The story of bike commuting in Pittsburgh is arguably a tale of two cities. In some neighborhoods, new bike lanes and riverfront trails have carved out more room for cyclists. But if you’re in the city’s South Hills, those improvements might as well be happening in a different time zone.
While East End arteries like Fifth Avenue still might not be exactly bike-friendly, South Hills thoroughfares like Route 19 are practically suicidal. Even if a cyclist negotiates them successfully, Mount Washington awaits: Going over it requires hundreds of feet of vertical climb; going through it requires either driving a car or riding a bus or light-rail vehicle.
But what if cyclists could use the Wabash Tunnel instead?
Operated by the Port Authority, the tunnel lies about a third of the way from the Fort Pitt Tunnel to the Liberty Tubes. It delves into the mountainside just off Saw Mill Run Boulevard, emerging across the street from Station Square. In recent years, it’s been used as an HOV lane for rush-hour commuters carrying at least one passenger. But while two lanes are painted on the roadway, there’s only enough clearance to allow traffic in one direction at a time. So the tunnel is always half-empty at best … and it’s usually much emptier than that.
“We’ve been hearing from many cyclists who would like to see access to the Wabash Tunnel,” says Scott Bricker, executive director of cycling-advocacy group Bike Pittsburgh. “So many people in the South Hills are interested in biking from there into the city. But that means going up and over Mount Washington, which is formidable unless you’re a really strong cyclist.”
The tunnel could offer a dramatic cycling experience. At more than 3,300 feet long, the Wabash is roughly the same length as the Great Allegheny Passage’s Big Savage Tunnel, near the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. And though the Wabash offers a less impressive view of the Golden Triangle than you’ll find emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnel, cyclists would get to experience a bit of the scenery that car-commuters take for granted.
Converting the Wabash would not be easy. For one thing, notes Port Authority spokesman Jim Ritchie, the tunnel was renovated for HOV use with funding from the Federal Transit Authority … and those dollars have strings attached. Even routine changes to tunnel operations — like an initiative to expand access during a construction project on West Carson Street — got snarled in months of red tape.
Then there are ongoing maintenance costs, and the challenge of reaching the tunnel in the first place. “You have to look at access,” Bricker says. “Saw Mill Run is hugely busy and dangerous.” Bricker says there may be more cost-effective ways to help South Hills cyclists, like bike-parking facilities at light-rail stations and other amenities to facilitate multi-modal transportation with the Port Authority.
On the other hand, “It’s not a crazy idea at all,” says Bricker — and it’s certainly not the worst one in the tunnel’s history. The Wabash was built in the early 1900s for a railroad that later went bankrupt. It was later envisioned as a key link for the Port Authority’s now-notorious “Skybus” project, which was scuttled, and then for the West Busway, which was re-routed. Other proposed uses — like turning the tunnel into an underground cocktail lounge, or a giant bowling alley — have also failed to materialize, even when they were serious. It may be time for cyclists to have their turn.
And while converting the tunnel would be an uphill climb, it’s hard to imagine it could be any steeper than Mount Washington itself.
This article appears in Jan 2-7, 2014.
Fantastic idea.
Opening the tunnel to cyclists would create the longest bike lane in a tunnel in the United States, if not the world. It would be a magnet for cyclists and a real sign of Pittsburgh’s forward progress on multi-modal transportation.
If I’m not mistaken, there’s enough space for a dedicated one-way bike lane + a one-way auto traffic lane, with protection for the bike lane. Possibly the bike traffic could be two way. But let’s get a study of the idea going.
This is one of those things that REALLY needs to happen in this city. Of course there are multiple steps required to make biking from and to the south hills into the city an attractive proposition for all but a hearty few, but this is simultaneously one of the easiest and one of the largest if not the largest.
The space is already there for a bidirectional protected cycle-track and it’s too narrow to be used for anything else. The same political forces behind funding HOV facilities should also back cycling… anything but people driving solo.
I don’t even live in the south hills, but I’d love to be a part of this effort. In fact, everyone, motorists included should be. Tunnels are the major bottlenecks in this city and are extremely pricey to build. A new one isn’t in Pittsburgh’s future for the foreseeable future. Anything that brings more people from A to B using what we have is a big deal.
So who do we write letters to en masse?
I believe there’s an abandoned railroad line that runs parallel to Route 51, all the way from around the West End almost to West Liberty Avenue, passing by the south end of the Wabash. It could make a great bike trail.
Nearly every reason not to is ink-and-paper based. Nothing physical at all has to happen. True, it would be helpful if the southern connection was better. But just to get the tunnel itself opened should be a no-brainer. Pull the strings. Do what’s needed. This needs to happen.
For a long discourse on the tunnel and its conversion, see this Bike-Pgh message board thread begun almost four years ago, here: http://www.bikepgh.org/mb/topic/wabash-tun…
If cyclists can manage riding through abandoned Turnpike tunnels and the Paw Paw tunnel, we can surely manage riding an empty, modern, lighted tunnel for which there is no reasonable travel alternative.
The sign “2 or more persons per vehicle” means that a tandem bicycle is currently legal in the tunnel, yes?
I do live in the South Hills, and certainly feel the URGENT need to expand those amazing bike-friendly city developments, including culture, campaigns, infrastructure, community awareness, and safe paths. As an avid urban cyclist -although affected by the South Hills isolation- and as a tunnel (civil) engineer, I do believe in this idea, and I agree it’s perfectly feasible. Like Ben, I am also interested in being part of this effort!
Opening up the Wabash to cyclists would be a good first step, the step that can lead to other improvements.
1. The piers to the old Wabash Bridge are still intact, and that most of the cost of a bridge. A bicycle bridge to downtown, over Stanwix Street would be ideal (and then extend it with another bicycle bridge over the Allegheny, you end up connecting three trails with minimal interaction with motor traffic. The Bridge would cost money, money well spent, but it may be better to spend it elsewhere right now.
2. Improve Seldom Seen, PA. As you exit the Wabash Tunnel, and instead of turning Right to get to PA 51, you go straight, you end up on what looks like a parking lot, but is actually the old Wabash Bridge over PA 51. In front you, stands a building and on its right a wide trail width passage (that you can NOT take your car on) and if you take that passage you end up on behind the building and along the Wheeling and West Virginia Tracks (Build around 1905 as the Wabash Railroad, then owned by Norfolk and Western, then Norfolk and Southern and when Norfolk and Southern took over Conrail, they had to sell this route off to its present owners). Cross the tracks and you are in Seldom Seen section of Pittsburgh.
If you want to drive to Seldom Seen, you make the left to get on PA 51, and at the BP station down the street make a U-Turn and then pull into the road for the light to get back to the Wabash tunnel, but instead of turning, pull into the parking lot mark “Greenway”. Park you car and walk through the tunnel that use to carry Wabash engines. The tunnel also carries Saw Mill Run under that same bridge. On the opposite side of the tunnel you are in Seldom Seen. About 1/4 of the mile in you have to cross Saw Mill Run, but it is overgrown and needs a lot of work, but would be an ideal park. If you continue on the trail, you come to steep 15 to 20 foot climb. That take you to the same spot if you had walked around the building and cross the Railroad tracks.
The two paths merge onto an Natural Gas right of way, up to Breshear High School and if you know what you are doing the Beechview Foot Path. There is another trail, heavily overground, but it follows the right of way for the West Penn Water Company to Tropical playground in Tropical Avenue in the Shadycrest section of Beechview. Seldom Seen is a nice little wildness area, great place for a small park at the end of the Wabash Tunnel, if bicycle were permitted in the Tunnel,
3. On the opposite side of the Wabash tunnel is a bridge over PA 51 and an abandoned building with a decent sized side (Wide enough for a bike path) path to the Wheeling and West Virginia Railroad. The WE is a short line route that follows the Original Wabash line to and from Pittsburgh. While, many of the bridges are one lane, they can be modified to carry a bike lane, and thus you can have a Trails with Rail line, with the Trail parallel NOT on the rail line. The WE then goes to and intersects both the Great Allegheny Passage and the Montour Trail. Thus a good prospect to a Trail with Rail line. It is NOT a heavily used line, like the main line of the Old Pennsylvania Railroad (now Norfolk and Southern) thus a good trail to fence off and use.
ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf/BPR_pdf_files/MAPS/Statewide/parail.PDF
From the Wabash bridge over PA 51 it goes in three directions, one is to the West End Circle, on the low bridge you go under as you, if you are on the parkway west, exit the Fort Pitt Tunnel, where the right of way still exists, but the tracks are removed. The Second goes over a high bridge over the Parkway west then through a tunnel to another bridge, marked “Norfolk and Western” over the Parkway west as you near Carnegie. It ends up in Ohio, but in Pennsylvania it intersects the Montour Trail (and is rail connection for the railroad built with the Montour’s permission along the Westland Branch of the Montour Trail).
The old Wabash line (now Wheeling and West Virginia, i.e. WE) is a one lane track most of its length, but the right of way is wide enough for two lanes of traffic, or one lane of rail and one line for bicycles. If you would run a Trails with Rails line on it, you would open the whole South Hills to biking as a means of commuting.
Yes, I think big, but this is something that can be done piece by piece but the key piece is opening up the Wabash tunnel to bicyclists. Once that is done, the rest will fall into place.