{"id":8,"date":"2008-10-29T13:36:44","date_gmt":"2008-10-29T18:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/gamma\/?p=8"},"modified":"2009-05-26T14:41:14","modified_gmt":"2009-05-26T19:41:14","slug":"pittsburgh-a-city-walk-and-a-burb-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/beyond-gotham\/pittsburgh-a-city-walk-and-a-burb-walk","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh’s Streets and Burbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk about a starkly different experience of walking. I love to take walks wherever I go \u2013 to explore, relax, exercise, and take in the surroundings. While visiting my family in Western Pennsylvania this year — or \u201cWestern PA\u201d as we natives call it — I could hardly have had a more different experience of walking during the weekend there. <\/span>If I compare and juxtapose the two walks, one through downtown Pittsburgh and another in a city suburb, they tell me a lot about how we plan \u2013 or perhaps more accurately, don\u2019t plan \u2013 and build places these days and just how much the car remains king, to our detriment.<\/p>\n

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I took the Greyhound bus to Pittsburgh, where I was going to walk in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure of breast cancer in Schenley Park. Yes, a lot of people sniff at the thought of going Greyhound and mostly I prefer the train. But you can\u2019t beat the price of the bus, and I love the ease of walking down Eighth Avenue from our Manhattan apartment to the Port Authority terminal, a small suitcase and backpack in tow, choosing from a bunch of daily trip times to Pittsburgh, and hopping on a bus. Easy!<\/p>\n

And the people-watching is never dull. So I \u201clanded\u201d on that day in Pittsburgh at a bus station on Second Avenue that was temporary, while a new one was under construction. (The new bus station opened in September.) If Pittsburgh\u2019s downtown is a triangle where three rivers come together, this was at the extreme upper-right corner, off the Parkway East and Monongahela River.<\/p>\n

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What do you notice about a city when you arrive? For me, it\u2019s what\u2019s alike, what\u2019s different from places where I have been. When I ride into Pittsburgh, I always look at its large hills filled with the frame houses that once were home to so many steelworkers and their families. The neighborhoods cascade over the hillsides like human-built waterfalls.<\/p>\n

Today, the smokestacks are gone from the riverfront, and many of the cavities left by them are filled with offices and stores, such as the Waterfront<\/a> open-air mall on the site where the Homestead works<\/a> of U.S. Steel once stood.<\/p>\n

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On this trip to the Pittsburgh area, I was disoriented because of landing in a different location from where the old bus station had stood. I was off the familiar streets of the downtown and had little idea at first of how to get to Liberty Avenue where I meet my connecting local bus to head out to my hotel. But as I walked out of the station to my left I noticed the Parkway East, which runs parallel with the Monongahela River, and I spotted a walking trail along the highway. Because of this orientation to the river and road, I could sense the direction of downtown and began walking that way. Sure enough, I began to see the familiar landmarks of downtown Pittsburgh in the distance.<\/p>\n

These Streets Are Made for Walking<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

That is the thing about cities like Pittsburgh. They came of age in an earlier time, one in which geographical development didn\u2019t center on the automobile with a massive tangle of circular roads and parking lots as the exurbs now have. The city\u2019s settlement and development were forged by a natural geographic point, the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers \u2013 which rival groups fought to control over many years — and by its surrounding hills and valleys. Of course commerce played a role, but those who developed the cities laid out blocks and streets geared to being powered on foot, whether human or horse.<\/p>\n

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So, in my walk out of the bus station toward the core of the downtown, I could orient to the sight of the river and road alongside it, knowing both would lead me where I wanted to go. And I literally picked up the trail \u2013 which turned out to be part of the Eliza Furnace Trail, a 2.6-mile trail that is named for the Eliza Furnaces that were part of the massive Jones & Laughlin (J&L) Steel Mill in Pittsburgh. (It’s part of Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Heritage Trail<\/a>.) The first part of the walk felt very urban and gritty, with a fence separating me from the parkway and bridges in the distance. And in fact, I passed the Allegheny County Jail. (Hence, some call this the “jail trail.”)<\/p>\n

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Still, as I headed northwest along it and onto the sidewalks of First and Second avenues in Pittsburgh, the walk was one of constant discovery: the fonts of the signs on old industrial buildings; brick streets; the diagonal and winding stone paths, ornamental trees, and grasses of Firstside Park<\/a>, a green oasis that invites a playful feeling; buildings from different eras; and a gift store dating from 1938, among other things that caught my eye on every block. How far had I walked? Who knows\u2026I felt invigorated.<\/p>\n

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Suburban Townships: Miles \u2013 And Worlds \u2013 Apart<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Compare this with my experience the next two days in the western suburbs of Pittsburgh, where I stayed at a Days Inn in Moon Township just near its border with Robinson Township. I met family and friends in Robinson and took a walk outside my hotel in Moon Township, and I couldn\u2019t help but compare my experiences with walking in Pittsburgh\u2019s downtown.<\/p>\n

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First, a little background: Robinson is a fast-growing suburb \u2013 its population has grown 13.3% since 2000 \u2013 just over nine miles west of where the three rivers meet in downtown Pittsburgh. It\u2019s as different from the historical city as a Wal-Mart is from an Art Deco skyscraper. To be sure, some welcoming neighborhoods exist in both Robinson and Moon townships, but I was experiencing the place as a visitor in one of the hotels.<\/span><\/p>\n

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For many years the primary sight in Robinson from the Parkway West highway was a single multiplex cinema pretty much surrounded by big green hills, but it has vastly changed in the past 15 years. Today, that same view of Robinson Township shows a massive hodgepodge of nothing but malls, shopping plazas, and big-box stores filling the hills for as far as the eye can see. Trees have lost out to neon signs and concrete.<\/p>\n

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While riding through this section of suburban Robinson on the way to and from my hotel, I noticed several things: Few people walk anywhere along the streets and roads near the malls and shopping plazas. Not one thing attracts the eyes in a pleasing way in this shoppers’ paradise. Traffic became clogged much of the time, meaning one spends lots of time stuck at lights and stop signs.<\/p>\n

Lastly, it\u2019s easy to get disoriented while trying to find your way. Two friends who have driven in this township many times got completely confused while seeking to find a certain place. In a jumble of roads pegged to the automobile and shopping as the center of existence, few, if any, natural features exist to help guide the way.<\/p>\n

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In this kind of environment, I tried to take a walk while at the hotel on Saturday afternoon. Just outside the hotel the only places I could find to walk were parking lots, the large connecting road, Market Place Boulevard, and a teeny weedy, sort-of-swampy green area. Wanting to get some exercise, I walked up Market Place Boulevard to a nearby huge Kmart, and then I walked a few circles around its parking lot so I\u2019d log a little distance. As I walked, I looked a lot at the sky \u2013 first, because it was a beautiful blue, but also because I could find nothing that grabbed my interest otherwise.<\/p>\n

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This is what walking has become in much of our newest suburban areas across the U.S. It\u2019s pedestrian-unfriendly, and little draws the eye, unless you get completely captivated by looking at the standard-issue concrete boxes of suburban hotels or license plates on the cars in these huge parking lots. If you love miles of pavement, little bushy shrubs, and a sea of cars, you\u2019d love this walk.<\/p>\n

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It makes me wonder if anyone gives a thought to walking while they plan and construct the malls, hotels, restaurants, and big-box stores \u2013 the \u201ctowns\u201d of today \u2013 that now inhabit so much space in America. There are some lessons in the city of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk about a starkly different experience of walking. I love to take walks wherever I go \u2013 to explore, relax, exercise, and take in the surroundings. While visiting my family in Western Pennsylvania this year — or \u201cWestern PA\u201d as we natives call it — I could hardly have had a more different experience of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[13,11,12,14],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond-gotham","tag-cities","tag-pittsburgh","tag-suburbs","tag-trails"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2PDqY-8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}