[PRCo] Fwd: Pittsburgh 1948 - Part 7: East End - Fifth Avenue

[Bill]

--- In LRPPro at yahoogroups.com, "Leroy W. Demery, Jr."
<chris_demery at ...> wrote:

Lyndon et al.,
Continuing with Pittsburgh streetcar line traffic data from 1948

Part 7 - Fifth Avenue (East End) lines:


71 - Negley
6.6 miles
4,806,000 revenue passengers

73 - Highland Park
6.8 miles
5,474,000 revenue passengers

75 - East Liberty - Wilkinsburg
7.4 miles
7,103,000 revenue passengers

76 - Hamilton
8.3 miles
5,988,000 revenue passengers

81 - Atwood Street
3.7 miles
969,000 revenue passengers
I believe that this line operated through from downtown during peak
periods, and as a 
shuttle at other times.

Summary, Fifth Avenue lines
20.2 miles system length (unduplicated).
24,350,000 revenue passengers.

32.4 million "total passengers" (above figure multiplied by 1.33.)

Composite ATD: 3 miles. Determined by assigning average travel
distance per revenue 
passenger to the lines - arbitrarily - as follows:

71 - Negley: 3 miles.
73 - Highland Park: 3 miles.
75 - East Liberty - Wilkinsburg: 3 miles.
76 - Hamilton: 4 miles.
81 - Atwood Street: 1 mile.

The "weighted average" travel distance is 3.2 miles. (As before, this
figure is presented on 
the "traffic density tables" as simply "3 mi.")

"Goggle Maps" aerial photos show what look like second-generation
multiple-unit 
dwellings - or "McMansions" - along Forbes Avenue in the Squirrel Hill
area - that is, 
between Schenley Park and Frick Park. This type of development - or
redevelopment - is 
very much in evidence along S. Negley Avenue, south of Penn Avenue.

What appears to be similar redevelopment may also be viewed on (and
near) N. Negley 
Avenue, and also on and near N. and S. Highland Avenue.

Remarkably, there's even what looks like a bit of "new urbanism" along
S. Negley Av. just 
south of the East Busway station. It looks like clusters of townhouses.

Another cluster of townhouses (?) along Penn Avenue, just southeast of
the East Liberty 
business center, is built along a new street alignment Denniston
Street, which replaced 
Shakespeare, Landwehr and Luther streets).

The evidence of depopulation (vacant lots scattered amidst
closely-packed houses) is 
quite visible along Hamilton Avenue, in the Brushton district.  But,
even here, signs of new 
construction are evident.

If all of this sounds unlikely, Pittsburgh has earned high ratings for
"livability" in recent 
years. Low costs of living, economic opportunities - and various
transportation, education 
and even medical "infrastructure" (scaled for a significantly larger
population) are among 
the positive factors.

In sum: it looks like Pittsburgh, or at least parts of it, are being
redeveloped - and 
systematically - for a substantially lower population than the city
once housed.

Is this the wave of the future for cities like Cleveland, Detroit and
St. Louis?

Leroy W. Demery, Jr.

--- End forwarded message ---