PART II: Main Thoroughfares
Pittsburgh: Main Thoroughfares and The Down Town District
Frederick Law Olmsted report to The Pittsburgh Civic Commission, 1910
page 50
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gradient, and the difficulties and high cost of constructing a wide thoroughfare on the steep hillside, have proved to be serious drawbacks to all possible plans for such a street.
Entrance to a thoroughfare tunnel, Stuttgart
In any thoroughfare scheme to the South Hills, it is reasonably clear that the end to be attained is the most direct access possible on easy gradients to the higher levels of the South Hills country. For it is on the upper levels, the hilltops and the upper slopes, that most of the present development has taken place; and there can be little doubt that in the future, even when building space is at a much higher premium than it is now, the overwhelming majority of the population will be found on the hills rather than in the narrow valleys.
Thoroughfare tunnel at Budapest
There are certain general tendencies which are observable, both in America and in Europe, in cities which have a large area of hill-top land separated by deep valleys. The hills are generally preferred for residential purposes, and the earliest roads or trails often follow the ridges, plunging down and climbing up again steeply to get from one ridge to another. The main roads in the second stage of development are apt to seek the valleys for the sake of good gradients, with a corresponding development of the most active urban growth in the valleys and on the lower slopes; the hilltop development being retarded by lack of transportation facilities. Nevertheless the continued
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