Another friend of mind has lived here six years, and all he has ever figured out is how to get from his house to downtown. Every time he gets off this path he is lost, and although he has asked hundreds of people how to get somewhere, nobody ever knew. The reason for all of this is the topography of Pittsburgh. It's up and down, and around and around, and in betwixt. Pittsburgh is hills, mountains, Cliffs, valleys, and rivers.
None runs more than a few blocks in a straight line.
You may have a friend who lives a half mile away. But to get their you circle three miles around a mountain ridge, cross two bridges, go through a tunnel, follow a valley, skirt the edge of a cliff, and wind up at your friends back door an hour after dark. There are more than 200 bridges in Pittsburgh, because there are, you might say, three big rivers right in the city. The Allegheny and the Monongahela twist through town, and then come together within a stone's throw of the business district to form the Ohio. The big Liberty Tubes through Mount Washington are a mile long, and when traffic gets jammed the drivers start honking their horns and you think you're in the madhouse.