Maplab
The Map That Unlocked the Mysteries of Pittsburgh
To untangle the roads of Allegheny County, a 1940s traffic engineer devised an ingenious way to help people like me find their way around.
It may be hyperbole to say that I got lost every day for the first six months I lived in Pittsburgh, but not by much.
I grew up just across the state line in Youngstown, Ohio, but we rarely even made day trips to Pittsburgh, probably because my father hated driving there; he said it was the only place where he could see where he was going, but between the one-way streets, bridges, and rivers, couldn’t get there. Driving back from a Pirates game once, he announced, “Well, we’re lost, but we’re making really good time.”