BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Stu - not going to happen when the people asked say things like:

"This whole corridor could be one thriving strip mall if it were done right."

sustainability FAIL.

"Boy it'd be nice if cyclists' voices got heard in this mix"

Looks like we have a chance:

The public hearing with the AIA team is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 5 at Baldwin-Whitehall High School.

I'd have to check it out on a map, but I'd imagine there's enough room behind the business to develop a trail. It might be a little tight and tricky in the city portion of 51 though.

There is a strong likelihood that cyclists will be heard this time through. That doesn't mean that there is an engineering solution that will make much of a difference for cyclists, of course....

Councilperson Natalia Rudiak was at the City Post Agenda meeting a week or so ago, and spoke on this corridor and its importance to cyclists....or at least mentioned that she hears from cyclists about it all the time. I've also had personal, one on one conversations with her on the matter. The Route 51/88 intersection is the priority one concern, however. I don't know what that will mean for the length of the Route 51 corridor for cyclists, per se.

The Saw Mill Run valley is topologically about as sweet as it can get for cyclists in W. PA

"The Saw Mill Run valley is topologically about as sweet as it can get for cyclists in W. PA" - except when it floods, and the water has no place to go!

Well, the solution at 51/88, at least coming from the 88 side of things, is not to enter the intersection. A nice little back alley called Transport Street parallels 88 just S of the 51 junction.

I suggest that a path be constructed alongside Port Authority's South Busway from Glenbury to Whited -- probably up on posts on the stream side where there isn't sufficient horizontal space already.

North of Whited, I do not know the territory very well, and any suggestions I make are only guesses.

crazy idea... enforce the speed limit.

Although the T kris krosses 51 in the south hills, there's no connectivity sufficient to remove enough commuters off 51, and increase the level of service for vehicular traffic in the corridor.

I often thought the best solution for modifying Route 51 was to develop a commuter rail line from the westend all the way down to west virginia, but that was before the turdpike added 43 into the mix.

@steevo, even crazier idea, make 51 one lane each direction and change the curb lane into a bike lane, a la East Liberty Blvd. One city boulevard is as good as another, right?

Stu, except for the fact that East Liberty Blvd. was an "excess capacity" roadway and roads like 51, Fifth Ave./Washington Blvd. are very much at or exceeding capacity.

I just realized, that railroad that runs just W of Saw Mill Run, and alongside the South Busway, is the same one that splits just W of W Liberty and the abandoned branch of which could form a bikeway between W Liberty and Wabash Tunnel and the West End.

I'm not saying we should do this, but boy is that idea tempting!

Really, it does resolve the whole question, just how WOULD you get from 51/88 SAFELY and SIMPLY into Downtown, by bicycle? (and for that matter, all the way to McKees Rocks?)

51/88

I would go UP to brownsville. Brownsville is a safe

way in and out of town.

Mckeesrocks..... another story.

"It's a shame, as it is. This whole corridor could be one thriving strip mall if it were done right."

This really is the biggest failure of a statement.

What I would like to see without having intimate knowledge of the road is a multi use path on one side of the road lined with trees.

There almost is a usable path for a ways just south of the Liberty Tubes, on the southbound side. I regularly saw pedestrians on it when I had to drive out there daily, a while back (late '08).

Northbound, it's absolute hell. Not even sidewalks for a sizable bit of it.

As far as I'm concerned, it already is a strip mall. A dead one. About four miles long, from Tubes to Glenbury and beyond. If it was mine to do, I'd raze what isn't occupied and make a park out of it. Put the bike path in the park space, and detour around the back of the existing businesses.

it really does bother me to know that there are people who hear "strip mall" and think "good thing". i can't remember a moment in my life where the term was used positively by anyone i know.

HV - once, when I was like three, there was a halloween costume contest at "The Strip Mall" on rt 8 (WAY before everything exploded up there, yep, I'm older than you think). My sister and I won (maybe honorable mention - it at least involved more candy than the other kids got), I think I was dressed as a little bunny and she was a giant carrot (she was 13 and a really good sport), and we were in the front of the parade that followed the contest around the parking lot. It was the awesomest thing I could ever remember happening to that day. I used to like going there just to remember that, but then developers made it unrecognizeable. I think there's a Home Depot over it now.

But you give a 3 year old enough chocolate and attention, they'll have fond memories of a dark, dank, bat infested cave.

Strip Malls == Bad. I don't think they hear "strip mall" and think "good thing" I think they imagine a "thriving stip mall" and think "economic benefit to the community", however misinformed that thought may be.

The dirt path that is the fake sidewalk along 51

really makes my heart sink when I see families

walking along it.