Tag Archives: Pittsburgh

Frick Park Bridges

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Some of my favorite Pittsburgh amenities are the city parks, which I don’t use nearly as much as I would like.  Each park has a slightly different flavor.  Highland Park has a reservoir that is popular among locals for walking and jogging exercising.  When I was a kid, I loved Highland Park because it had the best playground in the city–the wooden playground, perfect for all kinds of imaginary games including those set in pirate ships and castles.  Schenley Park is good for disc golf, ice skating and other sports.  Frick Park is best for hiking and provides a good escape from the noise and traffic of the city.

I walked 7 “bridges” in Frick Park.  Only one of these bridges can be counted toward the 446 non-railroad bridges of Pittsburgh.  Three of them I consider bridges, but the actual bridging portion was significantly less than eight feet.  While the other three are also called bridges on the map of Frick Park, they are really just glorified drain pipes.  I do not have a lot to say about any of these bridges, so the rest of the post will be short on words and long on pictures.

The one bridge that counts toward my goal of walking as many of the 446 bridges I can carries Forbes Avenue over the park.  It’s hard to see from the bridge because of all the trees, but one of the park’s main trails passes underneath the bridge.

The three structures I considered bridges crossed over a little stream that runs as parallel to the path mentioned above as nature allows.

The glorified drains are along the hillside where little stream-lets run down to the stream below.

Hot Metal Bridge

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After walking the Hot Metal Bridge, I realized that it is really three separate bridges.  One of the bridges is the bike/pedestrian bridge pictured above that crosses over Second Avenue.  The other two are in the background of the image above–one carries all vehicular traffic while the other carries all pedestrians and bicycles.  The bridge pictured above is not structurally connected with either of the other bridges.  The two bridges that span the Monongahela River were built at different times.  While at this end (north) the bridges are at the same level, they are at two different elevations on the other side of the river.

The Hot Metal Bridge is one of the more locally famous and popular bridges in the city.  In my experience of participating in and overhearing people’s conversations locally about Pittsburgh bridges, the Hot Metal and Smithfield Street bridges are the two that come up the most as fun to use and interesting.  In the case of the Hot Metal Bridge, this is perhaps because it used to be a set of railroad bridges which have now been converted.  They were built and used by the Jones & Laughlin Company to connect its sites on opposites of the river.  The name of the bridge (Hot Metal) came from the fact that the trains were carrying molten metal from one factory to another.  There are, or at least there were, placards along Water Street along the South Side Works that describe the history of the J&L steel company on this site and on the bridge.  I don’t know if they are still up as there is currently construction going on in this area.

According to the description attached to the oldest image of the bridge on Historic Pittsburgh, the bridge was built in 1887.  This image, as well as PGHbridges.com’s page for the bridge, identifies the names of the two structures as the Monongahela Connecting Railroad Bridge (now the vehicular bridge) and the Hot Metal Bridge (now the pedestrian bridge).  The G.M. Hopkins maps tell a slightly different story.  As early as 1882, the maps show a bridge at this location.  That map and the 1889 map identify the bridge as the East End Bridge.  All the maps from 1890 through 1923 of this site call it the Jones & Laughlins Bridge.  Up until 1904, the bridge is depicted as carrying a single track, which I assume would be the bridge that is now the pedestrian bridge.  Starting in 1910, the bridge is depicted with three railroad tracks, meaning the current vehicular bridge was added in that time.

It is amazing to me that as late as 1998 this part of the city was still dominated by steel mill buildings as illustrated by this photo.  I suppose this means that I did not come to this part of the city then.  As the South Side Works mall did not exist yet, I guess there was no reason for me to come over here.  According to PGHbridges.com, the conversion of the bridges began in 1998, but the larger of the two bridges didn’t open until 2000 while the pedestrian bridge opened in 2007.

My final comment on this bridge is that there is a nice view of downtown from here, although the buildings don’t form any interesting patterns and clusters like they did in the views from the Allegheny River bridges (see 16th Street Bridge post for an example of this).

Pedestrian Bridges: Shadyside

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When the pedestrian bridge I discuss in “Taking the Long Way Round” was in the process of being built, I was thinking it was the first pedestrian bridge in Pittsburgh.  When I started my project of walking the bridges in Pittsburgh, I realized what a ridiculous thought that was.  Pittsburgh has many pedestrian bridges, but until the new one was built, I never heard anyone talk about any pedestrian bridge in the city.  Many of these pedestrian bridges are not particularly attractive and are not in high traffic areas.

Shadyside has one of these hidden pedestrian bridges.  The bridge connects Graham Street across the busway and railroad tracks.  The only reason I know about this bridge is from riding buses on the busway.  Walking down Graham from Centre Ave (a busy corridor lined with businesses, churches and a hospital and used by several major bus routes and lots of cars), I was impressed how quiet and peaceful the residential area between Centre and the busway was.  That is until a train comes by.

As I walked across this bridge, I wondered why it was there.  There is a vehicular bridge with sidewalks on both sides across the busway a block in either direction.  There are eight other roads between this bridge and the Penn Ave Bridge that end at the busway and have neither a vehicular or pedestrian bridge connecting them to the other side of the busway.  In my walk, I speculated that perhaps it was put in to connect the residents on the north side of the busway to places of work on the southern.  This was based on the fact that there was a large building on the southern side that now houses the Shadyside Boys and Girls Club (photo below).

When I got home I went to PGHbridges.com, which I have used whenever I’ve had questions like this about the origin or design of Pittsburgh bridges.  However, for some reason this website ignores many of the bridges over the busway.  In looking up some of the bridges that PGHbridges.com misses, I found several other bridge websites that list and identify many of the bridges in the city, but none of them include the Graham Street Bridge, not even the National Bridge Inventory Database.

So I turned back to my favorite resource–the G.M. Hopkins maps.  I also went to the image collection on Historic Pittsburgh, the parent site for the Hopkins maps.  In the image collection I found one photo from 1908 of the bridge under construction.  The 1904 and 1911 maps show the area immediately adjacent to the bridge as all residential.  The building that is now the Boys and Girls Club does not exist.  All I’m left with is speculation at this point.  However, there is a school a few blocks from the southern end of the bridge and in between 1904 and 1911 another church was built a couple blocks north of the bridge.  There already was a large church a block from the site of the newer, smaller one.  Perhaps, the bridge was built to facilitate school students and church goers to get to their respective destinations.

Based on the way the bridge is depicted on the 1911 map and the 1939 map, I suspect the bridge may have been rebuilt since 1908.  At the very least the stairs were replaced.  The southern steps are drawn as coming straight out from the bridge to the road, but today the stairs are perpendicular to the line of the bridge and Graham Street.  The northern steps are drawn perpendicular to the bridge and facing the same direction the southern steps face today.  However, the steps I walked are switchback style, with the upper portion facing the opposite direction depicted on the 1939 map.

Birmingham Bridge

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Outside of the safety issues of the Birmingham Bridge (see July 30 post), the surroundings and view from the bridge were interesting.  I was particularly interested in the uses along the waterfront around the bridge as there were three distinct types of use.

On the northern shore of the river and western side of the bridge is this gravel/cement? factory. I classify it as an industrial use, but I don’t really know what its purpose is.  I watch for a little while as the excavator scooped gravel from the barge and dumped it on the conveyor belt which passed it along and piled with the rest.  I think it is easy to forget at times that our rivers are still working rivers–some coal and other materials are still shipped by the rivers.  The image above is a reminder of this as the gravel was obviously delivered by river.

On the same shore, but the other side of the bridge, is one of Pittsburgh’s redeveloped brownfields.  This area used to be part of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, dominated by the Soho Iron Works (see 1923 map).  Today it is home to several office buildings along Technology Drive, including Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center.  I believe the University of Pittsburgh may also have property on this site.  This site is an illustration of Pittsburgh’s Second Renaissance, the “Eds and Meds,” which was implemented in the 1980s to counteract the job loss and deterioration caused by the decline of the steel industry.  Here the former steel plant was replaced by buildings housing at least the education part of “Eds and Meds.”

The third use of the waterfront at the Birmingham Bridge is recreation (and green space) on the southern shore.  The Three Rivers Heritage Trail travels near the river among the trees and grass.  The trail also passes under the Birmingham Bridge on the north shore, but the technology park and gravel site separate the trail from the river and it passes near the freeway, making it not a very pleasant place for recreation.  The southern branch of the trail on the other hand is pleasant as it passes among greenery and near the river.  The western side of the bridge provides additional opportunities for recreation on the southern shore as there is a boat launch and a parking lot that provides access to the boat launch and some picnic areas nearby.

The area around the Birmingham Bridge captures the various uses which riverfront property has been put in Pittsburgh.  First it was an ideal spot for industry and mills.  This has been replaced in some areas with new developments such as the offices at the technology center.  Now there seems to be an increasing interest in making the river fronts accessible and available for recreational use.

Bridge Safety

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The first time I walked across the Birmingham Bridge was before I came up with the idea of walking all the bridges in Pittsburgh.  I was going to an event on the South Side and according to the bus schedule, the best method for getting to this event was to take one of the Fifth Avenue buses to the Birmingham Bridge and walk across the bridge and down a few blocks on East Carson Street to the event.  I was quite dismayed when I got off the bus and saw that there was no sidewalk across the bridge–it turns out there is a sidewalk but it only connects to Forbes Avenue which is significantly lower than Fifth Avenue at this point.  Fortunately, there is a bike lane, clearly marked with a buffer zone across the bridge.  I kept as far to the right as I possibly could, hoping that cars recognized and honored the bike lane (I have noticed this is an issue for drivers in Pittsburgh at least in some areas), and headed across.  Nearly a quarter mile from Fifth Avenue, a ramp comes up from Forbes Avenue with a sidewalk.  I climbed over the cement barrier and crossed the core of the bridge on the sidewalk.  However on the southern half of the bridge, the sidewalk goes down a set of steps and comes out between the back of a parking lot and the underside of the bridge.  This seemed like a potentially unsafe place for a lone pedestrian, so I climbed back over the barrier and finished crossing the bridge as I had started, separated from the cars by only the painted lines of the bike lane.

I have walked this bridge a few times since then, employing this same method every time.  I have also observed other pedestrians using a similar method, though some don’t bother climbing over the barrier onto the sidewalk when that becomes an option.  This is truly the case of a bridge that may be pedestrian accessible, but is not at all pedestrian friendly.  In my post “One River Down,” I mention that Highland Park Bridge, Washington’s Crossing Bridge, and the 62nd Street Bridge are less than pedestrian friendly.  The Birmingham Bridge beats these bridges as the least pedestrian friendly bridge I’ve walked in Pittsburgh to the point that it is potentially unsafe for pedestrian use.

While the bridge is designed so that pedestrians can use a buffered sidewalk across the length of the bridge, the access points to this sidewalk are not convenient.  I discuss in “Taking the Long Way Round” that there are times and situations when pedestrians will go out of their way, but the Birmingham Bridge sidewalk does not meet them.  The northern access point is in a hollow surrounded by vacant or industrial-use lots and passes under several ramps/bridges/elevated roads carrying an interstate before reaching the level of the bridge.  Also there is no easy way to get there from Fifth Avenue at the bridge.  A pedestrian has to go down a block to a road that connects Fifth and Forbes avenues and then come back down toward the bridge to reach the sidewalk for it.  There is no incentive for a pedestrian on Fifth Avenue to go so far out of their way when the bridge is right in front of them.  The staircase at the other end of the bridge that I mentioned earlier makes about as much sense as this end’s inaccessible sidewalk access.  Not to mention that the staircase excludes anyone using a wheelchair from access to the sidewalk (it looks like there used to be a ramp on this end as well, but it is now sealed off and cut off).

Busway Bridges: East Liberty

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There are currently two pedestrian bridges across the busway in East Liberty to give bus riders access to and from the busway and surrounding neighborhoods.  I have used the larger of the two many times to get to and from the busway, but the smaller one (pictured above) always seemed out of the way, scary, and a bit useless.  It ended up not be as scary as I imagined, but it is not a path I would choose to use after dark.  It seemed useless, and out of the way, as it connects very low traffic areas to the busway and the Highland Ave Bridge (see July 26 post) or the other pedestrian bridge provide access between the busway and high traffic areas.

Both these bridges are scheduled to be demolished and replaced with one bridge.  In June, there was an announcement that a TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Grant was awarded for a new transit center at this location (see June 20 and June 23 articles in the Post-Gazette).  In this new transit center, the busway station will be shifted closer to Penn Avenue, making the smaller pedestrian bridge truly obsolete.  The larger pedestrian bridge is planned to be rebuilt and the former bus ramp (see July 27 post) will be made into a pedestrian/bicycle connection to the busway (near the top of the ramp a bicycle garage is planned to be built).  The articles say that the developer hopes to start construction in the spring.  Perhaps in a year, or a little more, there will be a new bridge for me to walk.

Both the current pedestrian bridges take the caged feeling that several of the bridges I’ve crossed to a new level (see Highland Park Bridge, Taking the Long Way Round posts).  I have heard that the new bridge planned for this area will be more open and thereby more pleasant.  Whether this means it will be more open like the pedestrian bridge in Taking the Long Way Round or it will be truly open without any cage-like fencing, only time will tell.

When I first heard about the planned new transit center, I thought the whole idea was ridiculous–there already are bus stops on the busway and on Penn Avenue and there already are bridges connecting these areas, also public transit across the city has been in serious danger for the last couple years and there is no indication that its downward spiral with increasing route cuts and fare increases is going to stop anytime soon.  However after learning more about the new transit center, it seems like it might actually be helpful/useful by making the busway easier to access and more attractive to access.  Also after observing the behavior of a pedestrian in Taking the Long Way Round, I wonder if the new transit center might encourage more people to use alternative transit options.

What is a Bridge? Pittsburgh Edition II

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When I wrote the first “What is a Bridge?” post, I felt confident that Merriam-Webster’s definition of a bridge, “a structure carrying a pathway or roadway over a depression or obstacle,” was sufficiently explicit to exclude ramps.  However, while crossing the Penn Avenue Bridge in East Liberty I found a new structure to challenge the definition of a bridge.

The former bus ramp from the former Penn Avenue (Bus) Station to the (not former) East Liberty Busway Station meets the above definition of a bridge as it carries a roadway over the obstacle presented by the railroad bordering the busway.  On the other hand, it also meets the definition of a ramp, “a slope or inclined plane for joining two different levels,” as the busway is significantly lower than most of the surrounding area.  So, is it a bridge or a ramp?  It almost feels like asking is a tomato a fruit or vegetable? or perhaps even which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Are these equally impossible questions to answer or is it rather the case that there are exceptions to every rule?  There aren’t always easy or straight-forward answers.  I suppose in this case the structure is both a bridge and a ramp.

Perhaps a way to answer the question a little more specifically is to look at the way it is used.  In its previous use, the point of the structure was to get buses down onto or up out of the lower busway level.  While it was used in this fashion, I’d say it was more a ramp than a bridge.  There is a future plan for it to be turned into a pedestrian bridge to transport pedestrians safely across the railroad and busway to the busway station (see Busway Bridges: East Liberty).  At that point, in function the structure will be more of a bridge, though I suppose the ramp end will still function as a ramp to provide an accessible route to the station.  Whether it is a ramp or a bridge, I did not walk it yet as it is not currently designed for pedestrian access.  After its conversion is complete in the next couple years, I will come back to walk it.

Additional Posts in Series:

Taking the Long Way Round

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This week while I was walking some more bridges, I witnessed a fascinating phenomenon. I had an architectural design class a few years ago where we had an assignment to create a theoretical “intervention” for an assigned two block area of Pittsburgh (which coincidentally included a bridge).  Several of my classmates noticed in observing the area a significant number of j-walkers and so designed interventions that were pathways going over or under the road to stop pedestrians from crossing the road dangerously.  The reaction that I, the professors and other reviewers had to these projects was the theory and design is nice, but no one is going to go out of their way to climb up or down just to cross the road.  Similarly to this was a conversation some classmates of mine had about the paths pedestrians created across the school’s lawn.  These paths were formed because the pedestrians recognized that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, yet every year for many years the school insisted on replanting the grass on these paths. If I remember correctly the school eventually gave up on this and instead of replanting the grass they paved the paths.

The phenomenon I witnessed this week was a pedestrian contradicting all the observations above.  I was walking several of the bridges over the busway in the East End neighborhoods.  As I walked to the Highland Ave Bridge, I was behind another pedestrian who looked like he might have been on his way to work.  He continued straight on the road while I climbed the steps pictured above to cross the bridge.  After I crossed the Highland Ave Bridge I crossed through the EastSide parking lot to cross the new pedestrian bridge.  As I approached this new bridge, I crossed paths with the man I had been walking behind.  He had crossed the pedestrian bridge and was now doubling back to get to his location.  The shortest route for him would have been to cross the Highland Ave Bridge; instead he made the choice to go out of his way and cross the new pedestrian bridge instead.  Apparently my architectural design classmates were not as far off as I thought–given an attractive enough alternative pedestrians will go out of their way.

The new pedestrian bridge is probably the newest bridge in Pittsburgh, being less than a year old.  I had been waiting for it for over two years before it finally opened.  Shortly after it opened I took the opportunity to walk across it for the first time and was very disappointed.  I thought it looked incredibly ridiculous and with the planters on either side I didn’t feel like I was on a bridge.  I think I had imagined it as something a little closer to a swinging bridge that this heavy and solid construction.  However, the incident this week with the pedestrian has caused me to reconsider this bridge.  Comparing this bridge to the Highland Ave Bridge, I have to admit it does have many good points.  Though I still think the pedestrian bridge leans to the ridiculous, it is much more pleasant looking that the Highland Ave Bridge.  While crossing the Highland Ave Bridge, I can’t help wondering if the wooden planks that make up the sidewalk are still strong enough.  What if the wood has become rotten or termites have eaten away its integrity?

Given the proximity of these two bridges (they are about a block apart) I don’t blame the man for walking a little bit out of his way to cross the pedestrian bridge instead of the Highland Ave one.  The one complaint I have left about the new pedestrian bridge is the enclosed, caged feeling it has.  While it certainly is the most dressed up caged bridge in the city, it is still a cage.

The Last Allegheny River Bridge

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The last bridge across the Allegheny I needed to cross was the 62nd Street Bridge.  While the approach to the bridge less than inviting, the bridge itself was surprisingly pleasant to cross.  The approach was a skinny sidewalk overgrown and broken in spots connected directly to a very fast-paced road.  This approach is similar to the one for the Highland Park Bridge (see June 10 post).  For this reason and because the 62nd Street and Highland Park bridges are the two farthest from downtown on the Allegheny, I compared the experience of walking across these two bridges.  The 62nd won by a long shot.  Its sidewalk is much wider and it has sidewalk on both sides.  The Highland Park Bridge has a high mesh fence enclosing you in, while the 62nd Street Bridge has a shorter waist-/chest-height railing similar to those on the 31st and 40th Street bridges (see July 19 and July 20 posts).  The traffic was also much lighter on the 62nd compared to the Highland Park Bridge, although I imagine that at rush hour the 62nd might get busier than when I crossed it.

I was surprised that there is still a good view of downtown from the 62nd Street Bridge.  The river bends quite a bit before getting to 62nd Street, so much so that the 40th Street Bridge is not visible from the 62nd.  However, there is a significant stretch of flat land on the southern shore which permits the view of downtown from the northern end of the bridge, by the middle of the bridge only part of downtown is visible, and by the southern end downtown is hidden from sight.

While most of the area surrounding the bridge is industrial or former industrial, the northern end connects to the edge of Sharpsburg, PA, which has a couple interesting looking churches and likely housed industrial workers for many years.

The 62nd Street Bridge also passes by a future site of redevelopment.  I thought I read somewhere last summer about something interesting that was planned for this site, yet when I searched for it today, I could not find what I thought I was looking for.  However, there looks like there is a different interesting story connected with this site.  It seems the site is being considered for a distribution center for the company trying to redevelop the parking lots and produce terminal near the 16th Street Bridge (see July 14 post).  The Post-Gazette has an article explaining that not only does Councilman Dowd have issues with the redevelopment in the Strip (the 16th Street Bridge area), but he also has issues with this redevelopment scheme.  I was sorry to learn that the plans for the site are leaning away from something interesting and more publicly accessible such as a park/retail area.  However based on the surrounding area, it makes sense.  There are only a very few residences nearby and what traffic that does come by is looking for a quick way to get between other points in the city and surrounding region.  Also, there is very minimal bus access to the site.  (There used to be more when the site belonged to the bus company, see article.  There are still bus stop signs along Butler Street from this time.)

Here’s one final note on the 62nd Street Bridge.  Like many of the numbered street bridges, this bridge has an alternative name (see posts on 6th Street, 7th Street, 9th Street, and 40th Street bridges).  The 62nd Street Bridge is also known as the R.D. Fleming Bridge.  For years, I have assumed that R.D. Fleming was in the medical profession, he name suggested medical to me when I was in grade school and the idea has stuck for years.  It would make sense as Pittsburgh has a good reputation for things medical.  However, it turns out that R.D. Fleming was a Republican senator whose district included the region near the bridge.  I could not find an explanation for why this former senator, of all the former senators Pittsburgh has had, was honored by having a bridge named after him.  If anyone knows what made him unique, please share.

Washington’s Crossing Bridge

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I walked the 40th Street Bridge last fall after having taken a tour of the Maxo Vanka murals at the St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church (pictured above).  Two years after having come up with the idea of walking all the bridges in Pittsburgh, this one was the first that I documented (side note: the camera I had at that time produced pictures of significantly less quality than my current camera).  While the bridge itself was fine for walking across, the approach to it was quite intimidating, so much so that if there was a bus easily accessible and going in the direction I wanted, I would have chickened out and taken it instead.  Between the church and bridge I had to cross through an active road construction zone, cross more than one fast past road, and then walk up a small strip of a highway exit ramp covered in debris and just barely wide enough for passing the people coming the other direction.

The other end of the bridge connects to Lawrenceville and is much more pleasant as it immediately connects to a residential area and there is a little parklet that is designed to encourage pedestrians at one corner.  The large building in the middle of the frame above is Arsenal school, behind which is Arsenal Park.  Both sites were named after the Allegheny Arsenal located on this site during the Civil War, which played a significant role in the war and where there was a major explosion that killed many of the female workers.

On the bridge itself are seals.  I did not look closely at them as on this, my first official walk across a bridge, I was mostly concerned with the views from the bridge and not the bridge itself.  According to PGHbridges.com these seals are the seals of Allegheny County and the thirteen original colonies repeated up and down the bridge.

The downstream view above looks out over the forested northern end of Herr’s Island toward downtown.  As I mention in the Converted Railroad Bridge post, Herr’s Island has been renamed Washington’s Landing, in honor of George Washington’s crossing of the Allegheny River.  Apparently the official name of the 40th Street Bridge is Washington’s Crossing Bridge, which I was not aware of until looking it up online.  In the cases of the other bridges with double names such as each of the Three Sisters Bridges (see June 14, June 21, and June 22 posts) and the R.D. Fleming/62nd Street Bridge (see July 24 post) both names are used interchangeably, but I have only ever heard this bridge called the 40th Street Bridge.  As the person who commented on the Converted Railroad Bridge pointed out, the island renamed Washington’s Landing wasn’t actually where Washington landed.  PGHbridges.com has a somewhat detailed account of what might have happened when Washington crossed the Allegheny according to which the island he and Christopher Gist landed on after Washington fell into the river was actually on the southern side of the river (Herr’s Island/Washington’s Landing is on the northern side).

Up until this point on the Allegheny River, both sides of the river are part of the City of Pittsburgh.  Now the right-hand side of the river in the upstream view above is Pittsburgh while the left-hand side belongs to other municipalities.