Pittsburgh Main Thoroughfares and the Down Town District / Improvements Necessary to Meet the City's Present and Future Needs

by Frederick Law Olmsted

There appear to be two possible routes for such a connection.

The shorter is as follows: along Washington Avenue east to Curtin Avenue, thence diagonally southeast to Climax Street, along Climax Street widened to a point about 200 feet east of Allen Street and thence diagonally southeast and through a short tunnel under the ridge to the corner of Charles and Amanda Streets. Amanda Street connects south to the Brownsville Road; and Charles Street, if widened straight through to the Brownsville Road, would furnish a reasonably direct connection with Arlington Avenue leading along the ridge to the east. This route could probably be brought to a very reasonable gradient, say 3½ per cent as a maximum.

The other route is by a new street rising around the northerly end of the Beltzhoover ridge and connecting with Michigan Street. The latter would be widened and regraded, cutting through the two narrow ridges over which it now humps at Gearing Street and Estella Avenue. These streets would be carried over it by bridges at the present grade. The improved Michigan Street would be connected with Charles Street; and the latter would be widened and improved in gradient, with another separation of grades at Knox Avenue where there is now a sharp hump in the Charles Street profile. Instead of following Charles Street through to a right-angle corner at Amanda, the thoroughfare might curve at the end so as to join Amanda Street a block or two farther south. This route is at least two thousand feet longer than the other, but if the mouth of the tunnel is not dropped too low, it can probably be brought to a maximum gradient of not over 3¼ per cent.

In the absence of complete and accurate information as to grades and distances throughout these two routes, it is impossible to say which is to be preferred. If, upon further study on the basis of reliable topographical data, it should develop that a materially better gradient can be secured by the longer route, that line would be the more desirable. But if the saving in gradient should prove to be very slight, perhaps not more than a third or a half of one percent, it is believed that the shorter route, that via Climax Street, should be adopted.

76. Arlington Avenue and Washington Avenue Connection.—Arlington Avenue is the direct road east from the junction of Washington Avenue and the Brownsville Road, but between this point and South Eighteenth Street it has two bad gradients, 7 per cent and over. To get a good cross-town connection without such gradients and at the same time to give better access to the Mount Oliver incline, Washington Avenue should be widened east from the Knoxville incline to Amanda Street,[21] and thence cut through on a curve to the corner of Angelo and Mount Oliver Streets. By widening Mount Oliver and Freeland Streets, by rounding off the east corner of Amanda and Freeland Streets and by cutting back the southwest corner of Freeland and South Eighteenth Streets, a nearly level, though somewhat circuitous, connection can be secured between Washington Avenue on the west and Arlington Avenue on the east.

77. South Eighteenth Street.—Plans have been proposed, by the Bureau of Surveys, to widen, pave and otherwise improve South Eighteenth Street from the South Side up the hill to Arlington Avenue. The gradient, which is now about 7 per cent, cannot be improved without very radical and costly changes in the street location; and since the proposed South Hills tunnel will reach, on easy gradients, practically all the hilltop territory now served by South Eighteenth Street, the trouble and cost of materially reducing the South Eighteenth Street gradient seems hardly justified.

Diagram No. 13. Twenty-second Street bridge approach—South Side

The plans of the Bureau of Surveys propose a roadway width of 40 feet with two sidewalks each 10 feet wide in some places and in others 7½ feet. This means a widening of from 5 to 20 feet. As this entire section of South Eighteenth Street is on a hillside mostly steeper than one in three, such widening will require from 2 to 7 feet of additional retaining wall, or excessive cutting and filling, which means large damage to property in the vicinity. Furthermore, the adjacent hillsides are so steep that no extensive development of abutting property is likely to take place.

In consideration of all these points it is urged that a width of not less than 45 feet nor more than 50 feet be adopted in the improvement plans. This will give a roadway 35 feet and one sidewalk 10 feet or more in width.