Transportation in Pittsburgh

:"Main article: Pittsburgh"

Pittsburgh, surrounded by rivers and hills, has a unique transportation infrastructure that includes roads, tunnels, bridges, railroads, inclines, bike paths and stairways.

Roads

Pittsburgh has a high number of freeze/thaw cycles in the winter, sometimes blamed for the difficulty of maintaining local roads. The hills and rivers of Pittsburgh form many barriers to transportation within the city.

[
I-579, I-279 and I-376.]

The main highway connecting Pittsburgh to the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) on the east is I-376, locally known as the "Parkway East." Parkway East includes the locally notorious Squirrel Hill Tunnels, where several accidents have involved tall trucks getting stuck against the tunnel roof. I-279 runs north and west of the city, called "Parkway North" or the "Parkway West." It connects the city with the North Hills and the Cranberry area from the north, Greentree to the west. The Parkway West leads to the Pittsburgh International Airport main terminal, numbered as United States Route(s) 22/30 and later, via the contiguous Airport Parkway and Southern Expressway, Pennsylvania Route 60. It is due to be redesignated Interstate 376.

Unlike many other major U.S. cities, Pittsburgh lacks a dedicated contiguous beltway surrounding the city. I-76 (Pennsylvania Turnpike), I-79, and I-70 form a roughly triangular-shaped "beltway," but the distance of these roads from the city center and the need to exit and enter each leg in order to continue circling the city render them impractical as a beltway; commuters are forced to use secondary roads to go from suburb to suburb. The Pittsburgh/Allegheny County Belt System is an attempt at dealing with this without additional infrastructure.

I-579, or the "Crosstown," is a spur off of I-279 that alleviates downtown and North Shore traffic headed north or south and to events at either the convention center or the arena.

Interstate 279, the "Parkway North" section of the highway north of the city and a short section of Interstate 579 over the Veterans Bridge have reversible high occupancy vehicle HOV lanes for rush-hour commuting. The HOV lanes require a minimum of two occupants per vehicle for use; no electric/hybrid vehicle "HOV OK" program has yet been made available. On August 25, 1995, six people were killed in a head-on collision on the HOV lanes after a highway employee opened the gates for traffic in both directions to use the HOV lanes simultaneously. The employee was later found to have been under the influence of cocaine.

Bridges

Pittsburgh is a city of bridges: over 2,000 bridges dot the landscape of Allegheny County [http://www.pghbridges.com/articles/fieldnote_howmany.htm] . The southern entrance to Downtown is through a tunnel and then over the Fort Pitt Bridge.

The Panhandle Bridge, a former railroad bridge, carries the Port Authority's 42S/47L subway lines across the Monongahela River. Other notable bridges are Fort Duquesne Bridge, the Liberty Bridge and The Three Sisters.

A comprehensive survey of regional bridges is at [http://pghbridges.com/index.htm Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, PA] .

Airports

The city is served by Pittsburgh International Airport in suburban Findlay Township, Pennsylvania, formerly a hub--and presently a Key Focus City [" [http://www.usairways.com/common/resources/_downloads/usaroutemap.pdf USAirways USA Route Map] ." "USAirways route map." Retrieved June 1 2007. ] .--for US Airways.

General aviation is served by the Allegheny County Airport. Its terminal is of a 1920s art-deco design. It once hosted Charles Lindbergh and handles 139,000 private and corporate-jet flights a year.

Mass transit

Local public transportation is coordinated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, or "PAT," the 14th-largest urban mass transit system in the United States. The system services 730 square miles (1891 km²), including all of Allegheny County and portions of Armstrong, Beaver, Washington, and Westmoreland Counties [" [http://www.ridegold.com/grow/pgstats.asp General Information and Statistics] ." "Port Authority Transit." Retrieved June 26 2006. ] . The fare structure is zonal - a one-way fare ranges from $1.25 to $2.75, depending on the number of zones through which a passenger travels. PAT maintains a network of intracity bus routes, a incline on Mt. Washington above Downtown (mostly a tourist attraction rather than a means of commuting), and a subway/busway system. The subway part of the system utilizes light rail vehicles that travel between Downtown and the southern suburbs underground, at grade, and above ground along the largely-parallel [http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/apps/pdfs/42S.pdf 42S] and [http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/apps/pdfs/47L.pdf 47L] lines; the busway utilizes high-speed articulated buses that run at grade and above ground on their own right-of-way with platform stations (much like a subway system), along two lines -- the [http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/apps/pdfs/100.pdf 100] line from the western suburbs (eventually including Pittsburgh International Airport) into Downtown and the [http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/apps/pdfs/eba.pdf EBA] line from Downtown to the eastern suburbs. The South Busway partially parallels the 47L subway line and allows buses to southern Allegheny County to provide express service to downtown. No North Busway exists - express buses to the north use the I-279 HOV lane to travel the peak direction, so it seems unlikely that this will change. Construction on a subway line extension to the city's North Shore section underneath the Allegheny River is scheduled to be completed by 2010. The subway and busway lines converge at Pittsburgh's Penn Station, the city's Amtrak intercity rail station, although the extension to Penn Station has seen little to no service for over 15 years. All subway/busway stations outside Downtown have PAT station shuttles that serve the surrounding neighborhoods, and sections of the metropolitan area not served by the subway/busway system, including most of the northern suburbs, have regular PAT bus routes. For commuters from the outer suburbs in Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties the mass transit systems of those counties operate their own commuter shuttles to and from the city. PAT discontinued its commuter rail system in the 1980s.

Bicycling

Pittsburgh has a thriving cycling community despite steep hills and variable weather. Efforts have been made to incorporate the bicycle into the transportation system. The Three Rivers Heritage Trail encompasses all the trails in the city. The Eliza Furnace Trail, known locally as the "Jail Trail", stretches from Downtown (at the Allegheny County Jail) to the East End region of the city, where trail access can be found along some roads. The North Shore Trail spans from the Alcosan plant along the Ohio River and continues along the Allegheny River to Millvale. The Southside Trail follows the Monongahela River and currently ends in Baldwin Borough, but plans are underway to connect to McKeesport, completing the [http://atatrail.org/ Great Allegheny Passage] . This trail, in connection with the [http://www.bikewashington.org/canal/ C & O Canal Trail] , will form a continuous off-street trail from Pittsburgh to Washington DC. PAT has installed bike racks on some buses and it allows bikes on its subway/busway system during off-peak hours. [http://www.bike-pgh.org/ Bike Pgh!] is the local bicycle advocacy group and is working to make Pittsburgh safe, accessible, and friendly towards bicycle transportation. The non-profit [http://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=List_of_Community_Bicycle_Groups/ bike collective] , [http://www.freeridepgh.org/ Free Ride] , recycles bicycles and bike parts, teaches bicycle construction, and has programs to sell or earn a rebuilt bicycle. Additionally, bicycles can be borrowed at two places along the Heritage Trail through the [http://www.friendsoftheriverfront.org/new_pages/community_bike.htm Friends of the Riverfront/Dasani Blue Bikes] program.

Inclines and staircases

Two inclines ascend Mount Washington: Duquesne Incline and Monongahela Incline. Pittsburgh once had considerably more inclines [" [http://pghbridges.com/inclinelist.htm Inclines Listed by Location] " "Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania." Retrieved May 2 2007. ] and the Monongahela Incline was once paralleled by a freight incline.

Pittsburgh has more public staircases (737) than any other city in the United States, followed by Cincinnati and San Francisco. [http://www.phlf.org/news/mediaclips/2005/20050326TR_Steps.html] Many of these staircases have street names, and lead to hillside neighborhoods that can be difficult to access by car in winter.

Tunnels

Notable tunnels include the Armstrong Tunnel, Fort Pitt Tunnel, Liberty Tunnels, Squirrel Hill Tunnel, and the Wabash Tunnel.

Railroads

The city has Amtrak intercity rail service at Union Station and various freight railroads.

During the height of Pittsburgh's steel-making days, the city had many passenger and freight rail connections to railroad main lines. Many of these lines are still used for freight. With the backing of former Mayor Tom Murphy some railroad lines have been converted into multi-purpose trails, which have been rather popular. [" [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06057/660944.stm Forum: Stay hot on the trails] ." "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette." Retrieved May 2 2007. ]

Current railroads in Pittsburgh include:

Class I railroads

Norfolk Southern (NS)

Norfolk Southern operates the former assets of Conrail, composed of the assets of the Pennsylvania Railroad, instrumental in the formation of modern Pittsburgh. NS operates three lines through Pittsburgh:

*the original line, the Pittsburgh Line, from U.S. Steel's Edgar Thomson Steel Mill in Braddock, PA, over the Allegheny River near Downtown Pittsburgh, into Island Ave Yard where it becomes the Fort Wayne Line;

*the Mon Line, along the south shore of the Monongahela River from West Brownsville, PA, to Island Ave.Yard, formerly the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railroad, used by coal trains from southern Pennsylvania and trains with over-height cars that cannot fit under the roof of Penn Station on the Pittsburgh Line, accessing it via the a branch to the Port Perry bridge just east of Braddock. The Mon Line joins the Fort Wayne Line at Island Ave Yard after crossing the Ohio River over the Ohio Connecting (OC) Railroad bridge;

*the Conemaugh Line, along the north shore of the Allegheny River, serving several coal branch lines and power plants. Operations are centered around a small yard in Etna, PA. On the Mon and Pittsburgh lines over 60 trains a day pass through the city.

CSX

CSX operates the former assets of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE). Many of the old B&O lines have been removed or are unused. Formerly an important part of the B&O system, Glenwood Yard is leased and operated by the Allegheny Valley Railroad for local jobs. The yard used to give access to the B&O's Grant Street Station in Downtown Pittsburgh. The building has been rebuilt into a PNC Bank building and the old right-of-way is now a bike path. The B&O main line, which cuts north and under across Pittsburgh by using the Panther Hollow Tunnel, is now used by the AVR. The bridge over the Allegheny River is still used: AVR trains connect with Norfolk Southern's Pittsburgh Line about a mile east of Penn Station. CSX freight trains use the former P&LE through McKeesport, PA, and Braddock, PA, before crossing the Mononghela River into Homestead, PA. The P&LE line and the Mon Line run side by side until the Mon Line crosses the Ohio Connecting Railroad Bridge at McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. On an average day, the P&LE line carries about 30-35 trains.

Amtrak

Two trains serve Penn Station: the "Pennsylvanian" to New York via Philadelphia; and the "Capitol Limited" between Washington, DC and Chicago, which uses CSX from Washington to Pittsburgh's outer perimeter, the AVR through the Panther Hollow Tunnel in the university district, and NS from the AVR interchange through Penn Station to Chicago.

hortlines and regionals

* [http://www.wlerwy.com/ Wheeling and Lake Erie R.R.]
* [http://www.carloadexpress.com AVR (Allegheny Valley Railroad)]

References