Skip to main content

The Bigelow Blvd. / Crosstown Expressway (Interstate 579) Ghost Ramp Mystery Explained

Image
By
For nearly five decades, many Pittsburgh-area motorists, when leaving the old Civic Arena or exiting off the Crosstown Expressway onto Bigelow Boulevard, have wondered what exactly the ghost ramp in the above photo was for.  Where was it to have come from?  When and why did they stop?  Will it ever be built?
For over 20 years, Rand McNally's maps of downtown Pittsburgh included a full connection between the Crosstown Expressway and Bigelow Boulevard.
The original plans for the Crosstown Expressway included a full interchange with Bigelow Boulevard.  However, these plans never came to fruition.  The only ramps built were from I-579 North onto Bigelow and from Bigelow Boulevard/PA 380 West to I-579 South.  The above ramp was to have come from I-579 South and depending on what older map of Pittsburgh you have over or under the existing roadway, and on to Bigelow/PA 380 East.  It never came to be, and now the HOV ramp to what was once the Civic Arena has basically eliminated the need for completing this interchange.



The two photos above show the retaining wall with the ghost ramp and how it would have connected to Bigelow.  The below photo shows exactly how narrow the off-ramp would have been.

There are two of different theories on why the full interchange was never built.  One is that the ramps would have resulted in the old Pennsylvania Railroad Station, Penn Station, being torn down and that local preservation groups fought to keep it standing.  However, outside of this video discussing the Bigelow ghost ramps, I have never heard of that.  It is correct that the completion of I-579 and the construction of the Veterans Bridge carrying the Interstate over the Allegheny River did impact the former Pennsylvania Railroad freight building; however, the highway's construction had no impact on the former rail station.  The other reason mentioned is that funding for the completion of the Crosstown Expressway, Interstate 579, required some type of mass transit/high occupancy vehicle requirement.  

But neither was the main reason, PennDOT just didn't have the money.  Needing to cutback costs, PennDOT dropped plans to build the Bigelow Boulevard interchange in 1981.

The final three photos show how far along construction on this ramp went - and in even photos taken in 2001 - how the long-abandoned ramp had been overgrown with grass, brush, and trees.




In addition, there were once plans to have an additional interchange along Interstate 579 connecting the Crosstown Expressway with Fort Duquesne Boulevard.  

Site Navigation:
Sources & Links:
Labels:

Comments

JQ said…
I think the requirement for the HOV lane basically killed it. Here is the theory video I did a few years back
https://youtu.be/UD--BlyIEbw
5:36 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

By
The US Route System was formally created by the American Association of State Highway Officials during November 1926.  Through the history of the system the only state to which has elected to maintain cutout US Route shields has been California.  The G26 series cutout US Route shields have become a favorite in the road enthusiast hobby and are generally considered to be much more visually pleasing than the standard Federal Highway Administration variant.  However, the G26 shield series appears to have been killed off on January 18, 2026, when Caltrans updated their Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  This blog will examine the history of the US Route shield specifications in California and what is happening with the 2026 changes.  The blog cover photo is facing towards the terminus of California State Route 136 and at a G26-2 specification US Route 395 shield.  In the background Mount Whitney can be seen in the Sierra Nevada range.   ...
2 comments
Read more

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

By
  Over the years, I have made plenty of trips to Ontario, crisscrossing the southern, central and eastern parts of the province. Living in Upstate New York, it's pretty easy to visit our neighbor to the north, or is that our neighbor to the west? Ottawa is one of my favorite cities to visit anywhere in the world, plus I've discovered the charm of Kingston, the waterfalls of Hamilton (which is on the same Niagara Escarpment that brings us Niagara Falls), the sheer beauty of the Bruce Peninsula, and more. But I hadn't explored much of Cottage Country. So I decided to change that, and what better time to go than over Memorial Day weekend, when the daylight is long and I have an extra day to explore. On the third and final day of my trip, I started in Huntsville and made my way through Muskoka District and Haliburton County, passing by many lakes along the way. I stopped in towns such as Dorset, Haliburton and Bancroft before making a beeline down to Belleville and then over th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

By
A couple years ago I spent a lot of spare time exploring phosphate mining ghost towns in the Bone Valley of Polk County, Florida.  One ghost town in particular called Nichols on Polk County Route 676 west of Mulberry caught my eye due to a relative lack of documentation on ghosttowns.com. Nichols was created in 1905 during the early phosphate mining boom in the Bone Valley region.  For the time Nichols was unusual since it had company housing in the Nichols Mine site and private residences outside the gate.  Nichols is only about two miles west of Mulberry which probably made it a somewhat reasonable commute even by the wonky standards of the early 20th Century.  Most of the Bone Valley region was relatively remote which made commuting or homesteading impractical which is why there are so many ghost towns in the area.  The company housing section of Nichols was phased out and abandoned by 1950. The Nichols town site is largely abandoned and could "possibl...
4 comments
Read more