BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Oh! That looks nice!

Penn Ave: 1. No on-street parking. 2. Have a center lane for turning and one travel lane on either side. 3. On the outside have a bike lane which is also used by buses when they pull over to collect or discharge passengers. 4. Yield signs in the bike lane make it clear that cyclists look out for and yield to buses pulling over at bus stops.

Perfection may be just beyond the reach of us mere mortal cyclists. I would settle for the "good". Liberty is more or less hopeless. I would be happy if they would stripe and sign the stretch between 31st and Herron so that there's a flow between the bridge and the Liberty hill. I normally take Penn in and Smallman out which works out fine. But there's something that can be done right now, with minimal infrastructure modifications: enforce the damn speed limits. Penn between the circle and the ELB seems to have turned into a de facto bikable street: more often than not cyclists simply take the lane and ignore the cars (of course the sequence of traffic lights on that stretch make speeding a bit hard). As a start Penn should be striped and signed from the circle at least up to Dallas, if not Homewood. This would provide a needed connection to existing bikeways. Also, enforce the speed limit; how hard can that be? And it's self-financing.

Panther Hollow Road, from Hobart Street in Squirrel Hill to the Panther Hollow Bridge near Phipps Conservatory in Oakland. This will never get done, but WHY did they build it like this? I'd at the very least, make the super wide sidewalk narrower (considering that there is a beautiful trail running parallel) and put a bike lane on the uphill side. I can hang with traffic on the descent into Oakland, but avoid it because of the suicidal and possibly illegal ride back up. Even if you plan to bike on the trail/sidewalk side you still have to cross two dangerous intersections at the beginning and end. The sidewalk changing sides at that park intersection with Hobart is really bad. There's not even a pedestrian signal. I wish we could reclaim this stretch as a viable bike corridor, because the detour up through the golf course adds a bunch of sidestreets, traffic mondo hills both directions and lots of extra time to the trip from anywhere south of Hobart, clean down to any point in Greenfield that you could do Junction Hollow instead.

Ahlir wrote:there’s something that can be done right now, with minimal infrastructure modifications: enforce the damn speed limits.

The more I ride a bike, the more friendly I am to the idea of speed cameras. Especially on problematic roads like this.

+infinity. Of course, there's nothing illegal about riding up Panther Hollow, and I have actually seen a couple people do it. But I think it's pretty crazy. That intersection with Hobart is really bad, and it's much worse if (like me), you have to get into the left lane to make the left on Beacon. You simply cannot get left safely if the cars have started, which means that in order to perform the maneuver safely, you have to cross wait for crossing traffic from Bartlett to clear to your left, get in lane, stop, U behind traffic approaching from Greenfield Rd., slip right, turn right, and merge to the left before the light changes on the through traffic. And you don't get a pass then. Drivers are really impatient there, so any gap you got on the light you need to use and really pound up that hill. If you didn't get enough of a gap and they catch up to on the hill you really have to make the left wide to let em pass to your left. Otherwise (I've had this happen), someone will try and make the left wide and cut back in front of you, forcing you into the opposing lane. Did I mention the road is crappy especially at the (shoulder free) edge so riding there isn't the steadiest? It's a really ^(*&ing shame that this last part at least isn't fixed. Not only would it serve the folks like Lee and myself, but also those choosing the presumably more popular greenfield avenue->greenfield road way up into squirrel hill and beyond.

Ahlir wrote:there’s something that can be done right now, with minimal infrastructure modifications: enforce the damn speed limits.

+500000

Benzo wrote:The more I ride a bike, the more friendly I am to the idea of speed cameras. Especially on problematic roads like this.

Indeed. If I read correctly, legislation exists to make these possible here. Wonder if it'll ever happen? (Probably not on Liberty--I think that's a state road, and as we all know, PennDOT's mandate is to make cars move quickly, not safely.)

You know, it just occurred to me: we can make pretty much any street perfect by taking the lane, and having sufficient bike traffic. No need for signs or paint or anything else. Just put the street on a guerrilla road diet.

^That's pretty much what I've been doing like, forever.

I agree with @jonawebb: It's "facts on the ground" that matter. Just take the lane whenever you feel that it will make you safer. Don't cower on the sides because you might think that the drivers own the road. There lies defeat. Eventually the drivers will get used to it. From my own experience things are significantly better than they were 2-3 years ago. Drivers are just human, and they're educable. Let's keep working on it.

buffalo buffalo wrote:Indeed. If I read correctly, legislation exists to make these possible here. Wonder if it’ll ever happen? (Probably not on Liberty–I think that’s a state road, and as we all know, PennDOT’s mandate is to make cars move quickly, not safely.)

Yeah, it's legal in PA now. There are a bunch in philly on broad st, some in other random areas of the state as well.

My plan for Penn Ave: close it to all motor vehicle traffic from Swissvale Ave to 11th St, repave it, and make it a human-powered vehicle super highway. It'll be groundbreaking, trendsetting, pioneering, and progressive. Take that, Portland, Boulder, and Austin!

This: http://www.arroyoseco.org/bike/bikeway.htm Modern proposal for NYC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISIu95Eh1dc Maybe not practical but fun to think about...

Hey, they're using my idea: http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/06/04/city-to-propose-penn-ave-safety-changes/

^I love that KDKA has its reporter talking inside a moving vehicle, while apparently driving, and TAKING HIS FUCKING EYES OFF OF THE ROAD to look at the camera multiple times. Wow, great job giving us a story about safety!

Kind of curious. Does PA have a home rule law like other states that allows it to override speed limits (with slower ones) on state roads within the municipalities limits? If they didn’t change the lane configuration, I’d love to see penn ave reduced to 25mph on the homewood/point breeze stretch due to it’s narrow lanes and running through a residential neighborhood.

The lane configuration for Penn Avenue needs changed in exactly the way planned by the City and jonawebb. I don't think that changing the speed limits would be nearly enough. It would require an amount of enforcement that the City would never provide. How can Penn DOT possibly defend the status quo on this particular stretch of road? Anyone can see that it is totally dysfunctional and unsafe. Right now people drive way too fast and weave back and forth to pass or avoid being blocked by cars trying to turn left. Having two lanes with a center turn lane would allow a smooth flow of traffic to safely move through. As Pat Roberts said in the CBS interview, it would move traffic as well as or better than the current configuration.

Brent wrote:I don’t think that changing the speed limits would be nearly enough

I agree that it's not enough, but it's better than nothing if penndot keeps stonewalling and doesn't do anything. Slower speed would be better than no change at all, but WAY less good than the proposed changes (which I think are absolutely the way to go)