BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

could it be the topography and street network that is dissuading commuters from biking or walking to the busway?

I would think the east busway corridor - negley station to braddock - is better suited, topographically and traffic-wise, for promotion of bike trips to the busstops.

While I think you are right about a need on the East Busway, I would hesitate to leave a bike at any of those stops, due to theft or pointless vandalism.

My hunch is that it has zero to do with topography. This sequence of West Busway stations -- Idlewood, Crafton and Ingram -- has a heavy residential component within walking distance of the bus, most of it with little elevation change. To me, Idlewood is the biggest head-scratcher, as it is the least used (I ride the WBusway daily) and access is via a quiet, fairly wide street with a mild grade. No, my hunch is that it has more to do with education ("what? we have a busway station a five-minute walk away? when'd they put that in?") and plain old snobbery ("I'd never ride a bus!" *sticks nose in air*).

Who's in charge of the outreach for SPC? Could we write in now telling whomever is in charge that we would like the discussion on the 23rd/24th to include secure bike parking?

Carnegie is on the west busway, it is the terminus. Did I misunderstand your statement?

I think a large component of the problem is cultural, that is, native to Pittsburgh. A huge percentage of native Pghers I have met have never even been on a bike, did not even learn to ride as children, more so than anywhere else I have been. Who knows why, it may have something to do with cycling not perceived as a real sport, as well as bikes being perceived as toys for the wealthy. That will be a tough nut to crack, but I bet if somebody could get Sid Crosby out on a bike on a few local fun rides, that would be worth "gold".

I'm not familiar with the other stops, but Carnegie and Crafton should be prime for bike/bus commuters, topography is fine, and I'd leave a bike locked up either place (maybe not my Kona Kapu, but something). I think there's just an absence of public awareness of biking in general, let alone commuting.

And Carnegie needs to get that stupid Panhandle Trail completed right into it's downtown! It stops just short, wtf?. All those little towns along the trail could be feeding bikes into the terminus of the busway. Duh!

re; Scott - yes +10

@scott -- as co-pm for the West Busway TOD Assessement Study, I am at least partially responsible for directing our consultant's efforts on this project. Send me input -- please. That's why I started this thread.

bikes being perceived as toys for the wealthy

???

bikes being perceived as toys for the wealthy

I am always torn by the distinction between biking for transportation--which is extremely cheap compared to car ownership--and competitive "cycling" as a lifestyle, where the costs of jerseys and power gel add up quickly. Biking in jeans or in spandex might be useful dichotomy to keep in mind. Someone thinking of a bike as a rich man's toy is surely thinking of the latter category; racks at the busway are in service of the former.

re: Salty,

yeah, there is a strong "populist" sentiment, however illusory, against things that can be perceived as "elitist", such as an adult on a $2,000 bike,

for example, when I'm hanging out with native 'burghers, I catch crap for drinking, say, an East End brew instead of "Milwaukee's Best" at $9/case (bleh),

or grinding my beans for coffee instead of just using the Maxwell House (again, bleh).

So, someone who thinks nothing of spending 500 bucks on a freaking gun chokes at the thought of a $500 bike. Cultural.

I just can't imagine anyone seeing a cyclist and thinking "look at that damn rich guy/gal". I'm not sure non-cyclists even realize such a thing as an expensive bike exists (which even then is cheaper than the least expensive car).

The thing Stu mentioned with snobbery and the bus is a lot bigger problem - people who are happy they don't "have to" ride a bike or a bus because they can afford a car... and thus they're automatically "better than" those who do.

"have to" ride a bike or a bus because they can afford a car...

Americans love the "freedom" their cars bestow. Even when it's the freedom to sit in traffic on Greentree hill while the bus move freely through the tunnel underneath those hills. I'm somewhat surprised actually that there isn't more "noise" out there about opening those busways up to the "taxpayers who built them." (I'm being ironic here).

The main thing that would get people biking to the west busway is high gas prices. If it got high enough that they'd want to ride a bike and yet avoid riding over Greentree Hill or Crafton Heights etc.--then switching to the bus would be enticing.

Oh, I totally agree with Stu's statement also, I was not discounting it at all. I think the average 'burgher sees people on bikes as either;

People who have lost their licences to DUI's,

Poor people, students, and immigrants who have no choice,

Whacko liberal elites in lycra, like John Kerry,

just not people like them.

And the people in lower income groups who could really benefit, don't want to be seen in any of those categories either.

hehe, edmonds59

There seems to be a huge cultural component for what is appropriate to spend money on and what isn't. There are people on my street who are renting a ~$15,000 row house, in front of which is parked their late model Navigator (still covered in snow since the beginning of Feb!), Audi and Lexus. These are the same people who lay on the horn if I'm in their way either walking or riding.

I couldn't imagine owning/leasing one car that costs more than my domicile, let alone three, but there seems to be no shortage of people who do just that. To each their own I guess.

Interestingly, my wife and I had a discussion about this sort of thing a few days ago (snobbery as it applies to vocation, but snobbery nonetheless). There are certainly some people out there who won't ride the bus because they believe they are above such things. Most people, however, have probably never thought much about the issue at all. Introspection is lacking these days, and most people don't think outside the proverbial box because it could require some degree of discomfort. As much as drivers may bitch about long drives and traffic, simply sitting the car, which is parked in a garage on both ends of the journey, is easier. Taking the bus, while technically even easier than driving, still requires getting outside of one's comfort zone a bit, and thinking through the lifestyle choices that have been made.

Another thing to consider, especially for people who have several generations of family in the 'burgh--many of these people grew up in very blue collar families--parents and grandparents worked long hours at crappy jobs, maybe even stood around and waited for the bus in the snow or rain. These people want their children to have something better. Given that experience, driving to work is the Good Life(tm). Again, I don't think this is always snobbery (though certainly it can be), but more about having a good life compared to your fore bearers.

Sorry about the thread hijack... Some very good points though, especially about driving == "freedom" == "The Good Life". I think that notion is so deeply ingrained into people's brains that even if they do think about it, they just come to the conclusion that it's correct.

I see I touched a nerve with the snobbery comment, but doing something about that is really not our department.

Rather we should look harder at the education comment. My favorite story: I remember standing at a busy bus stop in West View circa 2002-03, and someone who lived two blocks away was trying to figure out how to get to Oakland. "Stand right here and catch a 500" was my quick reply. "500? When'd they start that route?" Umm, 1997.

That happens ALL THE TIME.

Swalfoort, if we could have a chart showing all the places you can get to from the WBwy in a single bus ride and a 10-minute walk or bike ride, to put on a couple of easels, that'd help the case greatly IMHO.

I think the whole discussion was relevant to the thread, it's a huge PR problem for biking.

How about this, it occurs to me that in the urban landscape, bike racks without out bikes just dissappear, you don't even see them unless you HAVE a bike and you're looking for a rack. This spring, take some old "junk" bikes (free ride) paint them lively colors, put a sign panel in the frame triangle with the PAT logo and some rack&roll info, and lock one up to every unused rack, intentionally abandon them there. Get them visible in the public eyes. Ten racks could be done for $1,000+-.

Swalfoort, if we could have a chart showing all the places you can get to from the WBwy in a single bus ride and a 10-minute walk or bike ride, to put on a couple of easels, that'd help the case greatly IMHO.

That's actually a great idea for a web thingy too.

google kind of offers that information already. by mapping where you want to go and selecting "transit" as the method of travel google will instruct you of where to catch the bus and how long it will take to walk there, which bus to catch and at what time... Example

@Jeffinpgh-- Walkscore (a cool website in itself for analyzing neighborhoods) has a transit tool showing how far you can get in 15, 30 and 45 minutes by walking and transit at different times of day. It's in a test version still, and is limited to only the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle and Washington, DC, for now. Of the four, I'm most familiar with the DC area, and it looks like it plots out about a 3/4 mile radius from your starting point, then using Metro schedules, figures how far you could get from each Metro station within the time indicated. I'm not sure if it calculates bus routes in--it looks like it doesn't. It leaves a nice trail of blue dots at the suburban Metro stations, suggesting those areas are within a 45 minute trip of downtown locations under ordinary conditions.

http://www.walkscore.com/transit-map.php

@ieverhart It's very cool but the design has too much text, and the map is too small. For the dedicated walk-commuter it's great. But I was thinking of something simpler. Choose a busway station from a drop down list and get nearly a full screen map that shows time and distance. I think distance would be cool..a lot of folks out that way are probably less than a mile from a busway station they've never used, and as Stu said, don't know about.

Switching gears here, I was thinking about the car/freedom thing. I believe in public transit and so I will use it no matter what if I can't bike. However, there are times when it is very frustrating. Last week the W flyer I usually catch around 7:00 a.m. didn't show. At the moment it only runs once an hour, but since it skips Oakland it's nice to catch. So you hope it is only running late and let a 67 bus or two pass you up. Finally after 20 minutes you give up and wedge your way (along with everyone else who has given up) onto the next bus to pass. A couple of more stops and you are leaning sideways, trying to hold your own bag, not get hit by one of the many GIGANTIC backpacks (what ARE these people carrying in there) around you, and also not make potentially unweclome phyiscal contact with the people seated around you. It's fairly uncommon to have this happen on the W flyer but it's S.O.P on many 67 routes and all of the 61 routes during peak commute times.

Hopefully some of the route changes coming soon (the W will run every 15 minutes peak for example, there will be more 61s) will make a big difference. However, my point (now that I finally get to it), is that one or two experiences like this can push some people back to their cars. Yeah they may be stuck in traffic but at least they are in their own space with their car audio system, cell phone etc.

It may well be that the only thing that will get them out of the car are economic forces (gas costs too much, parking is too expensive) or perhaps health concerns (needing exercise).

Just to let yinz know Carnegie is a featured municipality in this year's Car Free Fridays (August). When I went out there to meet with some people to start planning for it I was shocked at how convenient it was to take the bus there.

Does anyone out there live in Carnegie or know people who do to encourage them to attend the public meeting Sara references at the start of this thread?

Sara, since the catchment area for biking to transit is at least twice as large as walking (which is only max 1 mile), you could make a map that looks something like this around the major stops on the West Busway http://www.2milechallenge.com/mapyourride/

Just input the address of the stop and it will put a two mile radius circle around it. Port Authority wants to grow its ridership and bikes will help achieve that goal.

In terms of other input, It would be great to list all of the examples around the country of combining safe/secure bike parking with transit: Boston, D.C., Berkeley, etc.

Cool tool. I see it doesn't take into account distances on the street network or elevation changes. Still, it does show that two miles from the end of the West Busway gets all of Carnegie itself, so that theoretically should translate into a LOT of potential ridership. Ditto Crafton, Ingram, etc., if we can get people to bike-and-ride instead of drive.

Stu, you seem to know something about such things, any idea what their thinking is behind having NO racks on any of the 33x, 100, or even 28x (I think)? Or is something planned for the future? It seems like the perfect solution to getting casual riders who are not Alberto Contador past this topographical problem we have getting to the south and west. Someone might actually want to use a bike on each end of their trip.

I saw a hybrid yesterday with bike rack, running the 28X route. I don't know if that route is supposed to have a rack, or it was just a fluke thing.

It was neat seeing one of the hybrid busses anyway. It seemed pretty zippy accelerating when the light turned green.

The 33X and 100s use mainly the big 45-foot 1900-series buses, which will be last to get racks. The 28X uses the same mix of 40-footers as anything else coming out of Collier Div (26s, 31s, 33s, 36s, 41s, 51A, a few others), and about 3/4 of those are rack-equipped. All 20 new hybrids have racks.

Sometimes they put a 40' on a 33X/100 (soon to be G1/G2), so you occasionally get a rack. Similar problem on the East Busway; only about half the artics running EBAs have racks, but sometimes you get a 40' EBA with a rack, so there's no pattern.

But yeah, now that you point it out, it's a bigger problem getting a rack bus on the busways than anywhere else.

Note also, beginning with the April 4 change, the 28X is airport-only. Use the G2 to get to Robinson. I don't know whether they'll be using 40' or 45' buses on the G2, or a mix.

I ride the EBA once or twice a week and have never noticed a bike rack. I would use it too, my walk to and from each station is 15 minutes.

When I boarded an inbound 16A this morning there was a bike on the front. I couldn't see who the rider was (the bus was pretty full). I think he/they got off at a stop convenient to CCAC.

It was nice to see. I don't see bikes inbound all that often.

This just in, from Port Authority concerning Crafton's Knights of Columbus park & ride lot.

I wonder if the K-of-C folks can be persuaded to install a bike rack there. Or if they won't, if Port Authority will install one nearby.

This could be good news.

Just noticed a bike rack installed at the Hamnet Station park and ride. I just need a bike that is shitty enough to not mind if it gets stolen to park there.

The G2 seems to be using 40-foot buses (75% racks) not 45-footers (0% racks). The G1 is on the 45s.