The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Pictured is a narrow band of relative safety one occupied to the right of that white line, which the trail I had been walking upon spit me out onto.

Luckily, it was a fairly low traffic day, when I suddenly had to try and not die while scuttling along this stretch. At the end of the elevated ramp, I was able to execute what can currently pass as ‘running,’ to get to the other side of the street where a sidewalk existed. The busted ankle situation persists in terms of not being able to run properly.

Effin Pittsburgh…

Y’know, people out here, they’ll get after me here for cussin. I don’t know how you don’t curse a blue streak when encountering this… it’s exactly the sort of thing which makes me want to engage with the ‘powers that be.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Safely on a sidewalk, my next set of moves involved getting back to HQ in Dormont. My original plan was to simply walk to the Station Square stop for the T light rail system, which is found a mile or two down the road.

Saying that, it was really hot out, and I decided to ‘punk.’

I’d save a bunch of walking, and cross the river via the Fort Pitt bridge, then catch a T ride at one of the downtown stations instead. Win!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Fort Pitt Bridge is a complicated beast, and especially so when one is driving southwards. A series of high speed roads converge via multiple on-ramps to the bridge, which all resolve into singular travel lanes.

To head to the airport, for instance, you need to exit the span via a portal on the far left side of the bridge. To exit to local streets or head west, you need to bear over to the far right. This creates an ‘X’ shaped interchange for high speed traffic that is converging from three distinct sources.

Factor in the aggressive style of driving common to most in Pittsburgh, and you’ve got a nonstop traffic jam which plays out 24/7 – as drivers cross multiple lanes of traffic to position themselves for those two exits from the span. The aggressive driving figures in to this as they all try to ‘eff each over to get into their desired lanes, which they all try to do immediately upon entering the span. Not fifty or a hundred feet ahead, where it’s easy… no… not the Yinzers. They need to get into their lane right ‘effin now, lest somebody take something away from them.

Of course, they’ll ALL try to do the complicated merge asap and at speed, rather than just slowing down and traveling another fifty feet to… bah…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I enjoy walking over this bridge, but then again I famously like horrible things. As mentioned at the start of this scuttle, which began up on Mount Washington and included the Emerald View Trail which provided a diagonal westward path down off of the landform, and it was quite uncomfortable out – climate wise.

High summer, humid, ‘shvitzy.’

One way or the other, however, I had to get to the T light rail as it sure wasn’t going to be coming to me, and thusly ‘leaned into it’ for the last leg of this one. At least it was in the shade…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s the described point of conflict on the Fort Pitt Bridge.

In the shot above, the far right ramp feeds two lanes off of traffic off of the I-376 ‘Parkway West’ and onto Fort Pitt, whereas the left hand side services entrances for both local street traffic and is also fed by another highway ramp which brings high speed traffic from multiple sources right towards this spot.

A significant volume of traffic passes through this pass (estimated at 85 – 107,000 vehicles a day), and I’ve come to refer to Fort Pitt Bridge as being the ‘master cylinder’ of all traffic in Pittsburgh. Something happens here, or on the ramps leading to it, and that ripples outwards at 60 mph to the entire network of high speed roads hereabouts.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Finally, one made it to the so called ‘Golden Triangle,’ and a few quick steps soon saw your humble narrator on a T light rail, heading back to HQ and the ebullient greetings of Moe the Dog.

Back tomorrow with something different, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.

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