The streetcar lines from the South Hills all converge downtown and go into a clean and pleasant subway. Steel Plaza station, shown here, is where the short line to Penn Station (served only in rush hour) branches off the main line. Here a not-in-service car from Penn Station sits at the platform waiting for its next assignment.
Update: Here is old Pa Pitt’s most recent map of Pittsburgh rapid transit:
Click on the image for a PDF copy.
The article below is kept here for historical reasons, but the map below is out of date.
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Public transit, like everything else in Pittsburgh, is wonderfully confusing. We have buses, busways, streetcars or trolleys, inclines, and subways (the main one where the streetcars run downtown, as well as a subway for the streetcars in Mount Lebanon, a transit tunnel for buses and streetcars under Mount Washington, and a long tunnel on the West Busway).
For our purposes, “rapid transit” means what the Port Authority bureaucrats call “fixed-guideway systems,” meaning transit that runs on rails or on its own dedicated track. Streetcars or trolleys (the terms are interchangeable here) sometimes run on the street with the rest of the traffic, but they have their own rails. Busways are high-speed tracks for buses that work like subways, with infrequent stations rather than a stop on every corner. Inclines go from down to up or up to down.
If you prowl around the Port Authority’s Web site long enough, you can find maps of most of these things. But you can’t find a map that tells you how much fun you can have. Here’s where old Pa Pitt steps in with a map that shows you how to use rapid transit to get to some of Pittsburgh’s main attractions.
The obvious missing piece in our transit system is a rapid-transit line to Oakland, the intellectual heart of Pittsburgh. Bus service from downtown to Oakland is frequent, but many people refuse to ride buses who would ride rapid transit. There is, however, good reason to hope that the omission will be corrected soon. Meanwhile, here is a map of the otherwise excellent system we do have. Click on the image to download the map in PDF form.
Many Pittsburghers from between the rivers firmly believe that streetcars are extinct in Pittsburgh. They are indeed extinct between the rivers, except where they run underground in the subway; but south of the Mon they still run on the street in Allentown and Beechview, and on their own right-of-way far out into the southern suburbs.
Above, a Route 42S car rolls outbound up Broadway in Beechview. Below, an inbound car begins its crossing of the viaduct between Fallowfield and Westfield.
An editorial cartoon by Jamieson of the Dispatch from 1906, when the need for a subway in Pittsburgh was already obvious and urgent. The subway downtown opened in 1985, seventy-nine years later.
PCC car no. 1711, restored to Pittsburgh Railways red and cream, at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. This car was active on Route 47 until a few years ago, when the PCC cars were finally retired.
