BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Ditto - Holy crap!

During the Flock ride last Friday, we went down by the river in the park, but the mud was something else. At least one of us bit it, big time. Has that been cleaned up?

As Stu said, watch out for that mud. The guy who fell did so incredibly gracefully, but my bike is still an awesome shade of brown.

Didn't experience any mud issues. Has it been open since the Flock ride then?

No, that big fence was in the way that night. Flock came off the FtDuqBr & circled down onto the Allegheny side. Couldn't get near the fountain.

Awesome!

wow. stef and i went through there a bit earlier i the evening and all the construction vehicles were still parked in the trail between 6SB and the point. did they remove them or is there just enough room to go around them?

The fences all around the Point on the Allegheny side were gone. I should mention that the fountain and area of the Point along the Mon are still fenced off and no doubt will be for a long long time.

When I event past this morning workers were hosing down the trail and removing any mud and that is left. It look really good.

Yes, this morning there were workers all over the Strip District trail. By the Cork Factory, they were planting flowers alongside the trail. Others were working by Cirque du Soleil (not sure what they were doing), as well as the folks in Point State Park with the hoses.

Just west of the Sixth Street bridge, the trail was still under construction, but the workers there were letting people through the section they were building. But that was just one short section.

It looked to me like the part of the trail through Point State Park along the Mon still had a ways to go. It's still fenced off. I'll be curious to see if they're adding the connection to the Mon Wharf trail at this stage, or if that'll come later.

The Mon Wharf connection up to the trail at Smithfield St Bridge is years away. As far as I know (and I hope I'm wrong) it's not on the immediate radar.

What parts of the trail are legally open?

The point is still blocked off as far as I could see this morning.

I tried getting to the convention center + waterfall last week only to be blocked by a barrier thing (which I wasn't slipping through with two panniers + big lunch box on top of those

I was down there this morning and a worker told me the very tip of the point (fountain area) will be under construction for another ~18 mos. He said the Mon side will open up fairly soon.

I also encountered the construction vehicles across from the stadiums: I could get through but had to portage over/around plywood, curb cuts & pylons. The workers pinted out the way, which was good because it was not very clear: they seemed to be nice about letting me go through their work area, but it was hardly a proper "detour."

Pierce, the barriers that were around the convention center part of the trail last week are now all gone. The trail appears to be open from 24th Street down to just short of the fountain. Even the work area that requires portaging isn't blocked off. (I don't know if the workers will block it off when they leave for the day, though.)

This article from last fall says the cantilevered connection from Point State Park to the Mon Wharf will open in 2012, along with the fountain. I've seen predictions that the switchback ramp would follow a year later, but I think it's still partially unfunded.

Meanwhile, we've got this new trail along the Allegheny, more new Point State Park trail coming along the Allegheny, new trail at the South Side Works, and miles of new Steel Valley Trail all opening up. "Have you seen the new trail?" has become wonderfully ambiguous.

WOW, whoever developed the pedestrian walk in front of the Convention Center deserves a hearty round of applause. I just wonder why they didn't do this when they originally constructed the convention center.