Public Transportation and Smart Growth

http://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/PghTrolley.html

The problem was, first they could NOT go through the South Hills Trolley tunnel, thus anything to the South Hills or Mount Washington was out. Even the route up Arlington Avenue was out, for it ran over Mount Washington, but ended up at South Hills Junction and the Trolley Tunnel. Thus about 1/4 of the streetcar routes could NOT use the double decker. The Oakland (University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon University, Carlow Collage area) to downtown Pittsburgh (The third and second busiest transit stops in Pennsylvania, behind only #1 downtown Philadelphia) would have been ideal, but most of the commuters on that line wanted FREQUENT service not packed service. Given you had THREE main streetcar lines in the area (and various sub-routes off those lines, all of which survive to this day as bus routes) going along three different roads (Forbes, Firth and Center) a double decker made less sense then more streetcars.

Even today, frequent service is the rule between Oakland and Downtown Pittsburgh. The Firth and Forbes Avenue routes now use an exclusive bus lane, but diverge in Oakland. You have to watch yourself on that bus lane, the buses come that often. The Center Avenue routes run on about the same route as the old Center Avenue Streetcars, but they want frequent service NOT packed service.