Posts Tagged ‘Light Rail’
Silver, blue, or red?
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, your humble narrator attended a ‘PT’ or Physical Therapy appointment to facilitate the continuing medical recovery period after breaking my ankle back in September.
This week’s photos were captured during an actual photowalk, which is the first true scuttle I’ve taken in four months. After my assignation with the PT people, during which I was put through several paces, one limped over to the T light rail stop and headed into town. Along the way, I was shooting out of the windows on the light rail, as it was an unfamiliar line. I normally use the Red Line service, and I think that I was riding on the Silver Line but I’m not entirely sure. From where I boarded, nearby one of the service’s terminal yards, it could be any of them, and since they all go to where I planned on debarking – win.
A few disturbing things began to occur on the earliest part of the scuttle, notably a clicking sensation in the bad ankle, when transiting through a stride. It didn’t hurt, at first, but the sensation was disconcerting and persistent. I also noticed that the length of my stride had noticeably shortened. Normal, for me, is each step spans a sidewalk box line on every step.
By the time my day ended, it was three steps for every sidewalk box and the last mile took me 45 minutes to walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve frequently driven through the section of Pittsburgh that this T line travels along, and that’s Saw Mill Run/Route 51 pictured above, as seen from the altitude of the cantilevered tracks that the T rides on in this section.
$3, if you’re curious. That’s the fare. I’m thinking that at some point in the next few weeks I might just buy a ‘hop on/hop off’ (about $20, if memory serves) day pass to the T and spend some time at these elevated stations with a zoom lens. It’s neat, along this corridor.
The ankle was singing its song by this point. I’m normally quite sore after the PT sessions, and that was a consideration when I had resolved to ‘walk three miles’ on this particular day. It ended up being just under four miles, but that’s a subject for subsequent posts to explore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My original plan was to take the T to the other side of the Monongahela River and walk back across on the Smithfield Street Bridge prior to heading down towards a nearby set of rail tracks, but amendment occurred due to the ankle’s operatics, and I shaved a mile off the walk by debarking the T at the Station Square stop instead.
It was in the high thirties, temperature wise, and two weeks worth of snow and ice were releasing away from the ground. It wasn’t icy, but it was wet, and as I keep on reminding myself that ‘discretion is the better part of valor’ and to error on the side of caution as I get back to speed.
Scuttle. Ow! Scuttle, ow! Ow! Ow! It was like that.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The day, finally, comes
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Friday, Pittsburgh warmed up past the freezing mark.
Unfortunately, I had a ‘PT’ or ‘Physical Therapy’ appointment mid afternoon, but I also had a plan. The car was left back home in my driveway, and a cab ride took me to my appointment. After an hour of getting the actual heck beaten out of me by trained professionals, the camera bag was affixed over the filthy black raincoat and your humble narrator embarked on the first actual scuttle he’s been capable of in a very long time.
The plan involved me walking the better part of a mile, to find the terminal stop for all three of Pittsburgh’s light rail ‘T’ lines at the South Hills Village station and then catch an inbound train set. Good news is that most of that distance was accomplished by walking through a heated and evenly floored shopping mall. Part of the plan which I didn’t count on is how incredibly diminished my physicality is, after this whole broken ankle experience.
That first mile was agonizing, despite it taking place mostly on those polished mall floors. Made it though. You have to ignore pain, and then lean into it, otherwise you’re a wuss. Brooklyn!
This is the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was quite glad to to see the Pittsburgh bound ‘T’ arrive. It’s immaterial which line you pick up here (there’s three – silver, blue, and red. I normally use the red line from HQ in Dormont), as they’re all -ultimately- heading towards the same place and this is one of the terminal stops. I think the one I boarded, pictured above, was the Silver but I could be wrong. At any rate, I was happy to just be sitting down. I’ve also really missed having this service available to me during all of this disability time.
Since this line was traveling on a set of tracks unfamiliar, I decided to shoot out the windows as we moved along. The ankle was angry.
The PT session had involved a stationary bicycle, weight machine leg presses, and several odd exercises (one of which sees an elastic belt strung twixt the ankles and you ‘crab walk’ sideways with it on and stretch it out laterally. This is harder than it sounds). What emerged during this walk, however, is that my stride length has greatly diminished. Something else I need to work on, I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s suburban in character, the South Hills Village area, and the T runs on a dedicated track which travels past the back yards of mostly one family houses, the odd medical building or warehouse, and then past apartment houses as population density grades higher and higher, and eventually The T runs onto a cantilevered elevated track which is set into the side of a very steep hill as it nears the center of all things in the City of Pittsburgh. It’s all very complicated.
Back tomorrow, with more from this return to a scuttling form of life.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Coming and going
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey, lookee – that’s one of Pittsburgh’s ‘T’ light rail units on approach to the Red Line’s ‘Potomac Station’ here in the Borough of Dormont. Neat!
Luckily, I was running an errand across the street when the alarms began to sound, and the signal arms came down. I’m really looking forward to riding on this service again, as a note, once I’m able to climb up the steep hill from HQ to the station. This ankle situation is a constant ‘block’ towards me having any fun at all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The unit pictured above, as in both of the shots, was heading away from Pittsburgh towards a terminal stop in South Hills Village. The T runs at street level, in trenches and on bridges, and even underground as a subway for a few stops. In Dormont, they have a dedicated track and a high platform station, but if you head back towards the city just a couple of T stops, in Beechview, you’ll notice that its rails are set into the asphalt, so the thing runs alongside autos and trucks as a surface vehicle. It’s all very complicated, frankly.
The T operates on a catenary system, which provides it with the motive voltage that it consumes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another ‘T’ arrived at the intersection where I was standing, this one heading into Pittsburgh. Under normal circumstance, at least once a week I’d find myself riding this service to ‘head into town’ and execute a long walk from its northern terminus nearby the sportsball stadium which provides a home for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I’ve got three routes from that point which have proven productive – photography wise – and also provide for ‘good cardio.’ Ultimately, I’m usually heading back to a T stop along the Monongahela River at the end of the effort for my ride home.
At least that’s what I used to do when my ankle didn’t hurt. I miss doing this sort of thing. Massively.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Light Rail Hullabaloo
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Transit was one of the deciding factors behind where Our Lady of the Pentacle and I decided to put down roots here in the Pittsburgh metroplex. Yes, we’ve got a car and use the thing frequently, but one such as myself has a distinct preference for being able to leave the automobile in the driveway occasionally.
The Pittsburgh Regional Transit people, aka the ‘PRT,’ operate a light rail service – called ‘The T’ – on the skeletal remains of Pittsburgh’s once far flung trolley system. The residential section we settled in enjoys this service and I ride it often, especially so on days when I’m taking the camera out for a walk. It frees me up to partake in a pint of beer or two after the walk is over, and allows egress to the core of the city without having to worry about parking or getting back to where I parked after scuttling about for miles and miles. I like it, and think it’s neat.
As mentioned a month or two ago, there’s a series of maintenance projects that PRT is performing this summer on the T service which has introduced a fairly random series of steps into riding the thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Under normal circumstance, one boards the service at a dedicated stop in my town (Dormont, which is technically a ‘Borough’). The light rail unit moves along a set of tracks with a variety of conditions – street running, dedicated and separated from vehicle traffic rights of way, underground subway style tunnels, and then back to an elevated right of way track at the terminal end nearby the stadiums on Pittsburgh’s north side. This trip is normally about 25-30 minutes long.
The phase of work that PRT has begun involves the subway section of the service, which lurks beneath the office buildings and towers of the downtown section. The light rail thereby diverts to a normally shuttered facility in the downtown area called ‘Penn Station.’
Said facility is across the street from the former HQ of the actual Pennsylvania Rail Road, a magnificent building which has been converted over to luxury residential usage. At Penn Station, T riders are encouraged to debark the rail units.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The street which Penn Station is found on is the approach to one of several ‘Busway’ corridors that snake through the Pittsburgh metro, and there’s a series of switches and tracks back there where the T can ‘turn around.’ There’s also what seems like a bus depot, but this isn’t a public byway so I can’t really say. They don’t actually turn around the T’s, I’d mention, the operator simply switches from the controls at one side of the unit to the other for the reverse trip.
There seems to be an intellectual tug of war going on with the people who care about public transit here in southwestern PA, between investing in and expanding the bus system or doubling down on the T. Advocacy arguments in favor of one or the other both have validity and solid reasoning, to my ear. There’s also a social justice factor which has to be added to the argument, as Pittsburgh’s ‘communities of color’ are largely supported by the bus network, rather than the limited corridors of the T which run through mostly suburban areas.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I think rail is the cooler choice (especially so if you’re suffering from a disability), but it doesn’t mean that it’s the best fiscal or political decision for municipal investment. The buses offer a much greater range and versatility as far as servicing the more far flung sections of Pittsburgh, for instance, and provide reach into communities which are experiencing economic hard times and providing a pipeline of access to the employment possibilities of downtown, and the stadium area with all of its service sector jobs. It’s also fairly easy and relatively cheap to increase bus saturation, as opposed to rail.
The light rail, on the other hand, is far more reliable than the buses – but the upfront costs of acquiring land, building the tracks, and populating the rails with passenger units is frightening. Saying that, there’s parts of Pittsburgh that the T doesn’t touch by design, which is somewhat baffling. The Oakland section with its multitudes of college students, for instance, would benefit massively from T service. So too would areas with functional but unused tracks like Allentown and the South Side Slopes.
There’s also ‘hot’ real estate zones like Lawrenceville which are entirely dependent on buses instead of rail, which is goofy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At any rate… my drill right now involves riding the T from home to Penn Station, debarking the train and crossing a street to catch a rail shuttle bus. The shuttle bus subsequently stops at the two stations which have been isolated due to the reconstruction work (they’re replacing the concrete plinths which the actual rails are anchored into) that is underway.
The bus snakes through downtown Pittsburgh, whereupon it drops you off at another rail station at the end of the T’s Subway section, and then you board another T unit to complete the journey. I didn’t ’stopwatch’ the trip, but in estimation it took about 25 minutes longer for me to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ than it normally had.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shuttle bus carries you to another station, whereupon you ride an escalator down to the platform level and board another train set. This unit accomplishes the final two stops on the service, including the terminal stop on the north shore of the Allegheny River nearby Acrisure Stadium. Personally, I found the entire thing quite interesting, but I’m a known transit nerd, ‘out and proud.’
Things are about to get even more interesting for me at the end of May, when the concrete plinth replacement project rises up out of the tunnels beneath downtown and begins nibbling up the dedicated right of way and street running sections of the service closer to home. That’s meant to take about three months, according to the PRT, which will be followed by a long timeline project that’s meant to rehabilitate the bridge which the T uses to cross the Monongahela River. That should be a pretty interesting situation to take shots of.
The PRT’s plan is to run buses on the route during the construction, which lends some weight to the argument offered by proponents of doubling down on road vehicle oriented transit in the area. This, of course, risks increasing vehicle congestion and air pollution.
It’s going to be interesting to see which side wins out, in the end.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Back to HQ
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a long walk down a steep hill and a thousand feet of steps, my dogs were barking. Thereby, I was quite pleased when a T light rail train set arrived to ferry me back to HQ, some five miles distant.
This option is pretty much going to not exist for the entire summer, which sucks, but the transit agency people are going to be reconditioning the concrete and rails which the T rides on. Necessary repairs, they say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s going to be brutal for a lot of people, having this particular rug yanked out from under them. There’s going to be shuttle buses working the route, but a bus ain’t a train, and it’s going to take a longer time to get where you’re going. What are you going to do, fight City Hall?
If this was NYC, and MTA was running the project, the three month ‘T’ outage would probably balloon into five years.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Limping at this point, as all of those steps had triggered my ‘trick left foot,’ I managed to make it back to Dormont where HQ is located. That’s the block where all things Pentacle revolves around these days.
Back next week with something different – at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 