The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Allow me to start this post by saying that the locally grown automobile and truck drivers of Pittsburgh just suck at operating their vehicles.

They don’t seem to know what the brake pedal does, drive as if they have their heads wrapped up in gauze, and the Yinzers seem to believe that there’s only one direction their car can go – forward and at top speed. They seem to refuse to fully turn the steering wheel when required. The concept of ‘vehicular following distance’ is foreign. Collision is common.

Road rage is at epidemic levels out here. I ascribe to NYC’s version of driving, which states that taking risks and driving aggressively should be somehow connected to a victory state. If you are doing something not so sane behind the wheel, there has to be a payoff for the effort and risk. Not so with the Yinzers. About thirty people a year die in Pittsburgh because they accidentally drive off of cliffs.

After being thwarted by a lack of rail traffic at a nearby set of Norfolk Southern tracks, your humble narrator decided that he’d been standing still too long and got back to the business of the day, which was scuttling and exercising while waving the camera about.

I soon was shambling towards the Merchant Street Bridge, the filthy black raincoat flapping in the breeze.

A convenient bit of historical signage was noticed along the way, which relates the long story and circumstance of the span, which ended up being focused on for today’s missive.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It’s a pretty minor rail bridge, this, but what caught my eye was the enormous steel barrier vouchsafing it from vehicular collision.

Remember, Pittsburgh drivers just blow.

At least a third of them are texting while driving at any given time, many while on the highways and moving at speed. The interiors of their cars are decorated like a teenager’s bedroom. They arrange toys on their dashboards. This isn’t just in cars, either, it’s the heavy trucks too.

One time, I drove past a guy who was eating a Hoagie sandwich with his left arm while holding a beverage container with his right, concurrently he was watching a TV show on his phone – which was balanced on the car’s steering wheel. He was operating the steering wheel with his right elbow. On a bridge, and while heading into a tunnel.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Of course, I had to focus in on the gouges and scrapes which that height barrier – painted bright and reflective yellow gold – was sporting. There’s an 11 foot height restriction for the bridge, which is indicated on both sides by similarly reflective highway signs.

Signs would work, were drivers paying attention while driving. They’re not, as you can see.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

On the other side of the Merchant Street Bridge, looking back at my path. Notice that busted signage…

Just last week, I saw some dude in a pickup enter a highway at 70 mph and then accelerate into heavy highway traffic, shooting out from an on-ramp. He perpetrated a diagonal merge through fairly dense traffic – at speed – to the passing lane on the left, and then executed a 90 mph diagonal path back across the three lanes to get to the next exit. He tried to negotiate a 30 mph off ramp curve at about 70. Dude ended up in the grass but didn’t roll over. Came pretty close, to my eye.

I think this bloke is a likely candidate to join that elite group of thirty who drive off cliffs to their death every year. What’s the point of the risk? It’s one exit. What did you achieve?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Even the height restriction sign isn’t safe. Jeez Louise.

I’ve been lucky enough to interact with people who are experts in many of the public facing specialities – sewer, transit, maritime, all that, over the years.

One of them designed and engineered highways and their ramps for New York State. The knowledge imparted to me from this person involved the actual science of high speed roads, as in why the roadway is slanted and where, or the different kinds of pavement you’d want to deploy depending on intended use and speed restrictions. I learned that the posted speed limit is usually set well below but within reach of the upper 15-20 mph operational speed capacity of the roadway itself.

If you’re doing 70 on a 55 mph highway, it’s risky from a physics POV as you’re operating in the upper percentile of the roadway’s design use. You can probably get away with 5-10 over the limit, and not risk rolling your vehicle or shooting over a cliff… but… why take that chance at all?

Slow down, jagoff.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The Merchant Street Bridge has an off shoot trestle, which is a former rail connection to a factory building, one which has incontrovertibly survived decades of urban renewal projects that have played out in this part of Pittsburgh which have demolished nearly everything else in sight. We’ll explore that tale a bit tomorrow.

Back tomorrow, with some candy.

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