BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Yes you can, there are no problems there. I did that on Sat. The only little thing if you haven't done it before, is you have to lift your bike over a curb if you want to ride on the Bridge sidewalk.

a BIG curb. very non-ada-compliant.

I think I can handle a non-ada curb. Thanks!

call me a wimp, but i cannot handle that curb...i have to ride the road

Best to think of it not as a very tall curb but a very short flight of stairs.

I'm with you, Mark.

You can avoid the curb if you take the trail that goes through Washington's Landing. Just get on the trail from River Ave and come up the ramp on the sidewalk from the Island back to River Ave (and continuing onto the 31st St Bridge).

Or you can just ride on the bridge deck. It's part of my morning commute and it's not so bad.

the light at the northwest end of the 31st street bridge is such a pain that there's virtually never any traffic there. plus the shoulders are decent. it's usually a pretty pleasant ride.

one of the most underrated views of the city

that is definitely true... i think many bikers consider the 31st st bridge to be one of their favorites, especially at night, but rarely do i hear other people mention it.

FYI they have reported on the news that river ave is closed secondary to flooding today.

stef I heard that too. I kind of want to go see that. That is A LOT of water to get that high. Could be neat to see from the ped bridge off of Herrs island

This may be a dumb question but is the jail trail open?

^ Yep, rode it in this morning.

here's the 10th st bypass

I don't think the water has been as high as the jail trail in a hundred years, has it? That would be a LOT of water.

The landmark floods around here were the St. Patrick's Day Flood of 1936 and the January-February Ohio River Flood of 1937. If that elevation was ever going to be underwater, it would have been then.

I ahve a business meeting at a place on River Ave tomorrow moring. Getting there might be fun.

Yeah i guess the water would have to be reeeeaaally high to put the jail trail under. I dont know downtown that well, obviously. I did take the pedestrian part of the fort duquesne bridge from the north side to the point tonight as it was getting dark. I wish it was lighter, because i would have loved to have taken pictures. The height of the water is impressive on the north shore.

The Crazy Mocha on Liberty at Tito/8th has a photo of Downtown during the 1936 flood. Some of those buildings are still there, so you can get an idea just how much of the Golden Triangle was underwater. Somewhere on Wood or Smithfield is a marker showing the high water mark, too; I forget exactly where.

If I recall correctly, there's a marker on the Highmark building (formerly Horne's department store) at the corner of Stanwix and Penn. You can just see it in this Wikipedia photo.

See the two big dark metal plates right at the corner, near street level, and the small round white fixtures just above each one? Between them is a black dot. That's the plate showing the water level.

Here's a photo of the same building during the 1936 flood.

From here.

The Wikipedia article on the flood mentions that railroad tracks along all three rivers were blocked or washed away, and the water came up as far as Grant Street, so it seems plausible the whole jail trail would have been underwater.

Jailtrail would flood only after the parkway

east does. This is at 25 feet for the parkway

.... yesterday was 24.2

This morning, the path along the Allegheny River was just fine. I was a little disappointed.

The river is high, fast and fun to watch, though.

Our rivers are normally so calm. It's odd to see them ripping like they are now.

It takes 25 feet to flood "the bathtub", the low spot near Smithfield Street. It would have to come up a long way to flood EFT.

In 1936, there were a lot more railroad tracks Downtown.

The worst flood I can recall was January 1996, when the rivers got over 34 feet (25 is considered flood), which closed some streets and flooded some basements, but life went on without much change.

From this morning's National Weather Service flood watch:

* IMPACT...AT 22.0 FEET...THE TENTH STREET BYPASS BEGINS TO FLOOD.

AT 25.0 FEET...THE PARKWAY CENTRAL...KNOWN AS THE BATHTUB...

BEGINS TO FLOOD.

AT 29.0 FEET...RIVER AVENUE ON THE NORTH SIDE BEGINS TO FLOOD.

I tried to measure the difference between horne's and the eft, using gps but when I saw how much my elevation jumped around I decided that was unreliable.

whoa, the mon is supposed to hit 22 ft. i wonder if the south side trail will flood:

http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=pbz&gage=bddp1&view=1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1%22

Google Earth suggests Hornes is at 730 feet, the jail trail is at 735 feet as it passes the jail, 740 at the Second Avenue parking lot, and 760 by the Swinburne Street parking lot. So in 1936 the west end of the trail probably would have been flooded, but it would be OK to the east. In no danger this week.

The south side trail might be as low as 725 feet in some spots. Flooded in 1936, but I think in no danger from the river this time.

(Though I'd like to find a map that shows flood stage numbers versus elevation at various points.)

Broader question: Shouldn't we, as a biking community, have this info readily at hand? When we do find it out, can we please put it up in some readily accessible location?