Take a walk around Oakland, or a piece of it. Entire route 3.57 miles, time varies by pace.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Participants in the Walking Health Bus in Oakland make their way down Terrace Street, en route to Schenley Park. Click photo for larger image.

This walk is tailor-made for the thousands who work or study in Oakland, but the entire route as mapped out by Deborah Aaron, a University of Pittsburgh exercise physiology professor, is not for the faint-hearted. It starts at Trees Hall atop Cardiac Hill, and it ends at the same place. Enough said. The peak is not called Cardiac Hill without reason.

But the nice part of this walk is that it's done Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays starting at noon by a group called the "Walking Health Bus." People join it and leave it according to where they are in Oakland and how much time they have.

It starts promptly at noon in front of Trees Hall on Allequippa .

The walking "bus" heads down to the Pitt dental school on Darragh Street (arriving at 12:03 p.m.), turns left on Terrace and curves onto DeSoto Street (arriving at the Graduate School of Public Health at 12:10 p.m.), staying on it until it ends at Fifth Avenue . It crosses Fifth Avenue, then turns right on Bouquet Street, crosses Forbes Avenue and passes Sennott Street. Turn right on Roberto Clemente Drive and pick up the next crew at Posvar Hall at 12:15 p.m. It then crosses the Panther Hollow Bridge and follows Schenley Drive to Phipps Conservatory for a 30-minute loop through Schenley Park.

It takes a pretty walk around the Westinghouse Memorial Pond, which is populated by ducks and goldfish. From there, the walkers continue up to the border of Carnegie Mellon University and then cross the drive to take a walking path that leads to the top of Flagstaff Hill. The view of Oakland is lovely.

For most walkers, the hard part of the trek is over. Now it's down Flagstaff and to the mostly level pavement of Bigelow Boulevard. From there, walkers either head down Forbes or Fifth and on to their places of business or, for the truly fit, return to Darragh for the walk UP Cardiac Hill. Some cheat a bit by using some escalators in the Petersen Events Center.

If you have questions about this route, call Aaron at 412-648-8272 or e-mail her at debaaron@pitt.edu.

Back to main story