1 Have the trail extended from Millvale to atleast Etna/Sharpsburg.2,Extend the trail on southside past sandcastle to the Waterfront.3, Extend the trail past Station Square to atleast West End Bridge. All very realistic goals I'd like to see in 2012.
How about a nice, simple, legal, safe way to get from Duck Hollow to the Jail Trail, and also the same from Duck Hollow to Braddock.
Both theoretically do-able already -- I've ridden it myself -- but not nice, simple, legal or safe, in either instance.
While I'm blue-skying it, how about get the Port Authority to change its mind about bikes in the Wabash Tunnel.
A row of candlesticks down each side with a single unidirectional lane in the center. Can probably be done for a five-digit sum of money. Thumbnail guess, they'd need about 400 candlesticks. That and the labor to install them is about all they'd need beyond the decision.
I'll add a couple more wish list items:
1) A ramp from the Jail Trail to the Forbes Ave ramp to the Birmingham Bridge.
2) A simpler way to get from the 10th St Bridge to the Jail Trail.
Complete the missing link in the Allegheny Passage.
The development of an entrance to Kennywood from the Allegheny Passage would be a sweet, ironic victory for MFX proponents. Same goes for Sandcastle.
MFX?
I'd like to see one Road Diet implemented. Just one. Anywhere in the county, actually. And of any level of permanence, with any method of implementation. Just any reduction in the number of travel lanes for cars - not due to orange cone season. I see it as a canary in the mine. I can't think of one that I've seen lately, but I may just be ignorant.
Ok, I'd also like to see the prohibitive liability language removed/altered that prevents local municipalities from putting in bike lanes/sharrows on state roads.
I won't hold my breath.
I want to see more work to the Duck Hollow area myself. A friend asked Friends of the Riverfront about it and they hinted that an announcement was fourth coming, but it never came. A train signal is all they need at the bare minimum to connect the hollow with Second Ave.
My demands as such fall completely in the context of WOW it's great here, there's a lot of wonderful things, great people working on the future, my glass is 98% full.
The weakness in my requests, and probably part of the reason that several of these things aren't accomplished, is that they involve regional vision and Pittsburgh is a Balkanized parochial mishmash. (but a very nice one to live in)
I must also recognize that my list consists of things I want OtherPeople to do and pay for. I think that some of these requests fall into the category of paint-and-signs, and some of these requests will bring "network" higher-added-values (I can't bring myself to say synergy).
And with that:
The candlestick section of the GAP at the Waterfront seems like it would qualify as a road diet, no? I think they removed a lane for cars. Or does it not count because it serves a mall?
I'll echo Lenny's original list (though I think extending the trail past Station Square is harder than the others -- where do you put it exactly?).
No lanes were removed in the creation of the Waterfront bike lane / cycletrack thing. They were just really wide.
One more Jail Trail wish: A cleaner connection with Grant Street and/or First Avenue. Having been through there a half dozen times in the last few days, seems every transition to or from the trail is troublesome.
Trail to street is worse than street to trail. It's as if the Grant/First traffic light needs a cycle modification, a fifth "spoke", to explicitly allow bicycle egress from the trail.
