BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I will probably be coming, but it dpends on how much work I get done this afternoon.

The fact that I'm reading the message board and posting isn't a good sign though.

I'm planning on it!

Thank you to all of Team Dropped who joined me for the ride.

Btw does anyone else think that the Butler St. drivers are the most angry in the city.

Personally, I would vote for the Penn Ave drivers.

That's where (I think) all of my major altercations took place.

Penn Ave is defiantly a problem for me as well, I took Butler to avoid the Penn Ave angry mob and met the Butler St. angry mob.I find Butler extremely stressful with how angry and aggressive the drivers are.

There are two problems with Penn:

1) The street is narrow and it's mostly pretty parked up.

2) The pavement is in really bad shape so cyclists are often forced out into the middle of the lane.

I actually wonder why a street like Beechwood (which was in comparatively good shape) got repaved in preference to Penn or Butler. Or maybe I should have looked at the properties along these streets and draw the obvious conclusion.

agreed. Very true.

@mrmarv & psuda, sorry I didn't hang with the team dropped crowd. I felt like running with the front dogs tonight. Hope you had a good ride

I actually wonder why a street like Beechwood (which was in comparatively good shape) got repaved in preference to Penn or Butler.

I remember hearing some discussion that there be projects in all council districts, but that may not be at play here. I suspect a big problem is closing off the street for the duration of the repaving project, especially on major thoroughfares like Penn Avenue. Beechwood is well-trafficked but maybe not so much that it's prohibitive to resurface it.

@Marko82: not expected // no need to apologize.

It was a fun ride, though we should've paid more attention to the cue sheet than to the 2nd place peloton...we followed them on an unnecessary turn UP most of stanton!

I think they could have repaved the middle half of Beechwood and left the (nearly pristine) bike/parking lanes alone, and probably saved a ton of money. But, the car lanes were in abysmal shape.

Last I heard, council passed a resolution saying paving money had to be evenly split among districts and public works ignored them... I dunno, here's the alleged list, which I posted a few months ago:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pdf/201105/2011601pgh_paving.pdf

@MrMarv. Really? Butler St. is actually probably one of my favorite streets to ride on the city. I usually ride it about 8:30 so that might be why I've never ran across an aggressive driver on there.

@Marko82 its cool you've stuck with the slow group plenty of times I'm glad you finally showed your true skill.

@Pseudacris I cant believe how lost we got and your climbing skills are awesome now.

@boostuv during rush hour I've had more drivers than I can count yelling and blowing the horn @ me. ( Usually SUV and pickup trucks) I often find Butler stressful.

Rode Butler again today with no aggressiveness at all. Its so wide up until Lawrenceville I cant imagine a car even getting within 4' of me on that stretch. Then through Lawrenceville and wherever its just two lanes I didn't seem to have anyone tailgating or anything.

"I actually wonder why a street like Beechwood (which was in comparatively good shape) got repaved in preference to Penn or Butler. Or maybe I should have looked at the properties along these streets and draw the obvious conclusion."

Hm. That conclusion isn't so obvious, nor entirely logical. It's a bit of a false alternative. I'm sure no-one else views it as paving Beechwood at the expense of Butler and Penn.

I think it's more likely that Butler and Penn are not being paved right now because to do so would close the roads onto which a lot of the traffic displaced by the Route 28 project is directed.

(Although it would be pretty classic bureaucratic buffoonery if the 28 detour led you to Butler Street, which was then closed for repaving, which led you to Penn Ave, which was also closed for repaving...)

@ALMKLM: I don't follow the logic that only lightly-traveled road should be maintained. Roads that are broken should be fixed. It's not only Penn or Butler, how about:

-- Negley south from Center.

-- Forbes from Murray to Schenley Park.

Both of these are pretty high traffic, and in really bad shape. I don't follow the argument that high-traffic roads can't be maintained because, uh, they are high traffic.

Why is it that our infrastructure is being allowed to decay to third-world levels? I mean, you don't even have to go to Venezuela or India (places I travel to regularly) to understand that this is happening. Just go to Virginia or Maryland to see the contrast.

Huh? Butler Street is a primary alternative for traffic from Rt. 28. To close Butler Street while that project is going on would cause gridlock - even worse than Butler Street is now.

Not sure how you divined that "only lightly-traveled road should be maintained" or any of the rest of that was the point of my post. I say enough stupid sh*t on my own, thanks. I can do without you attributing nonsense like that to me.

Beechwood is lightly traveled. I've never seen bumper-to-bumper traffic on it. Has anyone? On a regular basis? Remember, it's single-lane. Now, how does that compare to Penn or Butler?

Butler's pavement has been crap for many years before the Rt. 28 thing. Why wasn't it fixed? Ok, let's nevermind Butler. Why can't Penn be fixed, like right now? (Butler, Baum, etc are all available as bypasses.)

I'm not implying that your posts are stupid shit. I'm just proposing an alternate interpretation of the facts. Relax already.

[postscript]

Actually, the really bad part of Butler is east of the 43rd st bridge. Doesn't the rt.28 detour end there? (Help me here.) The two don't seem connected.

No I agree that Penn is horrible. Too narrow and the oar surface is horrible. I never take it. Ever. And I hate butler so much, because even at 6am, people nearly turn right into me, and I know they have seen me. I get into the city through Oakland. I know it is longer, but I don't care. I may take liberty occasionally, but even then I have had too many people pull in front of me as i speed down liberty. I think that there is some project that is suupposed to go through heth's run down to the river, with a trail continuing from morningside to the strip, so that you don't have to ride on the road from this direction.

I agree with you, ahlir. If it was a priority to get these roads done, they would be done quickly and on off-peak hours.

I was totally psyched they patched potholes on Panther Hollow, then the next day, tore up every bit of patch and pavement, and repaved the whole damn thing. Maybe its a state road or has special status being in a park or something? I don't know, but it definitely wasn't the worst road I bike on, or even in the top ten, nor should it be the most highly trafficked. I suspect its repaved because of two days of race cars driving on it?

My pet peeve is Winterburn Ave between Alger and Greenfield. It is one block of street used by just about everyone in the west half of Greenfield, and I estimate it has less than 30% of the original surface. A road paved almost entirely in that crap pothole patch. Every other city I've lived in seems to bust out some sort of smoothing equipment for patching potholes, rather than just toss some crap in and drive off.

Maybe if the city would have gotten rid of the brick and trolley tracks first instead if just paving over them with cheap crap, the roads wouldn't be all torn up. I am sure those bricks and the metal expands and contracts.

When we were in NYC for the 5 boros ride, we were on heavily traveled roads (closed to traffic for us). The roads were in excellent shape. I am sure that they closed roads to pave them at one point in busy NYC and people lived. The roads also did not seem like they were freshly paved either, which makes me think that they do the paving once (or very infrequently) and do it well.

Maybe Pittsburgh could learn a thing or two from LA's recent "Carmageddon." A major highway was completely shut down for the weekend, but the necessary work was done quickly. (Though I think it was a major demolition & not resurfacing).

Most certainly Beechwood got paved at the expense of some other road not getting paved - how could you think otherwise? The city has been very open about the fact they don't have money to do all the paving they want to do.

Now, whether that street could have been Penn or Butler, I don't know. There's a council rule (that apparently wasn't completely followed) about equal spending per council district. Also, I am not an engineer but paving high-traffic roads may be more expensive - there are different types/grades/thicknesses of asphalt.

I doubt detours factor into the decision process much, aside from trying to avoid what Ahlir said - too many parallel detours at the same time. Also, a major detour probably argues for paving a longer stretch of road at one time.

Negley is getting repaved. If you want to know why other roads aren't, call your council creature. Keep in mind the city has only been paving about 1/3 of the roads they should be paving every year, so there are choices to be made and it gets worse every year. Bring up all the anecdotes you want, none of that matters much in the big picture.

FWIW, Penn's surface could be pristine and it would still suck to ride a bicycle on it.

Anyone doing this tonight?

I'll most likely be there.

I may be stuck at work late. What time do they leave? This is out of otb?

Leave promptly at 6:30.

@ Ahlir Beechwood is lightly traveled. I've never seen bumper-to-bumper traffic on it. Has anyone?

Sections of Beechwood are lightly traveled. The section that goes under Murray, between the Parkway and Browns hill, is bumper-to-bumper more than any other road I know of.

I don't think that's what being talked about here, but you did ask.

It is also the part of Beechwood with bathtub-sized potholes and wasn't repaved at the expense of (?) the better condition and less traveled section of Beechwood. I think that only supports what he was talking about.