[PRCo] Fwd: Re: [LRPPro] Pittsburgh 1948 - Part 4: South Side

[Bill]

--- In LRPPro at yahoogroups.com, stennyson at ... wrote:

  You are correct.#47 was a peak hour only service  to by-pass
congestion  on route 53.
  Route 77/54 was called a crosstown route along with # 60. There were
not many
   Route 54 Carrick was from Brownsville Road to Oakland where
University of Pittsburgh and culture are. It would account for one-third
of the passengers. Route 77 was from Oakland to Bloomfield and North
Side. About one third of the riders would be from Oakland to  Bloomfield
including few riding on to North Side.The last third would be from
Bloomfield to North Side.  I never knew of the route being two separate
ones but maybe before the Great Depression it was. It got PCC cars in
1942.  
     I made a bus substitution study of Route 56 in 1949. The old P.RyC
bridge with planks for auto traffic was to be replaced by a modern new
high level highway bridge and the question  was whether to put rails on
the new bridge.
   The study found  trolley coaches would be the lowest cost choice in
pure dollars but the management did not want to have trolley coaches
mixed in with routes 55, 58 etc  as the track cost for those routes
would go up per passenger, The difference was so small they put rail in
the new bridge. Rubber tired vehicles could not follow the private
right-of-way so would lose passengers in those areas.
   Diesel buses were more costly than either trolley coaches or street
cars, The hills of Pittsburgh were very hard on diesel buses.
                 E d     T e n n y s o n

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