talking to them. And if it makes sense, we should consider giving the lease to PNC Park to a new tenant. This is not about holding onto the past. It is about building a future where Pittsburgh baseball is something the city can be proud of again.

Millvale is beautiful. Everyone knows it. Great trails, great people, great pierogies. It is right there across the river, practically begging to be part of something bigger. And I am saying it now, loud and clear: Pittsburgh should acquire Millvale. It is time to bring it into the fold as our 91st neighborhood. This is not a hostile takeover. This is a generous offer. A tremendous opportunity. Millvale wins, Pittsburgh wins, everybody wins.

We have the infrastructure. We have the vision. And we have the bikes. Millvale already acts like part of the city. People ride through it, walk to it, hang out in it. So let’s make it official. Let’s give Millvale the recognition it deserves and the resources it needs. We will connect it with better transit, better bike lanes, and better access to the rest of the city. It will be the crown jewel of the North Side. And if anyone in Millvale is unsure, I say this: come ride with us. You will never look back.

In the Bikes administration, cops will be directed to leave people alone if they’re just sort of high on weed or mushrooms and minding their own business, especially if they’re in the woods.