The Westinghouse Transit Expressway, or "Skybus", was one of Pittsburgh's failed public transportation initiatives from the 1960s that became what some might refer to as "the stuff of legends." Concieved during the first Renaissance as an alternative to the overcrowding on the city's streets, Skybus was an electric tram that rode on an elevated steel and concrete track, similar to the monorail that is so popular at Disneyworld. If approved, a 92-mile, 460 car transit system was proposed to link the urban and suburban population with downtown Pittsburgh at a cost of approximately $740 million.

The skybus saga reached its peak in the 1960s, when federal dollars were allotted to build a 1.77 mile test track in South Park and renovations were begun to convert the old Wabash Tunnel into a gateway for the projected skybus line to downtown Pittsburgh. Construction of the South Park loop began in 1964 and was completed in 1966.

The track opened for a demonstration operation in August, 1965, during the four days of the Allegheny County Fair. The unmanned, rubber wheeled electric vehicles, operating individually or in trains, circled the park at speeds as high as 50 mph on the elevated roadway. Skybus was a novelty hit at the fair, but its popularity soon faded. Skybus continued operation for 10 months upon completion in 1966, covering 21,000 vehicle miles.

Skybus continued to be an attraction at the County Fair for a few more years, but as support dwindled among the politicians, the project was shelved in favor of the more practical solution of installing dedicated bus lanes in high traffic corridors. Eventually, the combination of bus lanes, the construction of the South, East and Airport busways, and the building of a subway system below ground downtown brought the transportation nightmares to an end in the mid-1980s.

As for Skybus' eventual fate, it's doom was sealed when the Governor of Pennsylvania withdrew support, and funding, in 1972. The Wabash Tunnel work was discontinued and the elevated track at South Park was left to rust. In the late 70s, the tracks were removed and the Skybus initiative laid to rest forever. Only remnants remain, such as a few scattered concrete foundations and the ire of South Park residents, who have never forgotten the albatross that for 10 years scarred the landscape of the County's showcase park.

Below are a few more pictures of the skybus system in South Park, and a link to a YouTube feature that will take you along for a Skybus ride through South Park back in 1967. For the scholarly few, there are links to an essay and a detailed transportation study covering the saga of the Skybus Initiative. They are a bit wordy, but quite informative, with construction specifications and maps covering the proposed routes.

<Take A Ride Aboard Pittsburgh's Skybus in 1967>

<Allegheny County Rapid Transit Study - 1967>
The Skybus Study (wordy but interesting)

<The Saga of Skybus, by Morton Coleman>

Click on images for larger photos

* Photos provided by Doug Brendel *

It's been over three decades since the Westinghouse Transit Expressway tracks were removed from South Park. Little remains of the overhead attraction that once traversed the landscape along Corrigan Drive. The North Station, however, still stands along Maple Drive. The North Station was the control center for the Transit Expressway. Pictured here in August, 2008, the once busy terminal is about all that's left of the millions of dollars in taxpayer money spent on the failed transportation program. A little scavenging where the tracks once laid revealed yet another timeworn artifact. This twelve pound rusting bolt seems a fitting reminder of the debacle that was "Skybus." To this day, some elderly parkgoers still lament the introduction of the Skybus prototype to South Park. They cite the destruction of several old groves and amenities that were sacrificed to the project.