Father Pitt

Category: Transit

  • East Busway at East Liberty Station

    East Busway at East Liberty station, with railroad

    The busways in Pittsburgh are built mostly along old railroad right-of-way, and most of the stations are placed very near where the old commuter-rail stations stood. The Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway is unique in that the railroad still runs next to it; space for the busway came from the abandonment of extra parallel tracks on the busy Pennsylvania Railroad main line. Above, an outbound bus stops at the East Liberty station.

    Pennsylvania Railroad emblem

    These views were taken from the Highland Avenue bridge across the railroad and busway. The bridge bears the Pennsylvania Railroad emblem in concrete.

    East Liberty station
    East Busway at Highland Avenue bridge
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    The use of the old railroad right-of-way, which runs in a series of hollows below the main street level of the neighborhoods it goes through, makes the East Busway a true rapid-transit line, as much grade-separated as a subway.

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  • University Line Stations Downtown

    Market Square Station

    Yesterday we spoke of the busways as bus rapid transit done right. Here we see it done…the other way. The new University Line will be what counts as “bus rapid transit” in most other cities: there will be dedicated lanes for the buses most of the way, but they will have to deal with traffic lights and dozens of at-grade intersections to get from downtown to Oakland.

    Wood Street BRT station
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Nevertheless, this will be leagues better than what we have now to get from downtown to Oakland, which is stacks of buses tied up in rush-hour traffic. Instead of street corners with little signs sticking out of poles to mark them as bus stops, we’ll have these sharp-looking stations, which will provide some shelter from the rain and a few amenities like farecard vending machines and emergency telephones. (Can you get emergency cat videos on those emergency telephones?) Here are two of the nearly complete stations downtown: Market Square, which is a short block from the Diamond, and Wood Street, which is right across the street from the Wood Street subway station.

    Addendum: A correspondent pointed out what we neglected to mention: that traffic lights at intersections will be synchronized to let buses pass through expeditiously. This is an important detail, and it is certainly true that it will make the system considerably swifter than it would be if the buses had to wait for the usual cycles. We reiterate that this will be much better than what we have now. Father Pitt would prefer a subway, but he doesn’t always get what he wants, and he is grateful for what he does get.

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  • Ingram Station on the West Busway

    Ingram station

    Like the Crafton station, the Ingram station on the West Busway is almost exactly where the old commuter-rail station used to be.

    West Busway from Ingram station

    The busways in Pittsburgh are extraordinary accomplishments that we seldom appreciate. They are true metro lines for buses, making it possible for commuters to rocket through crowded urban neighborhoods at expressway speeds. Father Pitt always thinks rail transit would be better, but Pittsburgh stands out both as the inventor of “bus rapid transit” and as one of the few cities where “bus rapid transit” was done right.

    Ingram station
    Olympus E-20N; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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  • Transit-Oriented Development

    Red line tracks on Broadway Avenue in Dormont
    Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

    “Transit-Oriented Development” is a favorite catch phrase among urban planners. In the early twentieth century, it was just the way development happened. Most people used streetcars to get to work, to shopping, and to all their amusements, so of course development and transit had to go together. Here we see a typical pattern: a main spine street—in this case, Broadway Avenue in Dormont—divided in two parts, with a broad median for trolleys. Many neighborhood main streets were built this way. Red Line trolleys still run here in Dormont, and Silver Line trolleys on a similar plan in Bethel Park.

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  • Passenger Jet Overhead

    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Steel Plaza

    Steel Plaza from the mezzanine

    Some pictures of Steel Plaza taken on a weekend when it was momentarily almost empty. The largest and most complex of our subway stations, Steel Plaza was built as a transfer station between the main line and a short spur to Penn Station—which, although it is not in regular service, is still kept up for special events and emergency detours. In the picture above, the Penn Station spur is in the foreground.

    Steel Plaza

    Here we see the two lines converging toward their junction in the tunnel beyond the station.

    Steel Plaza
    Lower-level platforms

    To add to the complexity, the station was designed to take the old PCC cars as well, which had only street-level doors. These lower-level platforms have been out of use since 1999, when the last PCC cars were retired, but the space isn’t useful for anything else, so the platforms are still there.

    Lower-level platforms
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  • Potomac Station

    Outbound Red Line car at Potomac station

    An outbound Siemens SD-400 car on the Red Line arrives at Potomac station in Dormont.

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  • Crafton Station on the West Busway

    Crafton Station on the West Busway

    With St. Philip’s Church in the background.

    Most Pittsburghers probably don’t think of the busways as very interesting phenomena, so give old Pa Pitt a few moments of your time and he will try to make even a busway interesting.

    First of all, Pittsburgh is one of the very few cities that did “bus rapid transit” routes as real metro lines for buses. The three busways—South, East, and West—don’t mix with street traffic or even have at-grade intersections.

    Second, although the busways as busways are products of the late twentieth century, they all have roots much earlier. We started building the West Busway in 1851. It is a curious fact of our busways that they are almost one-to-one replacements for the old commuter-rail routes that started working in the middle 1800s. Even the stations are mostly in the same places; the Crafton busway station is just a few yards from where the railroad station used to be.

    Part of the West Busway is a subway tunnel between Sheraden and Ingram. Construction on the Cork Run Tunnel began in 1851; after many interruptions; it was finally finished in 1865.

    So if you ride the West Busway today, you are riding 174 years of history. Take time to think about that the next time you have to get somewhere, and you may conclude that even busways can be interesting as well as useful.

    West Busway crossing Crennell Avenue at the Crafton station
    The West Busway crossing Crennell Avenue at the Crafton station. Camera: Olympus E-20N.
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  • Steel Plaza Subway Station

    Steel Plaza subway station

    Following the example of Montreal, Pittsburgh had each of its subway stations decorated by a different artist. The neon installation in Steel Plaza, called “River of Light,” is by Jane Haskell.

    Blue Line car entering Steel Plaza
    Steel Plaza

    The style of the station itself combines Brutalism with Postmodernism.

    Steel Plaza
    4201 car
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Trolley Number One, the very first car in the sequential numbering of current Pittsburgh trolleys.

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  • Gateway Station

    Gateway Station above the ground
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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