Skip to main content

SWPA Roads Project


Pittsburgh is a city of unique personalities and entertaining stories.  The same can be said about its transportation history.  Pittsburgh is more than the "City of Bridges."  It is said throughout the region that "you can't get there from here." And perhaps it's true. 

However, it is all those quirks, those idiosyncrasies, the leftovers, and the plans that never were that make Pittsburgh's transportation history so unique.  The SWPA Roads Project tells stories that range from the mundane to the colorful, the obscure to the controversial, and everything in between.

Recent Updates: 
  • December 22, 2025 - Updated the Twin Rivers Scenic Road Page with a new photo and route information based on the discovery of another existing sign in White Oak.
  • October 19, 2025 - New page featuring Allegheny County's Red Belt (Just the Blue Belt left to complete!)
  • July 6, 2025 - Explore the Green Belt on a new page following the entire 38-mile Allegheny County Belt System Route.

Ride The Belt System: Uniquely Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County Belt System is a post-World War II relic that connected the seemingly endless municipalities within the county.
City Beautiful Boulevards and More: They are the Boulevards we all know and love (or complain about) by name.
The Pittsburgh That Could Have Been: The endless proposals and plans for highways and transit that just never came to be.
Unique Stories:
Gone or Completely Forgotten: Abandoned, torn down, or just plain forgotten about 
Highway Histories:
Interstate 70:

Have photos, stories, or information to share - just drop a line in the comments or send me a note!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

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.   ...

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

  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...

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

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...