BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Penn Avenue through Point Breeze or Fifth Avenue from penn to craig.

Smallman from 16th through about 26th or so.

The old exposed trolley tracks, large trucks, and ample pot holes makes it a strong contender.

Washington Blvd between the HP Bridge and Allegheny River Boulevard. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!

I ride through it every day, but the Negley corridor between Friendship and Centre is also pretty bad.

Washington Blvd uphill just before Frankstown, but otherwise not.

5th Avenue? Nah.

Penn Avenue through Pt Breeze, maybe.

Blvd of the Allies from downtown to Oakland, definitely. Or how about Bigelow Blvd outbound from town to the Bloomfield Bridge. I would never ride either of those two places, though I have seen other cyclists on Bigelow.

The only place that I can recall being actually nervous on the bike within the last few years, was Arlington, with the trolley tracks, and then riding down W Warrington, but only because it was under construction and all chewed up, and then trying to get to the left lane of Sawmill Run Blvd to get to Crane. But I don't know exactly where the city limits are, so perhaps Sawmill Run doesn't qualify.

I'll 2nd Negley. From Highland Park to Black St, cars are generally parked in the curb lane so it's not so bad. But between Black St/E. Liberty Blvd and Penn, Negley is striped as 4 lanes - which means a lot of drivers treat it like they're on a highway. I feel a lot safer between Penn & Baum, again because the curbed cars effectively limit traffic to one lane.

Why is the .4 mile section between ELB & Penn 4 lanes, and everything else between HP/ELB and Penn/Baum 2 lanes?

What would it take to extend the E. Liberty Blvd. markings around the corner and up to Penn?

The nice thing about 4 lanes is it gives people lots of room to get around you, and you're not in the door zone of all those parked cars.

I agree with Lyle. I prefer that section of Negley to the section between Stanton and ELB where the right-most 3 feet of surface is a roller-coaster.

Oh, yeah, there should be a sniglet for the wave of asphalt that crests right where you want to ride, so you keep surfing off the left edge of it and hoping it doesn't launch you in front of a bus.

You guys are unimaginative. How about 51?

I once ran into a guy at the corner of 51 and Bausman. He was new to town and asked if he could tag along. I asked him how the riding was on 51 (being some what facetious) and he said it was trafficy but not as bad as the road he had been on. I can only imagine he was on 79N or something.

Didn't some dork years ago go cross country on a bike and write an article complaining about how bad the Ft Pitt Tunnel was? (2001 or 2002 I think)

Oh oh oh!

West Carson approaching the West End Circle. Craptastic!

I'll vote for the section of Penn Ave through Point Breeze or Negly arround Penn

Second Ave between Ross Street and Technology Drive, both directions. I started a thread about that a couple months back. Combination of high traffic speeds, horrid pavement, and a large number of cement trucks and other large vehicles, added to a very active door zone near the jail.

East Carson from S 33rd to the Glenwood Bridge.

Forbes Ave from the Birmingham Bridge into Oakland.

Penn Ave from around Trader Joe's to Wilkinsburg.

Browns Hill Rd across the Homestead Grays Bridge.

837

I'm jumping on the Penn Ave from East Liberty to Wilkinsburg bandwagon. I've had to ride that route at night about a dozen times in the past month or so. I always feel like I'm risking my life a bit, but there's absolutely no reasonable alternate routes.

Sure there are Kramhorse. Just take ELB to Hamilton to 5th to Thomas. Or take side streets in Shadyside to Reynolds. Those are so much more preferable to Penn and they don't add that much distance.

Second scott's ELB-Hamilton-something(I usually use Dallas)-Thomas, and add Thomas-Lexington-Meade, across Braddock, around Forbes Hospital to Penn and then you're back in slow traffic with a wide lane and you're fine.

Butler st in lawrenceville heading downtown has a ridge running down the right side/middle of the right lane, making it very difficult to control your bike...+traffic+parked cars, bad combination

sniglet lyle- nice obscure 80's reference.

i'm going with Washington blvd.

Washington Blvd and the West End Circle area.

And we can't forget about that ridiculous detour around the casino. It's pretty bad seeing that there once was a 100yards of trail that connected it all.

the trail should be open, like any day now.

Butler st in lawrenceville heading downtown has a ridge running down the right side/middle of the right lane, making it very difficult to control your bike...+traffic+parked cars, bad combination

This is even more entertaining in the winter with snow on the ground.

+1 for Carson to/from the Glenwood bridge.

I did it with a trailor,at night, in the rain once. I would jump off the bike and hide behind the guardrail if trucks came. I shouold ahve used an alternate route.

Mick

@scott & lyle

I think we've had this back and forth before.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've tried that route or something very similar to it. While according to google maps it only adds ~3/4 mile to the distance, all the added stop signs mean a significantly longer travel time.

Even treating stop signs at low traffic intersections as yield signs, there's a big difference between pedaling full speed on Penn and poking along through winding little potholed residential streets. I guess that means I value regularly cutting 10 minutes off my trip more than my life and my health.

That said, it is a good suggested route for cyclists who can muster a little more caution/patience/intelligence than me.

carson to glenwood bridge

carson from station square to west end circle

liberty from grant to herron, either direction

washington blvd

62nd st bridge now that the 28 detour is on it and climbing up baker after that

i second brown's hill rd. at least up hill

that's about the only place i can think of where i prefer to ride on the sidewalk. and as soon as i possibly can, i take that back road up to beechwood.

Back road? Beechwood? Explain please.

Riding up Beechwood with Erok today made me remember how much I hated the commute to Homestead when I had a job down there for a few months.

It seems to me by popular opinion that Washington Blvd. and East Carson Street are the winners of worst roads for cycling in the city.Any possibility that they could put a bike lane on these roads and maybe some of the other roads mentioned on this blog??

Brad: yeah, there's a road that goes behind the beer distributor, from beechwood, parallel to browns hill. saline st. you can get to it through the wendy's/distributor parking lot, or i think through that little plaza with the japanese food place.

i tried posting a map, but bikely doesn't want to save it.

There has been chatter of at least getting some sort of lane from 'Sliberty to the Oval, which would be really, really awesome.

I think we should do a tour of all the nominees. Seriously. Because I am having a hard time picturing some of these bits of road. The part of East Carson I'm familiar with doesn't bother me at all, so I assume y'all are talking about a different part.

Last time I was on the road that HV refers to, I was chased and almost eaten by a herd of potholes. I would have to call that a bad road for cycling.

Also Murray Hill Ave, now that I think of it.

man, i love murray hill!

Wow Lyle,I also love Murray Hill Ave.It's a wide street with hardly any traffic with maybe a 20 mph speed limit. Try riding East Carson from Station Square to Neville Island.I did once and will never do it again.Lots of potholes and cars coming very close to hitting you.

+1 on Saw Mill Run Blvd

I can't imagine even trying to bike 51 northbound north of 88/Glenbury. I have a big black stripe on my car from kissing a guardrail along there one winter morning. If even the cars can't go along there without having the side of the road come out and find you, how can a bicycle possibly survive?

Penn Ave. at Penn Circle. If I want to go to Trader Joe's via bike, I'd rather go home that way instead of bumping my way up and down ELB with a basket of groceries. Heh, but I like my life too much to do that.

Which reminds me, does anyone know if Penn Circle is going two-ways soon? I thought there was some talk that it was.....but it'd be really nice.

penn circle: that is the plan. that will probably happen once they start putting in that target

Thanks for the info....any chance of bike racks at the Target? I suppose I might as well pitch that now.

In terms of design/layout, I always find going from the Glenwood Bridge onto Carson Street a bit unnerving. Navigating the West End Circle is also pretty rough.

For poorly-maintained roads, Smallman between 16th and 28th.

For sheer annoyance, circumnagivating the casino on the north side.

Since the opening of the new hospital, Penn Ave through Garfield can be very annoying, but I think that's more the drivers than the road itself. Similarly, going past Kennywood on a weekend is an exercise in being honked and screamed at, and I've had things thrown at me from cars more than once along there.

got a response from 311 on what can I do to get these on N. Negley Ave. between Black St & Penn Ave?

"Although they are not on the next round of infrastructure, the City is evaluating the possiblity of adding shared lane markings on N. Negley Ave. "

Is there a survey monkey working here?

Carson St from Ft Pitt Bridge/Station Square on out to McKees Rocks had an average of 6 inches of standing water on it yesterday. I should have been wearing my aquaman underoos. You know you're in trouble when the street water comes up over the bottom bracket.

Bump!

I thought this might be the best thread to place this in. City cops nabbing aggressive drivers on West Carson...

68 in a 35-mph zone? come on, he/she didn't even break the (speed limit * 2) rule!

They should pick a new street and do this once a week. Stop signs and crosswalks deserve some attention as well.

Has anyone gotten a speeding ticket on a bike, ever, in the history of bikes?

I wish, but this lady has.

68MPH!?!?!? I thought 50 was scary.