You don’t need to visit Oz for a trip over the rainbow — just follow the Allegheny County belt system.
The Neighborhood reader Robert Weber was wondering about detour signs for construction that help when parts of the belt system are closed, and he had a further request: “Explain the Orange, Red, Blue, and Green Belt system.”
We’ll go a step further, and add Yellow and Purple. In the words of the county website:
“The colors of the system are ordered like the colors in a rainbow, with the outermost red, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.”
A 1993 Post-Gazette story about using the belts to see fall foliage explained their practical purpose:
“The belts were mapped to keep drivers off heavily used main roads that fanned out from the city like the spokes of a wheel. The belts, mainly a chain of two-lane roads, were chosen to carry traffic suburb-to-suburb — and sometimes between city neighborhoods.”
The system was developed in the 1940s by Joseph White, an engineer with the county Department of Public Works, using a network of federal, state and municipal highways that would offer drivers alternate routes that did not lead into the congested Golden Triangle.
The belts became roads less traveled, according to the county, because of new interstate and parkway routes created from the late 1950s though the early 1970s.
“However, as urban sprawl took a hold of Pittsburgh, the system helped to reduce the effects of suburban congestion. Many of the roads selected more than 50 years ago still play a key role in the transportation plans for Allegheny County, [as] the ones chosen for the belts have gone from country lanes to urban collectors to urban arterials.”
The routes of the color-coded belts are covered in great detail on the county’s informative website. It offers tidbits about each belt, including the fact that the Purple Belt came into play late in the city’s color-coded directional game.
Bob Firth of Informing Design, Inc., in Shadyside was given the task of finishing the rainbow and added a final belt, also known as the Cultural Loop, Downtown. His passion for the system went beyond the assignment.
He came to Pittsburgh from Texas in the late 1960s, “and we moved into the hills of Sewickley.” In trying to find his way around, “the Orange Belt saved my life many times,” he said.
“The idea behind the Purple Belt was to connect parking in the Cultural District and the government area and Kaufmann’s — it was entertainment, government and shopping,” he said. “But of course, all the department stores are gone now.”
Mr. Firth is the author of the “Pittsburgh Figured Out” atlas that was meant for regional publication but was featured in the Los Angeles Times and dozens of other publications for its main message: “Gridding the Ungriddable.” The starting point was, “in Pittsburgh, even if you can see it, it doesn’t mean you can get there from where you are, especially not by taking what seems to be the obvious route.”
One of his conclusions was, “Here’s how it can be done: by ignoring road segments that get you tangled up, you can always highlight just a particular set of routings that span a given area so that they comprise a simple grid.”
To grid the ungriddable, the first step is to untangle the tangle piece by piece. Or sign by sign.
Among his lasting contributions to traffic flow has been the Pittsburgh Wayfinder System that includes more than 1,000 signs, making it one of the country’s largest such systems. Designed and installed from 1995-97, the Wayfinder System breaks the city into five regions by color — sound familiar? — with the Downtown area maintaining the color purple. It should be violet, actually, in the vernacular of the emanating chromatic scale, “but purple was easier,” Mr. Firth said.
North Side is a light shade of blue, South Side is green, the Strip is brown and East End is orange, but all include a symbol of the Golden Triangle as an attention grabber.
Even in this day of Google GPS, Mr. Firth still uses the county belts, which he has found can be more dependable and point to roads less traveled.
“The belts were designed to connect the major arteries, so you could find your way from one to the other — [roads such as] Ohio River Boulevard, McKnight Road and Allegheny River Boulevard — through 130 municipalities,” he said.
The Pittsburgh Wayfinder System exists within the city boundaries and points the way not only to bridges but to destinations such as sports and arts venues, hospitals, universities, museums and visitor attractions.
To illustrate how the signs point the way — and possibly confirm GPS tracking for the wary — Mr. Firth used as an example Wayfinder signs pointing the way to the Smithfield Street Bridge. Via email, he sent a Google Street View of the ramp from the Fort Duquesne Bridge inbound to Downtown/376 East, and another of the Fort Pitt Boulevard ramp to Smithfield Street. In both cases, only Wayfinder signs point the way to the Smithfield Street Bridge.
“The two biggest ‘unsolved’ wayfinding problems that I think the sign system solved are 1) the hard-to-see and unmarked connections to city districts like these Station Square signs; and 2) the connections to parking for major destinations once you’re inside a district,” Mr. Firth said.
“And to be honest,” he added, “to this day I do get a bit tickled when I pass a sign that I know is doing good by motorists.”
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960.
First Published: March 1, 2019, 2:00 p.m.
