The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

PITTSBURGH

MAIN THOROUGHFARES AND THE DOWN TOWN DISTRICT

East Ohio Street—a two-line thoroughfare

Fifth Avenue—a four-line thoroughfare

Of the 530 miles of main thoroughfares within a radius of seven miles of City Hall, less than one and one-half per cent have room for passage between cars and vehicles, slow-moving or standing at curb. See page [31].

Liberty Avenue—a six-line thoroughfare

PITTSBURGH CIVIC COMMISSION

PITTSBURGH
MAIN THOROUGHFARES AND THE DOWN TOWN DISTRICT
IMPROVEMENTS NECESSARY TO MEET THE CITY'S PRESENT AND FUTURE NEEDS
A Report

BY

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED

Prepared under the direction of The Committee on City Planning

ADOPTED BY THE COMMISSION
DECEMBER, 1910

324 FOURTH AVENUE FEBRUARY, 1911

Publication No. 8

COMMITTEE ON CITY PLANNING

• T. E. Billquist, Chairman
• Charles F. Chubb
• Benno Janssen
• H. J. Heinz
• Richard Kiehnel
• E. K. Morse

Copyright, 1911
By Pittsburgh Civic Commission

Mount Pleasant Press
J. Horace McFarland Company
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Dedication

THIS BOOK AND ITS CONTENTS ARE DEDICATED TO THOSE CITIZENS OF PITTSBURGH WHO, IMBUED WITH CIVIC PRIDE AND THE VISION OF A CITY USEFUL, CONVENIENT, ECONOMICAL AND HEALTHFUL, AS WELL AS BEAUTIFUL, WILL, IN THE YEARS TO COME, RESPOND TO THE CALL OF THEIR CITY TO SERVE IT WITHOUT HOPE OF PERSONAL REWARD, AND WITH PATIENCE, FIDELITY AND ENTHUSIASM.

PITTSBURGH CIVIC COMMISSION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter of Transmissal

November 26, 1910.

Mr. T. E. Billquist, Chairman,
Committee on City Planning.
Pittsburgh Civic Commission.

Dear Sir:—I have the honor to submit herewith a report upon desirable improvements in the main thoroughfares and the down town district of Pittsburgh, prepared in accordance with the instructions of your Committee and in consultation with its members.

In submitting the report I wish to take the opportunity of expressing my appreciation of the attitude of your Committee throughout the twelve months during which the investigations and the preparation of the report have continued, and of the part which the keen interest of its members and their helpful criticism have had in making the report a useful one.

The closeness of the connection between the problems discussed in this report and those of the Traction System, which have been concurrently studied by Mr. Bion J. Arnold, has involved frequent conferences with Mr. Arnold and his assistant, Mr. George A. Damon, as well as with Mr. John P. Fox, engaged by the Mayor for a study of the same problem; and the information and suggestions furnished by them have been of great assistance. In the preparation of the report on the Allegheny River bridge problems, submitted jointly by Colonel T. W. Symons and myself and printed in Part V of this report, information furnished by Colonel H. C. Newcomer, in charge of the local office of U. S. Government engineers, has been of the utmost value. I am also greatly indebted to the Flood Commission, and especially to Mr. F. K. Morse, Chairman of the Engineers' Committee of that Commission, for the use of maps and other data gathered by them.

It would have been impossible to secure an intelligent basis for the conclusions and suggestions presented in this report without the great quantity of detailed information and other help furnished by the Board of Assessors, the Departments of Public Safety, of Public Works and of Law, especially through Mr. N. S. Sprague, Superintendent of the Bureau of Construction, Mr. Chas. A. Finley, Superintendent of the Bureau of City Property, and Mr. Lee C. Beatty, First Assistant City Solicitor. Throughout the investigation and the preparation of this report I have had the benefit of illuminating and stimulating conferences with Mayor Magee.

The actual gathering of necessary information from the above and other sources, the field studies and the preparation of nearly all of the drawings accompanying the report, were carried on under the direction of my personal assistant, Mr. Edward C. Whiting, with the active help of Mr. Allen T. Burns and Mr. Sherrard Ewing, General Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the Commission, to all of whom my hearty thanks are due.

My friend and colleague in the study of several city problems elsewhere, Mr. Arnold W. Brunner, of New York, has given me valued counsel in regard to the possible architectural treatment of the proposed Civic Center, and has been good enough to contribute to the report the interesting sketches on pages [13] and [14] for a possible municipal building framing the east side of the proposed square.

As explained at length in the body of the report, the work has been greatly handicapped and limited in its scope and effectiveness by the entire lack of accurate detailed maps of the city and surrounding country. This lack would have rendered the report almost wholly impossible had it not been for the very useful topographical map of this part of Pennsylvania prepared and published by the United States Geological Survey. Not only have my studies of the outlying thoroughfares been based almost wholly upon this map, but the Survey has courteously permitted the use of transfer sheets from their original plates for the thoroughfare map published in this report.

Respectfully submitted,

(Signed) FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED.

City Planning and the Cost of Living in Pittsburgh

PURPOSE AND PREPARATION OF THE REPORT

A factor in the cost of living in Pittsburgh is stated graphically in the frontispiece of this report. These drawings also suggest, from Pittsburgh's own provision for some of her needs, a method to decrease this cost. All delays and congestion of traffic, such as illustrated on Fifth Avenue and East Ohio Street in the frontispiece and as shown by illustrations in this preface and the introduction, add to the expenses of manufacturers, the costs borne by wholesale merchants, and the prices charged consumers by retail dealers; in short inadequate traffic facilities in Pittsburgh, as in other cities, add to the cost of doing business and of living.

The map at the end of this preface portrays a second factor influencing the cost of living. This map shows how much land Pittsburgh has, both used and still unused, for business, manufacturing and residence districts and for means of communication, i. e., streets between these districts. A glance also indicates the almost unparalleled problems of this city because of the large amount of territory 25 per cent or over in grade. For land of this grade is not only unused for buildings and streets, but also often erects barriers to the natural growth and spread of business, manufacturing and residence sections. Consequently, Pittsburgh must exercise greater ingenuity and foresight than other cities to prevent such congestion of all these activities as would increase rents of all kinds abnormally. This would mean again an added burden to the ultimate consumer for all life's necessities.

In addition, tax rates are chronically assailed as a charge on the cost of living. But taxes are spent largely for improvements to furnish adequate streets, to provide for the city's spread and growth and to carry out other improvements which alone can make life livable and desirable in a modern city. In fact, "taxes may actually diminish the cost of living, if the city's money is spent economically in the performance of necessary co-operative service." But taxes are often wasted because the improvements are made piecemeal, by patchwork, with no reference to future needs. Taxes for such improvements should be made only as a part of a far-sighted and comprehensive plan. Then, without waste, work done at the present will fit into the work to be done in the future.

DIAGRAM SHOWING MOVEMENT OF TRAFFIC AT IMPORTANT STREET INTERSECTIONS IN PITTSBURGH—WIDTH OF BAND REPRESENTS NUMBER OF CARS AND VEHICLES PER RUSH HOUR.

Note: Vehicle traffic on Market Street, between Fifth and Liberty Avenues, now discontinued

By offering solutions for the above and many other similar problems this report demonstrates that practical city planning—or better, replanning—is part of the world-wide conservation movement. City planning is municipal conservation. Pittsburgh, like other cities and to a greater extent than most of them, faces the problem of using her financial and territorial resources to the utmost. The "utmost" means making these resources go the furthest in securing ample streets for transportation and traffic, and easy communication between all parts of the city; in providing for the cheap distribution of food, fuel and clothing; in making all residence districts as nearly as possible equally healthful, un-congested, and provided with trees and yards; in establishing for all residents public accommodations for recreation and leisure; and in maintaining and developing adequate districts for retail and wholesale trade, manufacture and commerce.

The Pittsburgh Civic Commission has conducted its city planning with the above ends in view, and purposes by this report to contribute to the economy, convenience, practicability and attractiveness of Pittsburgh's development and growth. The Commission began this work by retaining Bion J. Arnold, John R. Freeman and Frederick Law Olmsted to make a report on the outline and procedure of city planning for Pittsburgh. This report stated the scope and methods for investigations on the following subjects:

• Steam Railroads
• Water Transportation
• Electric Railroads
• Street Systems
• Public Lands and Buildings
• Water System
• Sewerage System
• Control over Developments on Private Property
• Smoke Abatement
• Building Code

Provision has been made by which several sections of this program are already under way. The city administration has been foremost in appreciating the necessity for just such investigations as the report recommended. Expert advice at this period in our civic advance is imperative if this city is to take its proper rank among American cities. Upon completion of the preliminary report Mayor Magee undertook to have studies made upon the electric and steam railroads, and requested that the Commission release to the city Mr. Bion J. Arnold for this purpose. This the Commission gladly did, and since then Mr. Arnold has conducted these investigations for the city along the lines laid down in this preliminary report. The preparation of a building code as suggested in this report was authorized by the city councils at the request of the Mayor, and the latter appointed a competent building code commission, and an appropriation has been made for the carrying out of this part of the City Plan. Mayor Magee also secured the retention of Mr. Allen Hazen of New York, who is making such a comprehensive study of an adequate sewerage system as was suggested in this report. Likewise, the Mayor has planned to carry out the studies for the water system.

The Commission itself continued the retention of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted to make a study of a comprehensive main thoroughfare system for the center of the city and to the principal residence and manufacturing districts and the surrounding boroughs. Mr. Olmsted was also asked to report upon the locations of the main public buildings and grounds of the down town district. This report was to cover both immediately necessary improvements and a comprehensive improvement program for the next twenty-five years. Thus could present improvements be made economically because planned with reference to those of the future.

The Commission presents herewith Mr. Olmsted's report on these subjects, made under the supervision of the Committee on City Planning. The members of this Committee have given months of time from their private business to the consideration of every detail of this report; and this committee, with Mr. Olmsted, has given to the report its value as a contribution to the movement for the Greater and Better Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH CIVIC COMMISSION.

[GENERAL MAP
OF THE
PITTSBURGH DISTRICT]

PITTSBURGH

MAIN THOROUGHFARES AND THE DOWN TOWN DISTRICT

Introduction

There are two main divisions of City Planning. One looks to the rearrangement and improvement of what has already been unwisely done through lack of proper planning or through force of adverse circumstances of any sort. The other looks to the wise and economical layout of what still remains to be done, especially at the outskirts of the city where the major part of the city's growth is bound to occur, and where the city plan is daily taking shape out of nothing, whether it is intelligently designed or not.

Prevention is cheaper than cure, and a moderate expenditure of effort and money will accomplish far greater results in the long run if applied to the wise control of the growing suburban districts, where new streets are constantly coming into existence, than if applied to costly remodeling of the older parts of the city; but the latter is sometimes of the utmost importance, and is of direct interest to a much larger number of citizens than the prosaic work of controlling scattered suburban development. In accordance with the instructions of the Commission this report deals primarily with certain problems of remodeling in the down town district, and with the improvement of the main thoroughfares between this, the heart of the city, and the more important outlying districts.

To carry out at once all the recommendations of this report would, even if it were possible, impose an altogether unreasonable financial burden upon the City and the contiguous boroughs. Such procedure is unnecessary and indeed impossible. But in many cases there is a crying need for the improvement already, or it is of such a nature that any delay is apt to involve a considerable increase in the cost and the difficulty of carrying it out.

Suggestive treatment of street junctions in outlying districts, Stuttgart

The most urgent general improvement of this sort is the establishment of new building lines on all main thoroughfares which it is proposed to widen; this in order to anticipate, as far as possible, the construction of new and costly buildings on the present street lines.

Of the specific recommendations made in this report it seems advisable to give the earliest attention to the following:

In the following cases the actual improvements are not so urgent, but the new street locations should be established before expensive developments, which are apt to occur at any time, shall interpose serious new difficulties in the way of the proposed improvements:

For other specific thoroughfare improvements recommended in this report there appear to be no very urgent demands at present. Generally speaking they should be carried out only as some special opportunity offers, or in anticipation of some obstructing development which cannot now be foreseen, or as a growing traffic shall demand.

But a thing of greater consequence than any one of these specific improvements, a thing of vital import to every taxpaying citizen of the present and future City, is the making of comprehensive and accurate topographical maps. It is only on the basis of such maps that all municipal engineering, and indeed much other work, directly managed by the City, can be planned and carried out with proper economy and efficiency. It is only on the basis of such maps that improvements in the city—details of city replanning—can be most economically determined. And in the outlying districts, where the future city is being built, such maps are absolutely essential to an intelligent planning or control which will avoid the heavy penalties that follow haphazard city growth, especially in such a hilly region.

Comparative diagram showing the volume and the estimated gross tonnage of traffic on the thoroughfares leading into the Down Town District

[GENERAL PLAN
OF THE
DOWN TOWN DISTRICT]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Already provided for, wholly or in part, in the current bond issue.

PART I
The Down Town District

The Main Arteries

The down town district is substantially that part of the city known as the Point District. It is bounded by the two rivers and by the steep hills to the eastward, and within this section of the city, as elsewhere, the basic problem is that of the means of transportation—specifically the problem of the street plan. There is a daily circulation of inward and outward travel to be borne by a limited number of main arteries, of which those leading to most of the tributary districts are bridges. It is clear that the bridges can be enlarged or increased in number at any time when the volume of travel justifies the expense of reconstruction.

A one-span bridge across the Danube at Budapest

Considering the fact that Pittsburgh is a world capital in the steel bridge industry, that its busiest quarters are sundered by three of the world's big rivers, and that it is traversed in every direction by ravines which demand the construction of mighty viaducts, it is a striking and rather shameful thing that it does not possess a single bridge over its rivers that is notable among the bridges of the world either for its beauty, for its perfect engineering adaptation to its purpose, for its size, strength or amplitude. In fact the bridges of Pittsburgh, compared with those of other great cities, are rather unusually limited in capacity and lacking in the qualities of impressiveness and beauty.

It is a case of the cobbler's children going barefoot: when a man sells shoes at wholesale in every quarter of the globe, it is time for his own family to be well shod. Pittsburgh can afford to have, and owes it to herself to have, the very best of bridges. No time or pains or reasonable expense should be spared in planning future bridges, whether they be on new locations or to replace existing structures, to get the best designs that the highest engineering skill combined with the highest artistic ability can produce. Bridge-builders everywhere should be enabled to think of Pittsburgh not merely as a source of cheap raw material for bridges, but as an all-round leader in the bridge-building art.

Bridge of distinctive character at Budapest

To the eastward, where the most active growth of the city has been taking place, the arteries consist not of bridges over open rivers, but of streets, very limited in number by reason of the form of the land, and so situated that the cost of securing greater capacity will increase by leaps and bounds with the rise of land values and the erection of new structures. The first step in planning improvements for the heart of the city must therefore be to consider the possibilities for improvement in the eastward arteries.

Eastward Arteries and Their Improvement

There are only three places where such arteries could ever have been laid out, even if the wisest foresight had been exercised in the early planning of the city when all was free and open. These three places are around the north edge of the hills along the Allegheny, around the south edge of the hills along the Monongahela, and through the gap in the hills followed by Fifth Avenue and Forbes Street.

The northerly route is followed by Penn and Liberty Avenues, by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and by Grant Boulevard clinging to the hillside above the railroad. The space between Penn Avenue and the river is largely occupied by railroads and by business dependent upon the railroads, and there seems to be no possibility of opening any new line for relief, except in so far as a subway might reduce the number of people inconvenienced by delays on the surface. On account of its gradients and of the districts toward which it leads at both ends, the usefulness of Grant Boulevard seems likely to remain confined to light passenger traffic, chiefly automobiles. In any case all the teaming and surface traffic of a very large region must be carried through the throat on the lower level. It is important also to note that the only street which passes through the down town district with more than village dimensions—eighty-foot Liberty Avenue—leads directly to this throat and then chokes down to a fifty-foot street.

It may safely be said that increased capacity for east and west general traffic north of the hills can be secured only by a radical widening of Liberty Avenue or Penn Avenue. Upon the whole the latter seems the more advantageous route. On the score of cost there seems to be but little choice; on the score of value in the result Penn Avenue is the better. To have one side of such an important avenue flanked by a railroad to the exclusion of general business frontage would make it less agreeable as a thoroughfare and less productive as a real estate proposition. On the other hand if Penn Avenue is widened the narrow portion of Liberty, above Eleventh Street and next the railroad, will be important almost solely for local purposes; warehouses or factories could be erected extending through from the principal, or Penn Avenue, frontage to Liberty Avenue, and could be provided with sidings from the railroad passing over Liberty.

Further details as to this suggested widening of Penn Avenue and its connections eastward are given, along with other highway improvements, in Part II of this report. But considering here only its relation to the down town district, this widening will undoubtedly throw increased emphasis upon Penn and Liberty Avenues as traffic lines within this district; and it is obvious that a good cross-connection should be provided so that eastbound traffic coming from Liberty Avenue and from Grant Street, as well as from Penn Avenue, can freely reach the widened portion of the latter. A traffic square at the angle in front of the Union Station, where the broad part of Liberty Avenue ends and the narrow part begins, would furnish the desired connection. Fortunately such a square can now be formed with the destruction of but few buildings and those of relatively little cost.[2]

Second Avenue between Try Street and the Tenth Street Bridge

The street along the Monongahela—Second Avenue—although it might have been made of great importance and value by proper planning at the start, cannot at the present time be greatly widened without the most serious difficulties. For much of its length it is pinched between railroads and industrial plants. It does not lead eastward into any district comparable in population or importance with those tapped by Penn and Liberty Avenues, and its connection westward through the Point District is narrow, difficult to widen, and relatively unimportant. For these reasons Second Avenue, although it must be recognized as a main thoroughfare and should be improved as much as practicable, especially as far east as the Tenth Street bridge, is not of such first-class importance as to demand radical enlargement in spite of all obstacles.

The only remaining natural outlet to the east is that occupied by Fifth Avenue and Forbes Street and the block between them. Neither street is wide enough for the traffic it will be called upon to bear, but the widening of Fifth Avenue would be so costly as to be almost out of the question. For many reasons, discussed in detail in Part II, the widening of Forbes Street into an ample main thoroughfare seems to be the best solution of the problem here presented.

The importance of this route and of its future traffic burden will be better realized when it is understood that at Soho a direct extension can be made, on easy gradients, from the widened Forbes Street to Fifth Avenue, the street which can more easily be widened beyond that point; and further, that, a little to the east, a new and greatly needed street might branch off to the right from Forbes Street where the latter turns inland. This new street would continue along the side hill above the river, and would provide the only possible convenient outlet from the down town district to all the upland regions south and southwest of Squirrel Hill. Thus the western portion of Forbes Street, when widened, would carry the great bulk of all future street traffic between the down town district and the whole district from East Liberty to the Monongahela River as well as all the country east and southeast of that triangle.

A New Traffic Center

The intersection of Forbes Street, widened, with Sixth Avenue, extended, is likely to become a traffic center of the utmost consequence to Pittsburgh. The importance of the Forbes Street route to the eastward has been indicated above; Sixth Avenue, crossing Fifth Avenue and Grant Street, leads toward the Union Station and toward all the northeast part of the business district, and to the North Side bridges; a new bridge and tunnel are quite likely to lead from this very intersection to the South Side and the South Hills; from this center a good connection is readily obtainable with Fourth, Third, and Second Avenues and with the southern water front; and Diamond Street can be widened at moderate expense so as to continue Forbes Street right through the heart of the business district.

Sixth Avenue

The importance of Sixth Avenue between Forbes and Grant Streets has been pointed out. It is the natural route from the Union Station and the adjacent freight yards and from all the Allegheny bridges to the districts fed by Fifth Avenue, Forbes Street, the proposed South Hills bridge, and Second Avenue. It ought to be widened to the dimensions of a main thoroughfare, and its grade ought to be lessened. Its stream of travel splits at Grant Street, a portion turning to the left into the other part of Sixth Avenue, and a portion turning to the right along Grant Street to Liberty Avenue and the freight yards. The latter obviously is a very important line, and the off-set which makes at Seventh Avenue is so serious that the corner ought to be cut.

Try Street Grade Crossing

The elimination of the grade crossing of Second Avenue with the Panhandle Road at Try Street is a pressing improvement. The avenue now descends toward the railroad from both directions, and the best plan appears to be to carry it over the tracks. In this way Second Avenue would connect directly (through the west side of the Civic Center) with Forbes Street; with Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Avenues, and so with the Union Station and the Allegheny Valley; with the main or upper deck of the South Hills bridge rising across the river to the proposed tunnel; and with the suggested lower deck of that bridge leading to the South Side. In order to secure a good gradient, the westerly approach of Second Avenue should start from Grant Street, rising on an incline or viaduct through the so-called park and the street on one side of it, in order to pass over Ross Street. In this way there would be no interference with the teaming through Ross Street to the Baltimore and Ohio freight yards.

Second Avenue Freight Yards

Mention should here be made of a plan, which it is understood is already being considered, to develop the area between Second Avenue and the river, from Try Street to the Tenth Street bridge, for freight purposes. Even now the connections from this region to the Tenth Street and Smithfield Street bridges, and, via First and Second Avenues, to the whole Point District, are good. But the street changes proposed in connection with the traffic center at Sixth Avenue and Forbes Street will provide greatly improved connections directly to the Point District, the East End and the South Hills. First Avenue and Water Street would enter the freight yard underneath the Panhandle and the proposed Baltimore and Ohio local tracks; and if Second Avenue is raised to go over the Panhandle tracks, as recommended above, direct entrances can be secured to the second or third floor of a freight house with car elevators such as those at St. Louis. On the whole this seems like a good place for a large distributing freight station.

The "Hump Cut"

The Sixth Avenue improvement, and others in the vicinity, are bound up with the question of the "Hump Cut." Pushing to one side all differences of opinion as to the local effect of the proposed cut,—its influence on land values, and the share of the cost which ought to be borne by abutters,—the fact stands out that the City as a whole needs the improvement in order to clear an obstruction from some of its most important general highways. Another fact, seen clearly from this larger point of view, is that the essential matter is to secure a radical reduction of the maximum gradients on the three great thoroughfare lines, Sixth Avenue, Fifth Avenue, and Diamond Street, even though the minor streets on the margins of the Hump be skimped. Detailed recommendations, as to gradients, etc., are discussed in Part V and are embodied in the accompanying plans and profiles.

Grant Boulevard Extension

Diagram showing the distribution of automobiles coming in town on Grant Boulevard

Only one other thoroughfare problem is involved with the "Hump Cut," that of Grant Boulevard extension. Since the grade of Webster Avenue will be considerably lowered in connection with the "Hump Cut," and the buildings along its lower end greatly damaged in any case, by far the best plan for Grant Boulevard is to carry it straight through to Webster Avenue and to widen the lower end of the latter to 60 feet, as far as Grant Street. The widening of Oliver Avenue to 50 feet between Grant and Smithfield Streets, and the possible widening of Strawberry Way, would, together with existing streets, provide adequate means of distribution for the large number of automobiles using the boulevard, and would at the same time create a decided local improvement.

A Civic Center

The location of a Civic Center, where the city offices can be grouped in a convenient and dignified manner, ought to connect with the main transportation lines. It ought, if possible, to embrace the county buildings. It ought, if possible, to occupy land which is not of such high cost as to preclude the setting apart of the open space which is requisite to the highest dignity and beauty of public buildings. All these advantages are embraced to a high degree in a locality now so unpromising and unattractive that it is hard not to feel an unfair prejudice against it.

County Buildings—the northwest side of the proposed Civic Center

Present appearance of the Civic Center site from the rear of the County Buildings

Princes Street in Edinburgh—an interesting example of a public garden built over a railroad

Suggestion for the Municipal Building in the Civic Center

The locality in question lies to the east and southeast of the present county buildings. It embraces a bit of low ground occupied by the little Panhandle station and local freight yard, surrounded, except for the county buildings, by vacant lands and cheap buildings at various higher levels, mounting on the east to the commanding ridge that dominates all this part of the city. Through this locality the Forbes and Diamond Street thoroughfare and the South Hills and Sixth Avenue thoroughfare will pass. Fifth Avenue borders it on the north, and Second Avenue on the south. It is flanked on the northwest by the noble and distinguished architecture of the court house and the jail—masterpieces of Richardson, priceless examples of the work of one of the few great artists America has yet produced. To the west a new county building is about to be erected. It is proposed that the central area of low ground, occupied by the railroad, be decked over at about the level of Fifth Avenue, and that a great public square with gardens be laid out thereon somewhat after the manner of the celebrated public gardens built over the railroad at Princes Street, Edinburgh, or, in a much smaller way, at Park Avenue, New York. Below the structure would simply be a first class station and freight sheds of permanent construction, with skylights and ventilators, at suitable locations, piercing a flat roof of adequate strength. The cost of construction would be less than the cost of an equal area of land independently acquired for an open space in connection with a Civic Center in any other locality that could reasonably be considered.

Sketch of the proposed Civic Center for Pittsburgh, looking south. The crossing of tracks in center of foreground is at the present corner of Sixth Avenue and Forbes Street

Retaining wall supporting a local park at Lyons—a suggestion for the bluff between Second Avenue and the new City Hall.

Hillside site of the proposed City Hall

Along the east side of this square or garden, in the form of a gradually rising terrace, would run the approach to the new South Hills bridge ascending gently from Forbes Street; and on the east side of this again, as though terraced on the hillside, would be the principal municipal building culminating in a tower which would spring from the highest level at Bluff Street, where the playground of the Holy Ghost College could be utilized as a park. The group enclosing the square would be completed by another building at the north with frontage on Forbes Street, Fifth Avenue, and Sixth Avenue, and by a low building on the south serving to screen the factories and freight yards south of Second Avenue but leaving open the view of the opposite hills. The plan and the sketch perspectives indicate in a general way the sort of architectural development for which the situation appears to call. The pronounced and unsymmetrical differences in elevation, the slanting grade of the approach to the great South Hills bridge, the irregular and picturesque form of the site and of the existing county buildings, all seem to demand a certain informality and picturesqueness of design. These peculiarities of the site ought to be welcomed because they are eminently characteristic of the city and of the mountainous region in which it is set. Throughout the city and its surroundings the one preëminent quality of an agreeable sort is the bold picturesqueness of the landscape—the deep ravines, the lofty hills, the precipitous declivities, the plunging prospects from hilltops into the river valleys—and a similar quality of forcefulness, activity, and bold, irregular adaptation of means to ends, is to be felt in all the more dominant and impressive works of man in the city—the steel works, the bridges and viaducts, the jagged sky-line of office buildings. To build a City Hall and Civic Center of scholastic formality, appropriate in the placid surroundings of Paris, would be to lose a great esthetic opportunity.

The Cathedral Terrace at Bern; a suggestion for utilizing a high situation for public buildings and grounds

The hillside of Ofen at Budapest, an interesting treatment of the slope crowned by a public building

Diamond Street Widening

It would be difficult to overestimate the value, to the future convenience prosperity and business efficiency of the city, of carrying the Forbes Street improvement straight through to a junction with Liberty Avenue on the line of Diamond Street; and it is deemed a peculiarly fortunate thing that this is the only east and west line in the midst of the business district where a wide street can still be put through without destroying any considerable number of costly modern buildings.

When Diamond Alley was widened, in part, from 20 feet to 50 feet, not long ago, the improvement was of much importance because it added one more street large enough for general business in a locality where there was a great demand for business frontage, and where the original lots were of very excessive depth. But the improvement was a distinctly local one and contributed little or nothing to the solution of the general traffic problem. But the peculiar relation of Diamond Street to the general system of main traffic lines demands a much more courageous action for the benefit of the whole city. In connection with the widening of Forbes Street, it should be converted into a thoroughfare at least equal in width to Liberty Avenue. A glance at the map shows the convenient and equitable location of Diamond Street, and its importance as a thoroughfare to supplement Liberty Avenue in handling the traffic of the Point District.

Market Street Widening

Coming, as it does, directly opposite the Sixth Street bridge, Market Street ought to be a very important cross-town connection; and because the buildings are generally small and old, and most of the lots are so deep as not to be seriously injured by curtailment, a widening is suggested throughout its length.

The widening of Diamond and Market Streets makes clear that the Diamond Square Market site should not be occupied in any way that would perpetuate the obstruction offered by the present use of the square to through travel. The need is not for a mere mitigation or slight improvement of the present conditions by opening little archways through a new building on the Market site, but for a radical and effective clearance. The space was originally set apart as an open public square, and the complete occupation of it by revenue-producing buildings was a diversion of the square from its original purpose—an act in general accordance with the unfortunately short-sighted policy which has done much to bring about the notably congested conditions prevailing in the city today.

The Market

A bridge and water front at Pittsburgh—Monongahela River

It may be necessary to provide elsewhere for the Market, and a site is suggested in the block between Third and Fourth Streets on Liberty Avenue, having the great advantage of rail connections. On account of the character of the surrounding country, an exceptionally large proportion of market supplies comes to Pittsburgh by rail and must continue to do so. It is highly uneconomical, and adds needlessly and considerably to the congestion of the streets, to unload the market supplies from the railroad a full mile away (as is now done) and to then haul them by team through the heart of the retail district.[3]

Within the interior of the Point District, Diamond and Market Streets widened, supplemented by the existing Liberty Avenue, appear to be the only thoroughfares of Metropolitan dimensions which it is reasonable to provide for. But around the borders of the district there is much that ought to be done.

The Water Front

In its water front Pittsburgh has a great public asset which now lies undeveloped both from the point of view of transportation and from that of recreation and civic beauty.

Primitive commercial quay at Pittsburgh—Allegheny River

As a transportation factor, its primary use is for the transshipment of water-born commodities. As discussed elsewhere,[4] the actual amount of river freight is at present relatively small; but it is potentially important, and one of the reasons for its lack of growth is the neglect of Pittsburgh and other river ports to provide for the quick, convenient, and economical handling of river-born traffic at the public wharf.

Berlin water front, both useful and attractive

At river ports throughout the world, the first primitive step, beyond the mere dumping of stuff and passengers on the natural shelving bank or river bed of mud or gravel, is the paving of the slope, as at Pittsburgh, still leaving the goods to be dragged up and down the bank by main force. But among the live modern river cities of Europe, wherever a real water competition with rail service has been desired, even though such competition be limited in its range, the day of the primitive or mud-bank type of shore has long gone by; and the public wharf has been reconstructed into one of the many well-recognized types of commercial embankment providing an up-to-date equipment for handling freight, and decent, attractive conditions for passengers. This development of the public wharf properties in Europe has kept pace with the activities of the railroads, making for the steady and intelligent improvement of terminal facilities. Indeed in many European river ports the improvement of the water terminals has rather forced the pace for the railroads.

Frankfurt's double use of its river front, for business and for pleasure

In contrast to this active aggressive spirit, Pittsburgh, like most American river towns, where she has not actually turned her water front over bodily to the railroads, has left it in a most inefficient primitive condition.

Shaded promenade upon the embankment that protects Lyons from the floods of the Rhone

But the value of Pittsburgh's water front lies not merely in its use as a wharf, however much improved. Another use, shown by the varied experiences of other river cities, is that, in a commercial water front on modern lines, there is generally opportunity for a wide marginal thoroughfare for the relief of traffic congestion in the adjacent streets. Sometimes such a water-front thoroughfare becomes a busy avenue of retail trade and general travel; but more usually its peculiar value lies in diverting some of the main streams of heavy teaming from the older interior streets where the retail trade and office business tend to concentrate, and where the passenger travel is most dense. Especially with an isolated and limited business district like that of Pittsburgh, made up almost wholly of narrow streets and connected with the rest of the city by a series of bridges and of bridge-like gaps in the hills which wall it in, it becomes of the utmost importance to secure the formation of a wide circuit street connecting these outlets together, so that not all the travel is forced to filter slowly through the midst of the business district.

View of the same water front at Lyons, showing the commercial quay

A third undeveloped asset of the Pittsburgh water front is its value for recreation and as an element of civic comeliness and self-respect. One of the deplorable consequences of the short-sighted and wasteful commercialism of the later nineteenth century lay in its disregard of what might have been the esthetic by-products of economic improvement; in the false impression spread abroad that economical and useful things were normally ugly; and in the vicious idea which followed, that beauty and the higher pleasures of civilized life were to be sought only in things otherwise useless. Thus the pursuit of beauty was confounded with extravagance.

Among the most significant illustrations of the fallacy of such ideas are the comeliness and the incidental recreation value which attach to many of the commercial water fronts of European river ports, and it is along such lines that Pittsburgh still has opportunity for redeeming the sordid aspect of its business center.

How Paris appreciates the value of its river frontage

The outlook from The Point, Pittsburgh

Wherever in the world, as an incident of the highways and wharves along its riverbanks, a city has provided opportunity for the people to walk and sit under pleasant conditions where they can watch the water and the life upon it, where they can enjoy the breadth of outlook and the sight of the open sky and the opposite bank and the reflections in the stream, the result has added to the comeliness of the city itself, the health and happiness of the people and their loyalty and local pride. This has been true in the case of a bare, paved promenade, running along like an elevated railroad over the sheds and tracks and derricks of a busy ocean port, as at Antwerp; in the case of a tree-shaded sidewalk along a commercial street with the river quays below it, as at Paris and Lyons and hundreds of lesser cities; and in the case of a broad embankment garden won from the mud-banks by dredging and filling, as at London. Pittsburgh has an unusual opportunity to secure this incidental value for recreation in the treatment of its river front. Immediately across the Monongahela are the high and rugged hillsides of Mt. Washington and Duquesne Heights, and below these are the lesser but still striking hills along the Ohio River from the West End to McKees Rocks. The outlook over the river with its varied activities to these hills immediately beyond, would be notable in any part of the world. Furthermore, the rivers and the hills are the two big fundamental natural elements characteristic of the Pittsburgh District. Thus, any provision close to the heart of the city, whereby the people can have the enjoyment of these mighty landscapes, is of peculiar importance.

Mt. Washington hillside from the Monongahela water front

It does not diminish the essential grandeur of the situation that the river swarms with barges and steamers; that it is spanned by busy bridges; that the flat lands along the rivers are crowded with railroads, buildings and smoking factories; and that the hillsides are crowned with houses. It is a spacious and impressive landscape in any case. But for the people to get the good of it two things are needful. A locally agreeable place must be provided from which the scene can be enjoyed; and the landscape must be treated with the respect which it deserves, by the elimination of certain features which are merely indicative of neglect, waste, and abuse, and which have no economic justification. Especially is it desirable that the precipitous hillside rising to Mt. Washington, now largely an unfruitful waste, a place of raw gulleys and slides mingled with some painful advertising signs, should be treated with respect as a vital part of the great landscape of the city. It should be protected from defacement and its earthy portions should be reclothed with the beauty of foliage.

The accompanying illustrations are suggestive of the sort of thing which might be done by Pittsburgh with its remaining public water front, and in time, let us hope, with portions of the water front which have passed into private hands. But the actual details of the treatment to be adopted can be properly worked out only in connection with the comprehensive plans for flood protection with which the Flood Commission is now grappling.

Water front and hillside at Lyons

The great majority of river cities which have undertaken modern improvements on their water fronts have had to deal with more or less serious flood problems, and the complex and varying conditions of each river have had an important influence on the design of the embankment. The technical problems involved in the control of rivers are among the most complex and baffling with which the engineering profession has to deal, and any attempt to forestall the investigations of the Flood Commission, by definite plans for permanent improvements on the water front, would be folly. Nevertheless, the experience of hundreds of cities and the work of thousands of engineers have developed certain types of treatment, one or more of which, with suitable local modifications, will pretty surely appear in the final solution of the Pittsburgh problem. Subject, therefore, to the conclusions of the Flood Commission, a satisfactory development of the Pittsburgh wharf may be expected to include the following features.

First, there should be an amply wide water-front street, presumably formed by extending Water Street and Duquesne Way over the upper part of the present sloping bank. Second, the outer sidewalk of this street should become at most points a tree-shaded promenade, of such width and with such equipment of benches and other features for public recreation as the circumstances permit, so arranged that the people using it will neither be in the way of the transportation activities nor be annoyed or endangered by them, and so designed that the people can enjoy to the full the natural beauty of the river valley and the always interesting activities of which it is the stage. Third, there should be next the water a commercial quay, substantially level, of adequate but not unnecessary width, and accessible from the streets by inclined roads of reasonable gradient, parallel with the river, in place of the present excessive slopes.

In the first typical section here given is shown one such arrangement. Here, the level of the promenade is such that its solid parapet rises above the maximum flood level. This is of a type adopted for rivers that are subject to occasional excessive floods, as at Pittsburgh. It assumes the embankment to be made water-tight; the sewers and drains to be provided with proper back-pressure gates, and the openings from the streets, through the promenade and its parapet to the commercial quay, to be arranged for prompt damming on the rise of the water above the danger level. Thus would the entire business district be protected from floods, not only on the surface but also in the basements. The quay shown on this section is supposed to be at a level just above ordinary navigable stages, and to be equipped with power cranes for direct loading and unloading between steamers or barges, tied up at the quay, and wagons upon it. Provision could also be made for a freight track running in alongside the cranes for transfer between cars and vessels (if thought desirable), in addition to the facilities provided on railroad property. Alongside the quay, floating landing-stages for packets and so forth, reached by gang-planks or bridges, would be provided as at present, but in a more decent and commodious style.

Typical section for the water front. The parapet along the promenade would be above extreme flood height; the commercial quay would be at a lower level, flooded at very high water, but above all ordinary river stages.

Alternative section for the water front, suggesting a floating commercial quay that would rise and fall with the river. Large cranes could transfer freight directly from the boats to trucks at the street level. At certain places roadways would cut through the promenade to provide access to ramps leading down to the quays and to provide places for freight trucks to stand while being loaded and unloaded.

This section is of a type tested by practical experience and is clearly a great improvement upon the present primitive conditions. But it is open to two objections: first, that the quay is flooded at intervals, although so designed as to suffer no injury and to be put out of commission only when the river is practically closed to navigation by the height of the flood; and, second, that at low water, that is to say "pool full," it is not at the most convenient height.

An alternative section is therefore suggested, which has less precedent behind it, but which might prove better adapted to the Pittsburgh conditions. In this the fixed level of the commercial quay is replaced by a continuous landing stage formed of long floats or barges, of permanent construction, moored against the wall and free to rise and fall with the changing level of the river. The approaches to the floating quay for wagons would be, as in the case of the fixed quay, by descending inclines parallel with the river just outside the main wall; but in this case the roadway would be formed by a line of barges which would rest on a fixed incline during low water. The rising water would lift the barges off the incline successively, beginning with the lowest, so that at all stages of the water they would maintain an uninterrupted roadway to the quay on a proper gradient. Successful precedents for such use of permanent floating quays, and of alternately floating and grounded driveways to the landing stage, are to be found in Italy and in the recent harbor developments at Manaos, Brazil.

A great advantage of the floating quay is that in this type of construction the bed of the river may be excavated to its full depth back to the face of the flood wall itself, and that the space necessary for the commercial quay is secured on the floating structure outside of this line without materially reducing the prism, or section, of the flood discharge. It would therefore be possible, with this design, to secure more ample width for street, for promenade, and for commercial quay, and at the same time have more space in the river for the passage of the floods.

Whatever may prove to be the best details of the river-front treatment, it is clear that it can and should provide an ample thoroughfare, a clean, pleasant, tree-shaded promenade, and a convenient, up-to-date wharf with easy access to and from the streets. There is no serious difficulty in providing for such an improvement from the junction of the two bridges at The Point to Ninth Street, on the Allegheny, and to Smithfield Street, on the Monongahela.

East of Smithfield Street the passenger station of the Baltimore & Ohio now blocks the way. But it is not unreasonable to expect that the main Baltimore & Ohio station will, before long, be moved to some point in Junction Hollow in order to avoid the long delay, to all through trains, caused by the run down to Smithfield Street and back again. The suburban business of the Baltimore & Ohio could then be turned in, parallel with the Panhandle tracks, to a new joint suburban station in connection with the important future center of traffic near the junction of Forbes and Diamond Streets with Sixth Avenue and the proposed South Hill bridge.

When the Baltimore & Ohio passenger station is removed from Smithfield Street it would be possible to continue the new water-front street and promenade east of Smithfield on a viaduct just outside of the present Water Street; this viaduct would rise over the Baltimore & Ohio freight yard and the grade entrances thereto at Grant and Ross Streets, and so connect along the line of the Panhandle (Try Street) with the proposed Second Avenue bridge over the railroad, and thence with Forbes Street and Sixth Avenue.

Any better connection than now exists from Ninth Street and Duquesne Way to Liberty Avenue would be so costly as to seem hardly worth while, although it would be a much-desired link in the circuit thoroughfare.

It is probably impossible for Pittsburghers, who are familiar with the present neglected aspect of the water front and are not familiar with the finer European quays, to form any conception of how fine a situation will be created for public or private buildings, especially on the southern water front when thus improved. If it were not so much to one side of the main streams of passenger travel, the river frontage between Smithfield and Ferry Streets would offer a most admirable site for public buildings in the down town district.

The Improvement of The Point

At the opposite end of the business district from the proposed Civic Center is another spot where the civic pride of Pittsburgh should lead the City to make liberal expenditures for other than the economic ends which justify those Street improvements which are the main burden of this report.

Water front park and an interesting bridge at Bonn, Germany

At the end of The Point, where the two lines of water-front improvement would join, is a considerable area of public open space. Here is the spot where the Ohio River has its birth: here was built the fort which broke the peace of Europe and around which turned the frontier struggles of the war that gave America to the English speaking race. It is here that all the most inspiring associations of the city are chiefly concentrated. Poetically, this spot, at the meeting of the rivers, stands for Pittsburgh.

Because the eastward drift of the business center has followed the eastward drift of residences, and the growth of business has not yet expanded back to fill the void; and because The Point is left pocketed beyond the freight yards, and is visited only by the throngs who use the old Point bridge, it seems to be rather forgotten and disregarded by most Pittsburghers. But its historical and topographical significance can never be altered, and it is to be hoped that the City will rise to its opportunity and nobly form The Point into a great monument.

The North Point bridge is about to be rebuilt; the South Point bridge is very narrow and some day must be rebuilt in its own turn. In the placing of these bridges, in every feature of their design and of the design and decoration of their approaches, the monumental element ought always to control. The plan shown herewith in outline is an attempt to solve, in a dignified and monumental way, the obvious problems presented by the bridges and the means of approach to them. Whether just this plan or some better one be adopted, it is essential that the whole Point be regarded as one single monument, that no pains be spared in bringing the best artistic skill to bear in working out the details of the plan, and that the general plan, when thus worked out, shall really determine the construction of all the parts. At any time conditions may arise, as in regard to one of the bridges, for which the general plan does not exactly provide; but, if so, the plan should be adapted as a whole to meet the new conditions, so that work may still proceed in accordance with a complete plan. Never can a single feature of The Point safely be designed independent of the rest, if worthy results are to be obtained. And what is true of this great monumental feature is true in large measure of all public improvements in relation to a comprehensive city plan.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] See Plan of the Down Town District.

[3] A general discussion of the Market problem is included in Part V.

[4] The City and the Allegheny River Bridges, Part V.

PART II
Main Thoroughfares

Width of Thoroughfares

In considering the economical widths for the main thoroughfares of a city, so many complex factors are involved that no exact and indisputable conclusions can be reached; but there are certain facts and principles that ought to remove such decisions from the realm of purely arbitrary whim and custom by which they are now generally settled. Practically every normal main thoroughfare, even of the most compact type, must provide for car tracks in the middle. On straight runs, according to the present practice and with the new cars in Pittsburgh, the width occupied from the outside of one car to the outside of the other is 17 feet 8½ inches. At that, the cars are narrower than the modern standard in some other American cities, and the clearance between the cars is reduced to less than a reasonable requirement for safety. On curving roads, such as the Pittsburgh topography often imposes, the space occupied is greater. Without allowing any clearance on the outside, a space not less than 18 feet, and preferably more, should be allowed for the actual cars on straight runs.

In Pittsburgh, the gauge of the car tracks was originally made to conform to the prevailing local gauge of other vehicles, on the mistaken theory that it was desirable to have the smooth tracks used by wagons; and this has resulted in the almost invariable conformity of the wagon gauge to that of the tracks, regardless of the size or character of the vehicle. With the added fact that Pittsburgh pavements are prevailingly bad, and that the form of rail is such that it is very difficult for a wagon to turn out when it has once got into the track, the teamsters in Pittsburgh are more inveterate in the habit of driving in the car tracks, and less ready to turn aside for cars or other vehicles, than in most cities. The severe and constantly repeated strain of the horses, which is required to wrench heavily-loaded wagons free from the tracks, is, in the aggregate, a serious economic loss; and the delays not only to the street cars but to all forms of wheeled traffic, caused by the conditions described, are incalculably great. But even good pavements and the use of a grooved rail would not cure the trouble in Pittsburgh streets as now laid out, because, almost universally, there is not sufficient room for a vehicle to pass between the cars and another vehicle standing or slowly moving next the curb.

In every street, vehicles must be free to stop for loading and unloading, and on a busy thoroughfare the space next the curb is so much used in this manner as to become merely a series of sidings into which slow-moving vehicles can turn from time to time in order to clear the main passageway. The result of the conditions above described is that practically the whole wheeled traffic in Pittsburgh streets is inevitably concentrated on the eighteen-foot width where the cars run. The extent to which this reduces the average speed of travel and the total capacity of the thoroughfare has been strikingly illustrated for Pittsburghers by the contrast of the former sluggish congestion of traffic on Smithfield Street with the sparse appearance and rapid movement of the same traffic since the "one-way" regulations have made it possible to get one free line in each direction for moving vehicles separate from the cars. The same striking increase in capacity is to be secured, without the grave inconveniences and drawbacks of the "one-way street" regulations, where the space between the cars and the curb can be made wide enough for two lines of vehicles, instead of just enough for one or for one and a half, as is usual in Pittsburgh.

It is very difficult to determine just what is the most economical allowance of width. There is much variation in the widths of the vehicles themselves, and the necessary amount of clearance varies with the average skill of the drivers and with the effectiveness of the police control. The width of the line is plainly determined by the widest vehicles in it rather than by the narrowest. In Pittsburgh the customary width of the heavier and wider wagons is now controlled by the practical necessity of fitting the wheels to the railway gauge of 5 feet 2½ inches, and the widths are considerably less than prevail in New York, Boston, and other reasonably well-paved cities where the wagons are not fitted to the car tracks. About 7 feet over all is now the ordinary maximum in Pittsburgh, a few auto trucks and delivery vans exceeding that figure slightly, and an occasional three-horse team occupying over 8 feet. In New York and Boston, wagons measuring from 7 to 8 feet from hub to hub are common, and they sometimes considerably exceed 8 feet.

Just as in the case of steam and electric railway equipment, the tendency is constantly in the direction of heavier, longer, wider vehicles, for the sake of the operating economy due to large units; and, with the steady increase in the use of motor vehicles for business purposes, this tendency is likely to be greatly accelerated. There is every reason to expect that motor trucks will gradually increase in size until a limit is fixed by the public authorities in order to protect the pavements, and for the sake of standardizing the lines of travel in relation to the street widths. But, in the interests of economy of operation, the limit should be as high as practicable, probably not less than 8 feet.

If 8 feet be allowed for each vehicle, plus only a foot of clearance, the cars and one row of vehicles on each side, between them and the vehicles standing at the curb, would require 54 feet between curbs. A wagon backed up to the curb on a busy street will seriously discommode travel at that, and the clearance allowed is very small. A width of 54 to 60 feet between curbs is, therefore, highly desirable in the main thoroughfares.

As a matter of fact, with the widths of vehicles which now prevail in Pittsburgh, if standing and slow-moving vehicles are compelled to keep in contact with the curb, it is possible to keep open a line of travel on each side of the car tracks, with only occasional blockades, where the width between curbs is 50 feet, or, at a pinch, even 48 or 47 feet. That is to say, the difference in traffic capacity between a thoroughfare 50 feet from curb to curb and one 45 feet is enormous; while the difference between 45 feet and 40 feet is very slight.

Since a main thoroughfare is apt in time to become a retail trading street, wide sidewalk space is important. It is a common rule to make the distance of the curb from the property line one-third the width of the roadway.

A total width of 90 feet, with a 54-foot roadway and 18-foot sidewalks, is a satisfactory minimum for meeting the practical requirements of an ordinary main traffic street; a width of 100 feet is preferable, and 80 feet may be regarded as a rather niggardly irreducible minimum.

In this connection it is interesting to note the standard widths adopted in European cities. The standard in London is 48 feet[5] between curbs and 80 feet between buildings for secondary avenues, and 100 feet over all for principal arteries; and 140 feet over all is proposed for two great main arteries, the cutting of which, through the midst of the city, is being considered. In German cities of the second size, such as Leipzig, Frankfort and Hanover, the standards are as follows: for strictly local streets, 33 to 47 feet; for secondary thoroughfares, 50 to 80 feet, and for main thoroughfares, 85 to 118 feet. A Prussian law, in force since 1875, and apparently drawn up to meet the requirements of Berlin with its heavier traffic, requires the following dimensions for the laying out of new streets and for the alteration of old ones: local streets, 40 to 65 feet; secondary thoroughfares, 65 to 95 feet; main thoroughfares, over 95 feet.[6]

Special Types of Thoroughfares

Park treatment of hillside street junction at Stuttgart

The above considerations apply only to the ordinary main thoroughfares of normal character. In most of the great cities of the world, there has been a considerable development of special thoroughfares of much greater width, including, for example, locations for transportation lines (surface or elevated), on separate rights of way decorated with trees; and including tree-shaded promenades and garden strips. These have usually been laid out in suburban sections before they were much built up; or, if within the built-up districts, on the sites of old fortifications, canals, or other abandoned engineering works. The latter opportunities are lacking at Pittsburgh, except in connection with the river banks. In the suburban localities of Pittsburgh, so much of the available building land is topographically divided into narrow strips that it would be cut to pieces in an exceptionally uneconomical manner by any boulevards, of the type usual in flatter cities, where a substantially uniform width of 150, or 200, or 300 feet is not infrequently carried through for considerable distances. As a general rule, any width to be secured for esthetic purposes in connection with Pittsburgh suburban thoroughfares, over and above that needed for handling the expectable future street traffic, must not be in the form of a general and continuous widening. But occasional pieces here and there may be taken for park purposes, as, for instance, a steep sidehill adjacent to the line and unavailable or difficult for building. Or a narrow ridge, on which the thoroughfare runs, may have at some point so little available building land fronting upon it that the whole can reasonably be parked for a short distance, thus keeping open the distant views.

Public resting place and outlook spot on a one-sided hillside street in Heidelberg

Section showing one type of hillside street

There are two special forms of street, developed here and there in hilly cities all over the world, of which Pittsburgh needs to take account in its suburban development. In many instances, and for long distances, existing suburban thoroughfares that must be enlarged and improved, and others that must be laid out, are compelled to run along the face of hills so steep that a street of level cross section, even though limited to 80 feet, would leave the land on one or both sides so far above or below the grade as to destroy its value for building purposes. In such cases it is often practicable to make use of one-sided streets or two-level streets. The former are designed to give accessible frontage on one side only, usually the uphill side. The property on the opposite side is reached by the next street, which is laid out correspondingly nearer in order not to make the lots too deep. The width of such a one-sided street may be curtailed without reducing its thoroughfare capacity because it is freed from local business all along one side. Bluff Street, though not a thoroughfare, is an excellent Pittsburgh example of the one-sided street, and illustrates the great attractiveness which such streets often possess. In a two-level street a longitudinal bank, or retaining wall, is introduced in the middle so as to adapt it to the topography and bring each half of it nearer to the natural surface where the abutting property fronts upon it. Such a street must normally be wider than a single thoroughfare of the same capacity, the saving in construction and in the development of abutting land more than counterbalancing the cost of extra width.

Section of a two-level street at Zurich, Switzerland.

Widths for outlying thoroughfares in a district like Pittsburgh, therefore, cannot be determined by any general rule. Each must be laid out as a problem by itself, the principal objects in each problem being to select a tolerably direct line on reasonable gradient, and so to fix the side lines of the location that it shall be possible to meet the immediate needs by constructing an economical suburban road, where it does not already exist, and ultimately to convert it into an ample urban thoroughfare with the minimum of cost and inconvenience.

Widening Old Streets

Whatever radical changes may be made to improve the present or safeguard the future condition of the thoroughfare system in regions that are now rural, there remains a huge problem within the district where the street system has already crystallized into substantially its final form. Here increased capacity can, for the most part, be secured only by local improvements and widenings of existing thoroughfares.

Fortunately, the building up of the street frontage with solid blocks of stores, apartments, and business structures, has at most points followed rather slowly after the earlier wave of detached dwelling houses, and a large proportion of the streets which are destined to be the main arteries of the huge future city are still lined by buildings which are set back at various distances from the street, leaving front dooryards between them and the sidewalk. Outside of the down town district, and a limited area in East Liberty, it is possible, therefore, to provide for the ultimate widening of these streets without the destruction of many valuable structures, provided the preliminary steps are promptly taken.

As traffic increases and the lots come to be used for business purposes, such a set-back becomes inconvenient and undesirable, and one by one the buildings are either extended to the sidewalk by new additions, or new buildings are erected on the sidewalk line. The reason for this change is not usually that additional lot depth is required, for often considerable yards are left unoccupied at the rear, but is simply that on a commercial street the buildings need to be as close to the stream of traffic as possible; and since the individual lot owner cannot move the street as a whole up to his building, he has to extend or move his building to the street. His immediate purpose is thus served, and ultimately the whole row of buildings is similarly advanced in response to changed conditions. But at just about the time when this process is fully completed, the volume of traffic flowing over the street is apt to have become so great that everybody recognizes the street to be too narrow for the increased traffic it has now to carry. If the case is a bad one, the inconvenience due to overcrowding the traveled way will in time reach a point where, in spite of the great cost of such an operation, the buildings all along one or both sides of the street have to be destroyed and a new building line established—it may be on the very line where most of the original buildings stood before increasing traffic began to offer inducements to move them forward to the sidewalk. Indeed, it may be said as a general rule that on any street where the buildings are set back from the sidewalk line the very advancement of a few buildings to the sidewalk line is a sign which points directly to the growth of travel and indicates that ample width will soon be needed in that thoroughfare.

As soon as these conditions appear, it is time to act. As already noted, it is not, in most cases, the desire to utilize a greater depth of lot which leads to the change, but the desire to get next to the sidewalk and to do away with a front yard which has served its purpose and is not wanted under the new conditions. If the street is one likely to have a considerable amount of through travel, it would be reasonable at once to lay it out wide enough to handle such travel; and the cost of the land taken for the widening would be charged, at least in part, to the abutters, for they get, by the change, what many of them already want and what the rest will soon be wanting—direct frontage on a busy sidewalk.

A still wiser course of procedure would be to determine on the widening of these future main thoroughfares before any buildings have been advanced to the sidewalk line, and to establish building lines far enough apart to leave room for all probable future requirements; but to make no physical widening of the street until the growth of travel—or the demands of the abutters—call for shifting the sidewalks over to the established building line and enlarging the roadway to correspond. This is the invariable practice in Washington and in most well-conducted European cities. It is the plan to some extent in New York, where just recently the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue have been moved back against the building line on the space formerly occupied by stoops, areaways, and dooryards. Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixteenth Street, in Washington, are both laid out 160 feet wide from building line to building line, although Pennsylvania Avenue is an important business artery and Sixteenth Street is a residence street without heavy traffic and with no commercial business. On the former, the wide sidewalks are in immediate contact with the fronts of the buildings, as is proper for a business street, and the roadway, with car tracks in the middle, is more than wide enough to carry all traffic that can ever be concentrated upon it. Whereas, on Sixteenth Street, the traveled portion of the street, including sidewalks and the space for sidewalk trees, is only 80 feet wide; and the remainder is occupied by front dooryards 40 feet deep, which the householders are at liberty to fence and use almost as freely as if they owned them in fee simple. At the same time all the householders are protected against the premature action of any individual lot owner who might see a possible advantage in being among the first to bid for a commercial business by building a flat-house with stores under it out upon the sidewalk line 40 feet in advance of the other houses. This is the sort of thing that is happening every now and then in Pittsburgh on streets where the great majority of the owners would prefer to have the set-back continued for some years longer. In Washington this crowding forward cannot be done; but when a reasonably large proportion of the owners on any street, or any block of a street, are ready for the change, the front yards are abolished and the sidewalk is moved over into contact with the buildings. If a single owner wants to put in a store long before his neighbors are ready to give up their front yards and long before the City is ready to widen the street to increase its traffic capacity, he is of course at liberty to do so; but he must not move forward of the general building line. What he usually does is to abolish his own front dooryard and substitute an extra wide piece of sidewalk paving in place of it, sometimes using the space for outdoor stands, or show cases, to attract trade. He may even be permitted to erect light temporary structures, such as awnings, on the space between his main building and the present sidewalk line, under which, in good weather, he can do a very good business.

There is, then, one course of action which overshadows, in permanent importance and in urgency, all other things that Pittsburgh could do at the present time for the improvement of its main thoroughfare system. That is to establish new building lines, at a suitable distance apart, along all of its present and prospective main thoroughfares which there is any prospect of being able to widen.

Pittsburgh, in common with other cities in Pennsylvania, has a remarkable power, which is of the utmost importance in connection with the intelligent control of its street development, but of which it has not hitherto taken adequate advantage; a power that appears to be denied to the cities of every other state in the Union, although effectively used in some other countries. Pittsburgh may legally lay out a street in anticipation of a future need, and yet postpone entering upon the land for construction or for opening it to the public. Until the city legally enters on the street, the owner of the land has the free use thereof, and he receives payment only when the opening takes place; but if, in the interim, he shall have erected any structure within the limits of the proposed street, he will receive no compensation therefor when the street is opened. Although similar laws have been declared unconstitutional in other states, this provision has been sustained in Pennsylvania, and the power has been effectively exercised in numberless cases since the middle of the last century.

Philadelphia has applied the same principle to street widenings, as for example in the case of Chestnut Street. The procedure is to define a building line, set back a certain distance from the street line, and to permit no new buildings to be erected in front of that line, but to pay damages only when the power to prevent the erection of a new building is actually exercised.

The Chestnut Street widening was authorized by legislation which provided merely that the street should be widened ten feet, without specifying the procedure or method of awarding damages.[7]

The procedure used in the widening, as above described, had apparently no other authority than the general acts under which Pittsburgh has proceeded in laying out new streets.[8] This application of those acts has been sustained by the courts. If it is held that a specific extension of the principle of the Act of 1871 to the widening of Chestnut Street was implied in the ordinance of 1874, under authority of the Act of April, 1870, and that it is not generally applicable to widenings, a general act so intending ought to be secured from the legislature.

In the Chestnut Street case existing buildings covered most of the space between the building line and the street line, and the exercise of the power, with the consequent accruement of damages, occurred in each case only when the original building was torn down by the owner and he was required to set the new building back to the new building line.

The same principle is equally applicable to those cases where the existing buildings are mostly or wholly back of the new building line; the damages becoming due in such a case only when a building permit for the erection of a new structure encroaching on the designated open space is actually withheld.

The advantages of such a method of procedure, in the case of those highways where all, or nearly all, of the buildings are now set back from the street and where a widening will ultimately be needed, are obvious and very great. In a large percentage of cases, where the street is still mainly residential, the majority of the abutters would welcome the establishment of a building line for their own protection from inconsiderate neighbors; just as the majority of people will pay higher prices for lots in a neighborhood that is protected by properly drawn restrictions for setbacks, etc., imposed by a land company. In a great many such cases abutters could be induced to waive any claims for damages on condition that the building line should be applied to the whole street. Furthermore, the actual net damages to be paid would be distributed over a long period, and a considerable proportion of them, in many cases, could properly be assessed on adjacent benefited property owners.

When the actual physical widening of the street takes place, through absorbing the restricted zones on each side of it, the damages for land taking will be comparatively small, because at that time most of the abutters will want nothing so much as that very widening, if only to bring the sidewalks in contact with the fronts of their buildings. But regardless of its clear financial advantages to the City, in reducing its total payments for street widening and especially in distributing the burden of that cost over a long period without running up a large bonded indebtedness and interest charges, the fundamental argument for this method of procedure is that it avoids the absolute dead loss to the whole community resulting from the destruction of valuable buildings. It is not practicable to avoid this in any other way and still accomplish the result of widened thoroughfares. Theoretically, it could be done by a direct widening of all the highways in the ordinary manner, if it were to be done promptly; but there are comparatively few cases in which there would be enough immediate advantage in the increased width to make the proposition attractive; and it is obvious that any such wholesale immediate action would involve a sudden and enormous financial burden which it is utterly impracticable for the City to assume.

If, after the gradual piecemeal process of widening at moderate and distributed expense has been begun, the City thinks it would prefer to have the process over and done with promptly, it is just as able to complete the widening immediately, by wholesale condemnation, as if the gradual process had never been entered upon. If the City begins on the gradual process, it can always change to the other when it feels rich enough, or when the buildings on the old lines have become few enough; and in the meantime the erection of new and costly buildings, obstructive to the proposed widening, has been prevented at comparatively slight expense. If the City does nothing, pending such time as it can afford to make the widening at a single operation, the cost of the operation is liable to mount at least as fast as the City's ability to pay for it.

While the method proposed is peculiarly adapted to handling the problem of a thoroughfare along which the majority of the frontage is not yet occupied by buildings standing on the street line, it may be objected that it is not suitable for widening one that is built up, like Forbes Street. It is true that the patchwork appearance of such a street during the process of gradual reconstruction is somewhat unsightly,—with here and there a wide place where new buildings have gone up, and between them narrow parts, thus exposing the blank side walls of old buildings projecting beyond the new ones. Yet in cities where the sense of civic beauty is far more acute than it generally is in America, this temporarily ragged condition is accepted as a small price to pay for the economical and certain accomplishment of a great permanent improvement.

Unified Procedure For City, County and Borough

It is obvious that the flow of traffic moves regardless of the artificial boundaries of the city and the surrounding boroughs, and that if an efficient system of thoroughfares is to be involved for the Pittsburgh Industrial District it will be necessary to disregard those boundaries in planning it. This has been done in the preliminary studies which have resulted in this report, and the necessity for it must control the form of any permanent organization for preparing final plans and executing them. If these duties are to be entrusted to officers of the City, and the city boundaries remain unchanged, those officers must have authority from the legislature to deal with territory beyond the boundaries of the city, as is the case in a limited way in Wisconsin cities.[9]

The simplest and most logical procedure, if the boundaries of the city and of the boroughs are to remain substantially unchanged, would be to establish a common agency for dealing with the general problems of city planning for all of the municipalities and the related parts of the country outside of them. The Constitution of Pennsylvania apparently prevents the formation of a special metropolitan board for the Pittsburgh Industrial District, but general authority might be obtained under which the County could establish such a board. If the difficulty should be met simply by extending the boundaries of the city, it is important that the new boundaries should include not merely those areas which are now seen to have close physical relations with the city, but a great extent of territory within which the beginnings of urban or suburban growth have started, or are likely to start, during the next generation.

Whether the duty of planning and providing for the main transportation lines is made a city affair or a county affair, those who are charged with it should be free to go as far in any given direction as the demands of the traffic lead them. They should neither be limited by arbitrary boundaries in those directions where scattering but connected urban development may reach out furthest from the center, nor compelled to extend their operations to an arbitrary boundary in those directions where such development falls short.

SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS
MAIN ARTERIES

Penn Avenue Artery

As noted earlier in this report, one of the two main eastward thoroughfare routes, from the Point District, must lie along the flat land between the Allegheny River and the bluff southeast of the Pennsylvania tracks. Through this bottle-neck must pass the trunk line (or lines) of one of the largest thoroughfare systems leading from the down town district of Pittsburgh. At the foot of the Lawrenceville hill the system branches into two main lines of extension. On the one hand are Penn and Liberty Avenues, extending, by different routes, through the Garfield, Bloomfield, Friendship and Shadyside Districts to East Liberty; and from there connecting directly to Squirrel Hill, Highland Park, Homewood, Brushton, Wilkinsburg and all points further east. On the other hand is Butler Street, following the low land along the river through Lawrenceville to Morningside and Highland Park. Via the Forty-third Street bridge, this line reaches Millvale and the country north thereof; via the Sharpsburg and Aspinwall bridges it reaches Etna, Sharpsburg, Aspinwall, and Shaler and O'Hara townships, and connects directly with the Freeport Road, the only thoroughfare leading up the Allegheny River. The trunk line of this system is composed of two narrow streets, Penn Avenue and Liberty Avenue, the one 60 and the other 50 feet in width. Even now this accommodation is inadequate, and, considering the extent of territory served and the increase of through traffic to be expected as the city grows and the outlying lands develop, a much greater capacity for general traffic through this throat will very soon be needed.

There are four different ways in which this greater capacity might be realized.

In the first place, a new street might be cut through north of Penn Avenue. Smallman Street, from Twenty-first to Thirty-sixth Street, already forms a good sized piece of such a thoroughfare. Pike Street would be its normal extension in town to Eleventh Street, but, like Try Street near Second Avenue, it has been surrendered to the Pennsylvania Railroad for a connecting line and spur tracks. Furthermore, it is very narrow (not over 40 feet) and is difficult to widen on account of the many industrial plants abutting thereon. The connections from such a thoroughfare with Penn Avenue, Liberty Avenue and Butler Street at one end, and with the down town thoroughfares at the other, are quite indirect; and they could be improved only at great expense.

The only other place for a new thoroughfare is along Spring Alley, between Penn and Liberty Avenues. As this whole block is only 220 feet wide, including the alley, it is obvious that a broad avenue through the middle of it would leave the abutting property in very uneconomical shape.

As a modification of this plan, the widening of Spring Alley entirely on the south side was considered. As this would leave lots 40 feet or less in depth between the new street and Liberty Avenue, it would mean the practical destruction of the half-block from Spring Alley to Liberty Avenue. The remaining strip could be taken as a central parking space in a wide boulevard thoroughfare, extending from Spring Alley to the railroad; or Liberty Avenue could be abandoned, and the space, left between the new street and the railroad, could be used for warehouses or for business wanting direct railroad connections; or it might be sold in whole or in part to the Pennsylvania Railroad, for additional track space. It is obvious that each of these plans cuts up the property undesirably: the first is not only costly but is extravagantly wasteful of land in a region where available land is strictly limited and should therefore be put to its most efficient use: and the other plans both involve an entire redistribution of the land south of the new street. They could hardly be executed without powers of "excess condemnation" for which constitutional authority is lacking.

A third plan would be to widen Liberty Avenue on the north side. There is no special difficulty in the way of this scheme, and it could certainly be more easily carried out, and at less cost, than any of the Spring Alley plans. Merely as a traffic way between two points, Liberty Avenue widened would be perfectly satisfactory, but several incidental considerations must be borne in mind. First, the lots on the north side of the street would be cut at least to 70 and probably to 50 feet, neither of which is a desirable depth for lots on a main thoroughfare; and second, the street would have business frontage on one side only. The latter is an uneconomic arrangement from the point of view both of the real estate owner and of the City, and the street would be much less agreeable than if it were separated from the railroad.

The fourth plan would be to widen Penn Avenue. This street is now 60 feet in width, and most of the lots on each side are 100 feet deep, except for several blocks on the north side where they are about 120 feet. The street is built up solidly on both sides, but scarcely any of the buildings are new or costly. The property values are almost uniformly a little higher than on Liberty Avenue. If Penn Avenue were widened 10 feet on each side, making an 80-foot thoroughfare, the abutting lots would still be 90 feet or over in depth; and if the street were made 100 feet wide, the lots would still be 80 feet deep. Though it might cost somewhat more to widen Penn Avenue than Liberty Avenue, it is evident that the abutting property would be left in far better shape, and the benefit to be had from increased frontage value would be much greater.

After due consideration of each of the above plans, bearing in mind the cost, the difficulty of carrying it out, and the value of the result, both as an important main thoroughfare artery and as a local improvement, it is recommended that Penn Avenue be widened to 100 feet. If the widening is to be accomplished by the gradual process,[10] that is by merely establishing the new building lines at the present time, and by paying damages only when new buildings are set back to this line, the widening should probably be made on both sides: for in this way the minimum set-back will be required for individual new developments and the lots will be left of a good depth on both sides of the street. But if the widening is all to be made at once, it will be less costly to make it entirely on the south side. In either case, the lots remaining will be none too deep, and it is suggested that ultimately Spring Alley may be abandoned and the opportunity furnished for deep lots for warehouses and similar purposes, fronting on a large thoroughfare and having direct railroad connections over Liberty Avenue in the rear.

Forbes Street Artery

The other eastward thoroughfare system lies south of the Hill District. From Soho eastward there are two main branches to the system: on the one hand are Forbes Street and Fifth Avenue, leading through Oakland to Bellefield, Shadyside, East Liberty, Squirrel Hill, and all points east; on the other hand is a possible and much-needed thoroughfare reaching Greenfield, Hazelwood, Glenwood, and Hays, and from there, by branches and extensions, connecting to Homestead, Duquesne, McKeesport, and points up the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers, as well as to the country south in Baldwin, Mifflin, Snowden, and Jefferson townships.

At present the trunk-line of this system (from the Point District past Soho hill) is composed of three narrow streets, Second Avenue, Forbes Street, and Fifth Avenue, which all together are no more than adequate to accommodate the present surface travel. Future developments in the East End, up the Monongahela, and in the country south of Homestead, and improved thoroughfare connections with the two latter regions, will undoubtedly increase the through traffic on these streets to such an extent that their capacity will soon be taxed beyond its limit. There can be no doubt that more accommodations will be needed in the near future.

Section of Second Avenue between Try Street and Tenth Street Bridge

At first thought it was hoped that Second Avenue might be improved to accommodate a reasonable increase in east and west traffic; but the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad on one side, and several large industrial plants on the other, present serious obstacles to widening it. A plan to exchange locations with the railroad was considered, but it did not appear to offer sufficient advantage to the railroad to tempt them to cooperate in the matter.

Incidentally, Second Avenue can and should be widened to 80 feet, from Ross Street to the Tenth Street bridge, thus making a good connection between the Point District and the South Side.

It remained then to secure the desired street capacity, in some way, through the valley now occupied by Forbes Street and Fifth Avenue. To avoid the higher land values on these streets, various schemes were tried to get a third thoroughfare in this valley, first on the south and then on the north side, but without success. The indirectness of line and the seriousness of grade difficulties, coupled with cost of cutting new connections at either end, more than outweighed the advantages offered by the cheaper land.

One proposition, however, is worthy of special remark. That was to cut a new street from Fifth Avenue, near Sixth Avenue, to the end of Colwell Street, widen the latter, carry it over the Moultrie Street valley on a high viaduct, skirt around Soho hill, partly above and partly below Beelen Street, and either join Fifth Avenue at Robinson Street, or, going over this street, follow along the hillside and meet the southerly end of Bayard Street. The cost of constructing this line, the complication of grades with cross-streets (owing to the width of the new street), and the difficulty of getting good connections with any thoroughfares leading up the Monongahela, practically put it out of the question as a solution of the main problem in hand. But it offers many advantages as a specialized thoroughfare for fast-moving automobiles for the East End. It is well up on the hill, furnishing, at times, fine outlooks over the river; the gradient need nowhere be over 4 per cent, and the line could be easily laid out so as to have very few grade crossings with other important streets. It is urged that this route be borne in mind when the demand is felt for another "Grant Boulevard," south of the Hill.

It remained, then, to consider adequate widenings of Fifth Avenue or Forbes Street. The former is now 60 feet wide throughout; it is by far the more important thoroughfare at present, land values are much higher than on Forbes Street, and new and somewhat costly buildings are already crowding out the cheap houses of an older generation. Forbes Street is also 60 feet in width, except near its westerly end where it is only 50 feet, but the buildings, on the whole, are much less valuable than those on Fifth Avenue. Lot depths are practically the same, and so are the street gradients. It is evident, therefore, that the widening of Forbes Street should be a far less costly undertaking than the widening of Fifth Avenue.

A thorough study of the possible eastward extensions of Forbes Street has developed no obstacles to using it as the principal thoroughfare. By referring to "Outlying Thoroughfare Improvements" below (Sections 11, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 19), it will be seen that a cross connection can easily be secured at Brady Street to Fifth Avenue—the latter being the easier street to widen beyond this point, as well as offering somewhat better gradients. It will also be seen that the thoroughfare extension to Greenfield, Hazelwood, Glenwood, and eastward, can branch from Forbes Street (just east of Brady) more easily and cheaply than it could from Fifth Avenue. Forbes Street, moreover, enters the down town district at a slightly more central, and, considering the proposed improvements in the down town district, a more advantageous point.