Pittsburgh North Shore Subway

[UrbaniDesDev]

For those who haven't seen them, these are the plans for the North Shore Connectors and the Convention Center Station

PNC Park Station

Allegheny Avenue Station

The new Gateway Center Station

and The Convention Center Station

[chucka]

Actually, the spur to the convention center has been dropped to save money. Also you mislabeled the new gateway station (that was another picture of the T going to the convention center).

New Gateway Station

They are really focusing attention on the design for this station. The local foundations have contributed to make sure the design is top quality. Also, the tile mural by Romare Bearden will be moved from the old station to the new one.

[PghUSA]

Nice update! Too bad not much progress has been made on this, I remember when we first posted these pics here (was it a year or two already?) hopes were high that it might be ready this coming fall .

Chucka, I hope the foundation $$ is still in place for the Gateway Center station, I know how impatient some of these np's can become, you're right Gateway will be a jewel if all that is proposed is completed.

Urbani, nice job on the diagrams, I don't remember seeing the PNC Park one before, looks like it will be part of the complex planned in-between the stadiums (on the PNC Park side of course).

[UrbaniDesDev]

Sorry about the mis labeling.

These thing take a long time.

They are planning to have PNC Park Station as having 2 stories underground. They should plan the Gateway Center Station the same way. Gateway Center Towers are already connected with a network of underground passages, called Gateway Underground. There are a few shops and restaurants there mostly serving the Towers exclusively. This could be expanded and connect directly to Fifth Avenue Place and the old Joeseph Hornes. It would be reminiscent of Rockefeller center in NY. I think the city would be better served with a number of smaller entrances rather than a large main entrance, which would take up a large part of Gateway Centers main Plaza, this could have been a great plaza with a fountain and more than just the entrance, basically a hole in theground. Though I do love the entrance to the Dupont Circle Station in DC.

Just a thought

[TheGerbil]

I used to work in Gaetway 4 and I never knew about that underground stuff.

[UrbaniDesDev]

There is an entrance to the underground right along the sidewalk along Penn Avenue(Gateway Center) near the central plaza fountain. It is just a set of stairs with a 50s style covering. This could also serve as a secondary entrance to the subway. There was a rather cool 50s moderne style cafeteria there. I don't know if it's still there.

It is great they would plan a great entrance, but I still like the way NY and DCs subway are, where the entrances are scattered the length of the platform and integrated into the buildings to encompass the largest area possible. There would be one in Fifth Avenue Place, a street entrance at Penn & Stanwix(Joeseph Hornes) another where the McDonalds is (remove that thing) and another connecting to the Gateway Center Underground. This would require a underground bridge over the tracks, thus the need to be 2 stories.

If the escalators in Fifth Avenue Place continued down another level to the station integrating it with the subway and Gateway Underground. That would place a lot of traffic of business people through the shopping center. There even could be a passage through existing or future buildings connecting to PPG food court area and Market Square.

[pointbreeze]

The PG had a good editorial/commentary regarding using existing bridges instead of the proposed tunnels to the north shore and using the saved money to extend up the Strip. To me this make's perfect sense. I'm not sure what the lure of boring is. It might look better, but I'm not sure it is worth the price.

[blueblackcat]

The PG had a good editorial/commentary regarding using existing bridges instead of the proposed tunnels to the north shore and using the saved money to extend up the Strip. To me this make's perfect sense. I'm not sure what the lure of boring is. It might look better, but I'm not sure it is worth the price.

Let's face it. People wouldn't have funded sewer systems if they weren't getting typhoid from sitting in their own filth. Psychologically people are more willing to take on risk to minimize suffering than to maximise benefits even if it's the same amount of risk. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? It's this kind of petty penny pinching that has flatlined transit projects in this city for 100 years. Instead of pushing for more money and winning over public opinion on the sheer long term benefits of LRT, we're too busy fighting over bones. It's easier to build a new stadium than a mile of LRT in this city!

What isn't being considered is that to have a bridge still requires a hole in the ground with a train coming out of it and those trains can't just make the transition from 30 feet underground to 40 feet above ground (or whatever) in a single block. For every $100 million you could save there might be several $300 million skyscrapers that will never get built because a cheap train's taking up space. Yet more skyscrapers is exactly the type of benefit you're supposed to install LRT for in the first place!

Also, the long term costs of maintaining bridges is higher than tunnels, down to having to pay someone to tear down an old bridge while a tunnel would still be structurally sound. Case in point, the Wabash. There are plenty of other benefits, like less weather delays that otherwise drain the city's economy of millions of dollars each winter. If it was just about being cheaper to install then while we're at it let's go all out and bring back the 40 line telegraph poles going down every street? I'm just saying, the right argument for this is to actually give it the funding it needs to go forward, not the real-politik stuff.

Besides, I'm pretty sure that bridge he's proposing is an active railway right now.

[tooluther]

First, the Fr. Wayne birdge is double decked. So if enough money were dumped into redoing the deck there (its apparently been horribly damaged by salt etc) and the T could run on the bottom. 2 challenges are still involved in the bridge plan...1. how to elevate the T that high (some of the original plans called for SWITCHBACKS!!) and 2. how to ensure future expansion to the strip when the main line is elevated to the bridge.

Secondly, This isn't the only bridge that could be used. When I was interning for the planning office I saw the old plans to either run on the deck of the Clemente Bridge or hand a second bridge bellow it. This plan still cuts off Lincoln at north shore, Alcoa etc but given all of our opinions of Alcoa right now, who cares!

[blueblackcat]

First, the Fr. Wayne birdge is double decked. So if enough money were dumped into redoing the deck there (its apparently been horribly damaged by salt etc) and the T could run on the bottom. 2 challenges are still involved in the bridge plan...1. how to elevate the T that high (some of the original plans called for SWITCHBACKS!!) and 2. how to ensure future expansion to the strip when the main line is elevated to the bridge.

I can't figure out if you're trying to agree or disagree. From your description it sounds like even more of a terrible way to compromise.

It seems that a lot of people just want a train, period. To the winds with rail capacity, efficiency, maintenance, reliability, speed, asthetics, connectivity, and land use. In other words consider total ownership costs and total benefits, including social costs, versus just initial construction costs. At some point when you make enough compromises, you might as well just stay with bus service because it's not any better. IMO you will not see a new building above 35 stories or do nearly as much to fill in current vacancies along this type of route because it just wouldn't be efficient enough to support as many economic activities as a full-blown streamlined system.

[tooluther]

Light Rail>Bus ALWAYS. I don't care anything about comparing Bus rapid transit or just regular busses. The fact remains that there are WAY to many busses downtown...and they are all loud and dirty.

[blueblackcat]

Light Rail>Bus ALWAYS. I don't care anything about comparing Bus rapid transit or just regular busses. The fact remains that there are WAY to many busses downtown...and they are all loud and dirty.

That misses the big picture. Loud and dirty really doesn't matter, not in that sense. The only thing that matters is it has to get more people to where they're going faster and cheaper, to get more people out of cars than a bus ever will. Trains aren't any cleaner when the Pittsburgh region has some of the worst polluting coal power plants in the country. Diesel> coal, always, and hybrid and biodiesel technologies will greatly reduce the negative impact of busses. Biodiesel is not only renewable but doesn't have the soot that petroleum diesel has, so it's a perfect candidate for cities where soot gets concentrated. And do you honestly think a tram is quieter than a bus? It's not, and the sounds it produces going around turns are much more disturbing to people. So what is the rationale of taking a very expensive vehicle and putting in a bottleneck that restricts the speed of every single train on the whole entire system or have it make noise above ground that could be concealed below ground?

Also that bridge and every other existing bridge is already fairly old. How many years would we get out of it? 30, 50, maybe 100 if the superstructure gets fortified? Compared to a tunnel that will last a good century longer than a brand new bridge?

[tooluther]

I've said it before. The amount of bus routes on fifth and forbes is one of the reasons its taken so long to find a developer for the cooridor. Busses running all night is a major deterent to living in a downtown loft. And I don't mean dirty as in greenhouse gasses etc. I mean that walking down liberty avenue is horrible at rush hour because those busses just spew soot on the sidewalks.

All South Hills busses should stop at T stations like they do in Atlanta. The East and West Busway can opperate the same way. The busses from the east and west busways should stay on the perimeter of the triangele. This would result in hundreds of fewer busses downtown at any given point.

Also if the Clemente bridge had car traffic eliminated totaly and was just peds and a light rail route, I don't think its "effective age" would be greatly changed.

[UrbaniDesDev]

A few years ago I read that the Railroad will not allow a system to use the lower level of the Ft. Wayne Bridge because their trains carry many toxic substances that if there would be and accident they won't be held responsible. Just an excuse? i don't know, but that was their response.

My problem with the new proposed line is that it won't have any effect on the city neighborhoods on the North Side. They will spend billions and not connect to the neighborhoods where people are already committed to the city.