Transportation in Pittsburgh
A large metropolitan area that is surrounded by rivers and hills, Pittsburgh has an infrastructure system that has been built out over the years to include roads, tunnels, bridges, railroads, inclines, bike paths, and stairways; however, the hills and rivers still form many barriers to transportation within the city.
Roslyn Place is a small wooden-paved cul-de-sac located in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
[1][2][3] East Carson Street has one of the largest concentrations of 19th-century homes, which has prompted outsiders to call the neighborhood the City's Georgetown.
It is home to the global headquarters of U.S. Steel, Koppers Chemicals, Federated Investors, and Oxford Development.
On August 25, 1995, six people were killed in a head-on collision on the HOV lanes after PennDOT employee William Dean Snyder failed to follow procedures.
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 light rail network is a direct descendant of the original streetcar system, which once numbered dozens of lines and included interurban routes to neighboring cities such as Washington and Charleroi.
The current network comprises five routes on 25 miles (40 km) of track, operated by modern articulated light rail vehicles.
The latter use high-speed articulated buses that run at grade and above ground on their own right-of-way with platform stations, much like a rail system.
In some instances, such as the Mount Washington tunnel, these buses travel along paved sections of the light rail line.
The mass transit systems of Beaver, Fayette, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland counties (including Mid Mon Valley Transit Authority) operate their own commuter shuttles to and from the city; the private company Myers Coach Line operates commuter service from Butler County.
[7] The mass transit system of Monongalia County, West Virginia also provides connections to Pittsburgh.
Other area airports include: Megabus, Greyhound Lines, and Fullington Trailways connect Pittsburgh with distant cities by bus; Greyhound and Fullington Trailways buses stop at the Grant Street Transportation Center intercity bus terminal.
Popular destinations include Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C.[11] Two Amtrak trains serve Penn Station: the Pennsylvanian to New York City via Philadelphia, and the Capitol Limited between Washington, D.C. and Chicago, which uses CSX from Washington to Pittsburgh's outer perimeter, the AVR on the P&W Subdivision through the Panther Hollow Tunnel in the university district, and NS from the AVR interchange through Penn Station to Chicago.
Pittsburgh has more public staircases (737) than any other city in the United States, followed by Cincinnati and San Francisco.
The Southside Trail follows the Monongahela River and beyond Baldwin Borough connects to McKeesport via the Great Allegheny Passage.
In 2014, the City began installing segregated bike lanes, which provide greater physical safety to the biker.
[14] On September 6, bike lanes that stretch from Downtown Pittsburgh to the 16th Street Bridge on Penn Avenue were installed.
For many years, the multiple rail crossings in the suburb of Port Perry at the mouth of Turtle Creek on the Monongahela River and adjacent to the Edgar Thomson Works and Duquesne mills, was the highest concentration of freight traffic in the world.
Despite the near-complete collapse of heavy industry in the Northeast, Pittsburgh remains an extremely important link in the nation's rail network.
Formerly an important part of the B&O system, Glenwood Yard is leased and operated by the Allegheny Valley Railroad for local jobs.
The 33rd Street Railroad Bridge over the Allegheny River is still used: AVR trains connect with Norfolk Southern's Pittsburgh Line about a mile east of Penn Station.
