Since 2019, the City of Pittsburgh has been working to remediate 10 landslides across Riverview Park in order to maintain access to the park’s roadways and trails. More than half of those landslides have been addressed, with the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) planning to fix more in the future.
According to Eric Setzler, the chief engineer on the project with DOMI, Slide 4 is most likely the next landslide the department will seek to address, probably within the next year or two depending on funding availability.
Setzler said DOMI prioritized landslides based on their size and impact on travel through the park. Slide 9, for example, was the first DOMI remediated back in 2022, and is located near the park’s Chapel Shelter, along the main thoroughfare through Riverview.
“We have gotten to the biggest, most critical ones,” he said.
Slide 4, meanwhile, was considered only a minor landslide at first, and the city had hoped to get by just repaving the roadway near the slide. However, Setzler said that section of road has started to crack as a result of the landslide, increasing the urgency of getting it fixed.
So far, landslides 9, 8, 6, 1, 3 and 7 have been remediated, with those last three seeing work just last year. This means only four landslides — slides 2, 4, 5 and 10 — still require remediation.
Landslides are caused by numerous factors, including elevation, status of the rock and soil, and the introduction of water.
“There are a lot of areas in Pittsburgh, and Riverview Park is one of them, where the hillsides are susceptible to landslides just due to the geology,” said Setzler.
Due to the varied conditions under which a landslide can occur, the manner in which DOMI addresses fixing a slide is also variable. Slide 9 was remediated using soil nails, Setzler said, which are steel bars surrounded by construction grout placed into holes drilled into soil and rock.
When beginning a landslide project, DOMI has an engineering firm survey the area and take geo-technical borings, discovering where the bedrock for the area is. Based on those findings, the firm recommends solutions which, according to Setzler, “make sense” in terms of maintenance and matching the aesthetics for the park.
Often these remediations take the form of some kind of wall supported by steel and concrete, though Slide 6 had no wall at all. Instead, round concrete columns called caissons were placed into the earth near the slide, with only the tops of these beams being visible from the surface.
While these fixes can be expensive — $780,000 was budgeted toward addressing Slide 8 alone — they are designed to last decades.
“They are really long term fixes that are going to hold that section stable for a long time,” Setzler said.
While it is unknown exactly when the remaining landslides will be addressed, Setzler said DOMI has to prioritize what other projects and programs are going on in the city when deciding funding. Still, he was optimistic about how much work had already been done.
“I think it’s great we’ve been able to make as much progress as we’ve been able to get to over the past five or six years, because it really is an important road,” he said, referring to Riverview Avenue. “Without that road, you don’t have access to the park at all.”
For more information about DOMI’s landslide remediation work, visit engage.pittsburghpa.gov/riverview-park-landslide-remediation
