If You're Traveling Into Pittsburgh...
Some helpful information from the Wikipedia:
Pittsburgh's dedication to sports has a long history. Both its professional and collegiate teams have championship records. Three separate colleges have sent their football teams to major bowl games. The Pittsburgh region also has developed several NFL quarterbacks, giving Western Pennsylvania the nickname, "Cradle of Quarterbacks." Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Joe Namath, Jim Kelly, Marc Bulger, current Houston Texans starter Matt Schaub, George Blanda, Jeff Hostetler, Johnny Unitas, current Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, Bruce Gradkowski, and current Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback Charlie Batch are from the area. Several famous running backs also hail from the area. Several notable defensive players are from the Pittsburgh area, including Pro Hall of Famers Joe Schmidt and Randy White. Two notable NHL players from the Pittsburgh area include Ryan Malone of the Penguins and R.J. Umberger of the Flyers. There is also a long list of baseball stars such as Ken Griffey, Jr., Ken Griffey, Sr., Stan Musial, Honus Wagner, and the claimed hometown of Curt Schilling, as well as numerous Olympic gold medal winners such as wrestler Kurt Angle, Roger Kingdom and John Woodruff and was where Jim Furyk learned to play golf. Pittsburgh also claims many major league coaching legends as its own including Marvin Lewis, Mike Ditka, Marty Schottenheimer, Mike McCarthy, Bill Cowher, Barry Alvarez, Chuck Knox, Terry Francona, Ken Macha and Art Howe. For these reasons, Pittsburgh has been called the "City of Champions."
Pittsburgh is the only city that all major sports teams (Steelers, Penguins, Pirates, and Xplosion) share the same two colors, black and gold. Although unofficial, the colorscheme is used by the city's police department, fire department and are the dominant colors on the flag and seal. Many downtown fire hydrants even show the "Pittsburgh colors".
Pittsburgh is rich in art and culture. Among the professional music venues, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performs in Heinz Hall, and the Pittsburgh Opera performs in the Benedum Center. Both The Benedum Center and Heinz Hall provide venues for other groups, such as the River City Brass Band and the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. Pittsburgh has a long tradition of jazz, blues and bluegrass music. Pittsburgh also has a large indie and punk rock scene. Additionally the National Negro Opera Company was founded in Pittsburgh, and was the first all African-American opera company in the United States.
Pittsburgh Dance Council and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater host a variety of dance events. Polka, folk, square and round dancing have a long history in the city and are celebrated by the internationally famous Duquesne University Tamburitzans, a multicultural academy dedicated to the preservation and presentation of folk songs and dance.
Museums include the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Frick Art & Historical Center. Installation art is featured outdoors at ArtGardens of Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has extensive dinosaur collections and an Ancient Egypt wing. The Carnegie Science Center is technology oriented. The Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum are located in the Strip District. The unusual and eclectic Bayernhof Music Museum is six miles from downtown. In theater, the Pittsburgh Playhouse of Point Park University has four resident companies of professional actors. Other companies include Attack Theatre, City Theatre, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, Pittsburgh Musical Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Quantum Theater. The city's longest-running theatre show, Friday Nite Improvs, is an improv jam that has been performed in the Cathedral of Learning and other locations for 17 years.
. . . Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The main highway connecting Pittsburgh to the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) on the east is I-376, locally known as the "Parkway East." Meanwhile, I-279 is a route that runs both north and west of the city. Depending on the route's location relative to Downtown, it is called either the "Parkway North" or the "Parkway West." The route connects the city with the North Hills and the Cranberry area from the north, while also connecting the city to points west, such as Greentree. The Parkway West also leads to the Pittsburgh International Airport main terminal; however, it is numbered as United States Route(s) 22/30 and later, via the contiguous Airport Parkway and Southern Expressway, Pennsylvania Route 60. It is due to be redesignated Interstate 376 in the future. Unlike many other major U.S. cities, Pittsburgh lacks a dedicated, contiguous beltway surrounding the city. I-76 (Pennsylvania Turnpike), I-79, and I-70, roughly form a triangular-shaped "beltway," but the distance of these roads from the city center and the need to exit and enter each leg in order to continue circling the city render them impractical as a beltway; commuters are forced to use secondary roads to go from suburb-to-suburb. I-579, or the "Crosstown," is a spur off of I-279 that alleviates downtown and North Shore traffic headed north or south and to events at either the convention center or the arena.
The city is served by Pittsburgh International Airport in suburban Findlay Township, Pennsylvania, formerly a hub--and presently a Key Focus City for US Airways. General aviation is supported by the Allegheny County Airport. Its terminal is of a 1920s art-deco design. The airport, which once hosted Charles Lindbergh, handles 139,000 private and corporate-jet flights a year.
Local public transportation is coordinated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, or simply "PAT," the 14th-largest urban mass transit system in the United States. The system services all of Allegheny County and some portions of Armstrong, Beaver, Washington, and Westmoreland Counties. The fare structure is graded by zones, and a one-way fare ranges from $1.25 to $2.75, depending on the number of zones through which a passenger travels. PAT maintains a network of intracity bus routes, two inclines on Mt. Washington above Downtown, and a subway/busway system. The subway part of the system utilizes light rail-type trains that travel between Downtown and the southern suburbs, the busway part utilizes high-speed, articulated buses that run on their own right-of-way tracks with platform stations along two lines, the 100 line that runs from the western suburbs (eventually including Pittsburgh International Airport) into Downtown and the EBA line that goes from Downtown to the eastern suburbs. The subway and busway lines all converge at Pittsburgh's Penn Station, the city's Amtrak intercity rail station. All subway/busway stations outside of Downtown have PAT station shuttles that serve the surrounding neighborhoods, and sections of the metropolitan area not served by the subway/busway system, including most of the northern suburbs, have regular PAT bus routes.
On the rails, the city has Amtrak intercity rail service at Union Station. During the height of Pittsburgh's steel-making days, the city had many passenger and freight rail connections to railroad mainlines. Many of these rail lines still exist, but are used mostly for freight. Amtrak doesn't own any track in the Pittsburgh area but uses the rails of NS, CSX, and AVR. Two intercity rail trains serve Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvanian between Pittsburgh and New York and the Capitol Limited between Washington, DC, and Chicago via Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvanian operates from Pittsburgh's Penn Station to New York's Penn Station via Philadelphia.
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