BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

the most direct route thru googlemaps, directions has the route running down Penn to Swissvale ave, then onto edgewood ave.

http://goo.gl/maps/cYT09

the bike friendly directions has about 30 more side streets involved.

http://goo.gl/maps/faiPl

i don't have much riding experience thru that area though, there may be others with better known routes.

From Point Breeze/Regent Square/Frick Park or therabouts, the secret route is Hutchinson-Pennwood-Race-Edgewood. http://bit.ly/Qz88iw

@nate +1

I live in swissvale and use that route to get home. I always take braddock when I'm heading out, mainly because I pressed for time. Commercial is an entertaining route to get to swissvale and has nice sidewalks!!!! Do not go toward the city on this route!!!!!

I commute something like this most days...

(deleted a wall of text) I just wrote up a long post that was just Nate's map. Listen to Nate. Nate is wise.

Y'know, if Edgewood didn't have a bug up its behind about the busway (and has since 1980), we'd HAVE a bike path through there. There's a bike path along the Busway all the way from Swissvale to South & Hay *except for* the piece in Edgewood.

We are suffering from the effects of stupidity + racism + politics.

I wonder how many transit issues are caused by racism. I know that was behind Georgetown's refusal to build a stop when the DC subway system was first constructed. And the LA freeway does a wonderful job of isolating and containing the minority population there. Closer to home, we have Summerset's refusal of the 61D bus extension there.

Awesome — Nate's route is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for. Thanks, guys!

I always thought Summerset's rejection of the bus had more to do with class issues (which are not entirely separate from race issues, but also not quite the same thing...).

Got there and back problem-free by taking Meade to Trenton to South to Pennwood to Edgewood. Actually, I only even encountered a handful of cars. Thanks again. (In retrospect, I'm realizing I had taken basically this route before to go to Edgewood Shoe Repair, but I had totally forgotten about that.)

Riding along a busway path sure would be nice, though.

hm, i missed the whole flap about the bus to Summerset, but I found an old article about it, including this choice quote from a Mr. Sacca Shit:

"What angers me the most," said Sacca, "is we citizens were not surveyed as to whether the bus is going to be used. People who are going to spend the kind of money they're asking for are not going to take a bus,"

So PAT started service to Summerset anyway, and after a few years, canceled it due to very low usage. Maybe they'll try again when more of the development is finished, and they can run a route like Oakland - Squirrel Hill - Summerset - Waterfront.

There is a sidewalk, not a path, along the busway in Swissvale. It's very narrow and can't be shared comfortably with pedestrians. I use it frequently to avoid the Edgewood/Braddock/Church intersection, as early as yesterday in fact. I had to stop in between some tree planters to let some people pass by me. Doesn't make it ok that it doesn't continue through Edgewood but lets call a spade a spade.

The shortcut is on our "share the road east" bike route map. Perhaps someday it will be marked.

On a related note, the Pennwood/Swissvale/whatever the route is. Is there any good way to get from north of 376 (Regent Square/Whitney Park) to the Edgewood Town Centre? I figure Braddock has too many lunatics driving on it, but Edgewood Ave seems like it goes way past the strip mall and ends up dumping you onto Braddock anyway. Is there some hidden path there I can't see? I saw the sidewalk has stairs that drop you down on the west side of Braddock which also is not much help.

Didn't we have a thread some time back about getting through the back gate? Wouldn't that help here?

...paging Nate and Mary and whoever else lives over thataway...

The gate is still closed.

There is no good way to get there. My best advice is to to either take the sidewalk minding the 376 entrance ramps or take Edgewood Ave until you see a sidewalk on your right next to the busway. Take that sidewalk until you get to the sidewalk that snakes down to Braddock. From there you can take the sidewalk until the light at Church.

@Stu - there is a new bike group in the east suburbs working with some of the communities. I've tried to plant that particular bug in their ear. The multiplicity of municipalities is a not insignificant part of the problem.

I noticed that the same question came up about a year ago (http://bike-pgh.org/bbpress/topic/from-oakland-to-edgewood-town-ctr) and the outcome was that Edgewood had a vote on it, without giving the pro-opening-gate side any warning, so they could stack the vote. So, OK, they're protecting themselves from the undesirables of Wilkinsburg and Swissvale, whatever. Have any other proposals been floated? Making Braddock Ave safe (yeah, right), making sidewalks usable, adding a well-placed crosswalk with a traffic light, putting a path from the busway sidewalk that drops people onto the correct side of the street, anything involving sane urban planning? I'm not normally afraid to ride in traffic, even in much larger cities, but Pittsburgh is.... special. That crash at Braddock/Church didn't help.

Some board posters live in Edgewood and I think did try to have a reasonable conversation about the gate. I'm sure it's an uphill battle to get people to change their minds. There is more development going in on that underutilized side of the Edgewood Towne Center (like across from Taco Bell and by Eat n Park) and I can only hope that more destinations that Edgewood residents themselves would like access to can be what we need to get a man door in that gate.

Also, Swissvale is looking at improving crosswalks and simple infrastructure on Braddock. The Borough doesn't have the resources that others might, but is very intereseted in keeping peds safe.

And finally, the last word on the Braddock @Church accident was the that bicyclist was DUI.

...finally getting Stu's page.

I recall the thread about meetings about opening the gate. In the end, those of us who live within the city limits weren't so sure our voices would be persuasive. If anything, we might have reinforced the idea that opening the gate would give undesirables (you know how those city residents are!) the opportunity to make trouble.

"Multiplicity of municipalities" is putting it nicely. Municipal boundaries are quite haphazard in these parts. In some places the line cuts diagonally through a city block. People can get rather worked up about which neighborhood/municipality they belong to -- or perhaps more accurately, which neighborhood/municipality someone else belongs to.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Edgewood Towne Center now that the Giant Eagle has upgraded. For a while businesses came and went at a pretty good clip.

So we get a half dozen politically savvy people who live in Edgewood and know what a bicycle is, win a couple of elections, and maybe we can get someplace.

Swalfoort, I am one of them.

The gate is a special case, Edgewood does not own the gate. Edgewood Town Centre owns it and controls it and from what I understand they would rather it be closed.

@rsprake can you share when the ETC position was updated that they would prefer to keep it closed? In the conversation in the old thread you said that ETC had locked it at the request of Edgewood. So I understood the issue was making Edgewood residents interested in the connectivity and addressing loitering concerns.

Someone was in touch with ETC over a few possible solutions. Maybe Paul Heckbert can chime in, he was more connected to the project. It's not forgotten, it's on the east suburbs bike map that we are working on.