Transit Talk: Give us a water taxi, you cowards

Pittsburgh is a river town. Sadly, we no longer act like it — the main watercraft you're likely to see on our Three Rivers are coal barges, with the remaining traffic coming from private power boats, Cruisin' Tiki huts, and the Gateway Clipper fleet.

It doesn't have to be like this.

Ferries have a long history in the region. The Gateway Clipper already does substantial business carrying tourists from Station Square to Acrisure Stadium. Meanwhile, development in the Strip District and Sharpsburg has converted what was industrial waterfront into a public amenity. The time is ripe to connect the City of Bridges' revitalized waterfront via the rivers themselves using public water taxis.

We've experimented with water taxis before. Pittsburgh had federal grant funding earmarked for a pilot program as recently as 2012. There have been private services over the years, but these have proven challenging to scale. This is why local government should seriously consider stepping in — without the muscle and money of a public entity, private water taxis could again struggle to make sustainable profits or scale up quickly enough to get the public on board.

Some of the infrastructure is already there. Sharpsburg, Millvale, the Strip, the North Shore, Point State Park, Station Square, and the South Side already have marinas and mooring points where a small water taxi could park. Lawrenceville and Hazelwood Green have old barge docks that could be converted without much difficulty, and Homestead would be easy to reach, as well.

From there, a minimum of two ferries could sail in a loop from Sharpsburg's breweries to South Side's nightlife and back again from 7 a.m. to midnight, providing a fun way to commute, experience the city, and/or travel safely while enjoying an evening out in Pittsburgh. A potential stop at Hazelwood Green would give college students an Instagrammable way to venture outside of Oakland. A water taxi could also service the West End and the proposed Esplanade development without having to pass through a lock. All told, the two water taxis could likely complete a loop of the city's Three Rivers in an hour or so, thereby ensuring 30-minute intervals between departures (something not even all city bus lines do).

There are several major upsides to turning the rivers into a regular part of Pittsburgh's transit system.

The potential environmental benefits are one. Boats are more efficient than buses (and far more efficient than cars carrying solo commuters). If used at a similar rate to Pittsburgh's T, water taxis would offset some carbon output while also complementing and connecting existing service lines. Bicycle commuters using our riverfront trails would have a built-in multimodal service that avoids car traffic. Water-taxi technology itself is also getting greener, with Helsinki rolling out solar-powered autonomous ferries just last year.

Also, using more boats would put more Pittsburghers directly on the water, giving them a chance to appreciate the city from a new angle. If someone is willing to take a water taxi from South Oakland to Mario's, they might also be more likely to rent a kayak or participate in a riverbank cleanup.

Another big upside — fun. A water taxi along the Allegheny would be second only to the 91 bus in terms of how many breweries there would be along its length. Partiers could start their day at Dancing Gnome, steam down to catch a Riverhounds game, go dancing at Enclave and head back around the Point without ever getting into a car.

I know I'd like my commute more if it involved riding my bike to a dock and boating out into the Allegheny. While everyone else sits in traffic and honks in vain at drivers playing Candy Crush at the green light, I'd be on board a solar-powered ferry watching the sun glint on the murky waters of the Mon. It may sound unrealistic, but Helsinki, Paris, and even Oklahoma City already have water taxis — if a city with a fake river can have one, why not us?

Besides, just think how awesome our Pittsburgh City Paper barge watch content would be if we were sharing the rivers with the city's gentle giants. Give me the water taxi! Connect it to the Railroad St. T while you're at it. Then we can turn our attention to the Pittsburgh gondola.