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BRIDGES AND
TUNNELS OF
ALLEGHENY COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA

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Frederick Law
Olmsted
report to the
Pittsburgh Civic Commission

"Pittsburgh:
Main Thoroughfares and The
Down Town District"
1910

00 Cover Page

00 Contents

01 Down Town
   District

02 Main
   Thoroughfares

03 Surveys and
   a City Plan

04 Parks and
   Recreation
   Facilities

05 Special
   Reports

06 Index


PART II: Main Thoroughfares
Pittsburgh: Main Thoroughfares and The Down Town District
Frederick Law Olmsted report to The Pittsburgh Civic Commission, 1910


page 44

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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


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Last modified on 22-Dec 1999
Design format: copyright 1997-1999 Bruce S. Cridlebaugh
Original document: Frederick Law Olmsted, 1910