Father Pitt

Author: Father Pitt

  • Pittsburgh Rapid Transit (again)

    Click on the image for a PDF copy.

    By far the most popular features on this site are the Pittsburgh rapid-transit maps Father Pitt created himself, probably because the Port Authority hasn’t had a decent overall rapid-transit map since about 1990. But old Pa Pitt’s most recent map is badly out of date, and it’s time for a revision. Here it is.

    Three kinds of transit are used on Pittsburgh’s rapid-transit lines, or “fixed-guideway systems” as the bureaucrats call them:

    Trolleys or streetcars run on the Red Line and the two Blue Lines. All the lines go into a subway downtown and under the Allegheny to the North Side.

    Busways are metro lines for buses; they are designed like subways, with stations relatively far apart.

    Inclines go from the bottom of Mount Washington to the top. Although they move slowly, they are still by far the fastest way to make the trip without a helicopter.

    Father Pitt’s map uses the mnemonic device of colored lines for the busways. The official Port Authority map uses the same colored lines, obviously the remnant of some scheme, very much like Father Pitt’s “Pittsburgh Metro” idea, that was quashed by senior executives; but the lines are never named, and the reason for the letters in the routes that travel the busways is never officially explained.

    The Port Authority also uses orange-colored lines, and bus routes beginning with “O,” for the carpool lanes in the Parkway North. Father Pitt has not included those lines on this map.

    Much of the controversy over “bus rapid transit” comes from the corner-cutting implementation in other cities. Boston, for example, has its “Silver Line,” popularly called the “Silver Lie,” which crosses at-grade intersections and has to deal with city traffic, yet is promoted as equivalent to a subway line. Pittsburgh did it right. Our busways really are metro lines for buses: no at-grade intersections, no mixing with traffic. The trip from downtown to Shadyside by busway is literally twice as fast as the quickest automobile route. Father Pitt still thinks rail transit is superior, but he cannot withhold his admiration, however grudging, for the excellent bus rapid transit we do have.

  • Diamond Building

    The Diamond Biulding, at Fifth and Liberty Avenues, is a curiously shaped irregular pentagon, one of the many buildings forced into odd shapes by the colliding grids along Liberty Avenue. Except for the shape, it’s a fairly standard beaux-arts tower, with base, shaft, and cap, and  an exuberant bronze cornice at the very top. The building was designed by MacClure and Spahr, a Pittsburgh firm that gave us several other distinguished buildings, including the Union National Bank building on Fourth Avenue.

  • Liberty Avenue

    Looking northeast on Liberty Avenue

    Downtown Pittsburgh is laid out in two colliding grids, and Liberty Avenue is where they collide. On the right-hand side of Liberty Avenue downtown (as we look at it here), the streets form baffling acute and obtuse angles that force buildings into all sorts of curious shapes. This is the view eastward from Sixth Street.

  • Woods in Frick Park

    Sunlight filters through the woods in Frick Park. Miles of trails meander through the forest here, and it’s easy to forget that the park is in the middle of otherwise crowded urban neighborhoods.

  • Pine Creek, Etna

    Pine Creek, which in many parts of the world would be called a river, glimmers in the late-afternoon sun. This little paradise of woods and water is in the middle of the crowded borough of Etna, but it’s easy to forget the city as you listen to the burbling rapids.

  • Gateway Station, Above the Ground

    The part of the new Gateway subway station that projects above the ground is a weirdly surrealistic pile of glass that will probably look “futuristic” far into the future, in that wonderfully hokey way that old Flash Gordon serials still look “futuristic” today. This is meant as a compliment. Most trends in architecture look terribly dated a few years later, but the most outrageous Art Deco or Space-Age creations never look stale, even when we can hardly believe that they ever actually got built. The multiple angles of the glass reflect the surrounding buildings in a wild cacophony of fractured images. The architects have succeeded in creating a station that Pittsburghers will want to show off to visitors, and that we will enjoy using ourselves.

  • New Subway: Allegheny

    Between North Side and Allegheny the subway comes up out of the ground and rises to a viaduct past Heinz Field, until it ends (for now) at Allegheny between the casino and the Science Center. Allegheny is thus one of our two fully elevated stations (Fallowfield, which juts out over the edge of a cliff, is mostly elevated), the other being First Avenue. It’s an attractive station whose best feature is its entrance, which actually looks as pure and sharp as an architect’s conceptual drawing.

  • New Subway: North Side

    The North Side station is our deepest underground station, and the only fully underground station outside downtown. It’s at the north end of the pair of tunnels that carry the subway under the Allegheny.

    Compared to the older underground stations—Wood Street, Steel Plaza, and the old Gateway Center—this one is built on a grand scale, more reminiscent of the Metro in Washington than the rest of the subway in Pittsburgh. The decor is minimal, emphasizing the openness of the space.

  • New Subway: Map

    The map displayed in subway stations, showing the extension of the line to Gateway, North Side, and Allegheny. Click on the picture for a very large version.

  • New Subway: Gateway

    The new subway line to the North Side is rolling, and the stations are beautiful and functional. We begin with the wonderfully airy new Gateway station, which is flooded with natural light from the glassy superstructure above.

    The mural “Pittsburgh Recollections” by Romare Bearden has been removed from the old Gateway Center station and reinstalled here at Gateway.

    The old Gateway Center still survives as a ghost station; watch carefully for it between Wood Street and Gateway. Its name also survives in a curious way; it sounds as though the original recorded station announcement has been clumsily edited. As you come up on the new Gateway station, you hear a voice saying, “Approaching Gateway Ce—.” [UPDATE: This voice announcement has since been re-recorded without the ghostly sibilant.]