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attractiveness of the uplands slowly builds them up, and as the wealth of the community grows there is an inevitable tendency to reduce the obstacles to ready connection between one hill district and another by raising the levels of the bridges which cross the intervening valleys. Bolder and bolder viaducts are built, until finally there is a complete and more or less independent highway system on the upper levels, and the major part of the residential district comes to be there too.

Panther Hollow bridge -- a good-looking viaduct in Pittsburgh

Obviously, therefore, every opportunity should be utilized to gain grade, in the approach to the South Hills District, by starting at a high elevation and wasting no distance in level stretches if the most efficient thoroughfare artery to this district is to be secured.

The bridge and tunnel plan, proposed by residents of the South Hills, is briefly as follows: to start from Forbes Street, at Sixth Avenue, and rise steadily to the bluff north of Second Avenue; from here to rise on a bridge over the river, at a uniform gradient, to the opposite hill; to pierce the hill by a tunnel, at the same gradient, and reach the same level of the present highways at the junction of Washington Avenue and Haberman Street. It is also proposed to have a lower deck on the bridge,

A viaduct in Lausanne, showing how the valleys are spanned by the main traffic ways

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Last modified on 22-Dec 1999
Design format: copyright 1997-1999 Bruce S. Cridlebaugh
Original document: Frederick Law Olmsted, 1910