BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

At the end of the Duck Hollow trail you'll have to dismount and cross several active RR lines. The trail ends right under the Glenwood bridge. Once you cross the tracks, turn left and follow the clearing out to 2nd Ave. From there you can cross the Glenwood bridge to take the GAP trail or 2nd Ave to the Jail Trail. I've always been OK with riding 2nd Ave, but I've never hit it at rush hour. 2nd Ave is 2 lanes inbound and 1 lane outbound. Be careful for overgrown trees in the outbound lane.

I have been to the end of Duck Hollow, it's a nice quiet ride.

How long is it from there to the jail trail?

mapmyride.com says 3.98 miles.

I also did a rough route on there and it was 12.x miles from edgewood to mt washington. My normal way (through Sq Hill, Schenely and Greenfield) is 11.x...

I have to say that the crossing several active RR lines makes this less interesting as an alternate commute.

I've taken 2nd ave there in and out of Hazelwood. The road surface is decent, it is flat and straight (good sight lines). Downsides I can think of, no shoulder at all, lots of debris on the side of the road.. I've had two flats from staples/nails on that bit of road since I moved here. Drivers usually give you enough room, but speeds can get up there.

If you could add an extra few miles of tranquil trails to your ride, but add a few miles of slightly worse road, without much change in overall milage, I'd at least give it a shot.

You're talking about Irvine St, not 2d Ave, right? I think we had this discussion here earlier...

Yes, but people here were calling it 2nd Ave, so I just wanted to avoid confusion.

2nd and Irvine are essentially the same street. At some point the name changes. Irvine at the EFT end, 2nd at the Glenwood Bridge end.

Be VERY careful on those tracks, if you must cross them at all. By that point out of the city, trains are flying along there at a pretty good pace, either direction, maybe 40 to 45 mph. It is not always easy to tell if the train you can see some distance away is on the track you're crossing or an adjacent one.

The solution, as has been discussed on various threads the past couple of years, is to construct a switchback structure like on the north end of the Fort Duquesne Bridge bike path or the south end of the Hot Metal Bridge, to take people up to the level of the Glenwood Bridge from the DHTrail, so as to get across the tracks.

If that gets built, and Second/Irvine gets cleaned up, and a trail is built out to Braddock, I predict that will be a heavily used structure.

Trains can take several miles to stop.

Be VERY careful on those tracks, if you must cross them at all.

We've read a lot of cases involving people who had bad run-ins with trains. They range from the sad and local (Lacy v. CSX Transp. Inc., 520 S.E.2d 418 (W.Va. 630)) to the sad and nationally important (Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938)).

There are slightly more cases arising from car accidents than railroad-based cases, but not by all that much.

The moral of the story in nearly all cases, above and beyond the legal points of comparative negligence and diversity jurisdiction: a train can really get you hurt. Badly.

I'd take Irvine/2nd Ave over most of the roads through Greenfield and Squirrel Hill. But then I've never ridden in during rush hour.

Some thoughts on DH to JT:

1. The "best" place to cross the tracks is essentially under the Glenwood bridge. An alternative is to follow the tracks west until you reach a crossing. Note that while some of the tracks are active, this is mostly a yard. This doesn't make it any less dangerous (probably more, since trains might start moving without warning). Since it is a yard you may occasionally find the tracks blocked by a very long line of cars; if you're lucky, the end of the train will be a reasonable distance away. Don't even think of crawling through/under a train.

2) Once in Hazelwood proper consider riding through the residential area just south of 2nd; it's not trafficky and you can keep a reasonable pace. I've never really figured out the deal with the industrial park that runs along Irvine. The gates have been locked when I've happened by. But perhaps on workdays they stay open.

I'm part of the Steel Valley Trail Council, which (jointly with Friends of the Riverfront) manages the Duck Hollow Trail. I'm extremely interested in getting a connection built from the end of the Duck Hollow Trail to the Glenwood Bridge, across the bridge, and connecting down to where the GAP should soon be, under the Glenwood Bridge near Sandcastle. We need to get Pittsburgh and Allegheny County to start planning for this and to secure money for it.

Contact me if you're interested in helping in this effort (contacting local politicians, promoting the idea, maintaining the trails). -Paul. ph@cs.cmu.edu