BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

from ELB to Dallas - or further east?

I have only ever taken Hamilton from ELB to Dallas.

I'll go through there tonight. Personally I'd rather they work on the road surface before sharrows, but I'll take what I can get

yay! i need to go to ARL tomorrow after work. will check it out.

eh. Off the top of my head, I'm having a hard time thinking of any place that needs sharrows less, but whatev'. I'd rather had spent the paint/plastic/labor on Penn.

The best way that I know of to find places that would benefit from sharrows is to count sidewalk cyclists.

Last night I was almost run over by a ninja sidewalk cyclist in Bloomfield. Dude had it all going - no reflectors, dark clothing, riding on the sidewalk at night at high speed.

If it wasn't for bike-pgh, I'd assume that everyone on a bike but me was a jerk.

Lyle, it's about creating an entire network of marked signed streets without gaps.

http://bike-pgh.org/blog/2010/11/15/wilkins-ave-highland-ave-get-bike-lanes-sharrows/

Yeah, scott, I understand that. And I consider that a reasonable pretext for getting anything done -- without tying your goals to the city's pre-existing plan to link recreational destinations, you'd just be ignored. That's that unfortunate practicality. But if you took a poll of all the new cyclists in town over the past three years, I'm pretty sure that recreationally riding from park to park would come second or third behind riding to some building or other.

Lyle - remember that parks are often near at least a few buildings. The network has to start somewhere, and while the city practices spending time and energy and money enabling "recreation", it's preparing them to be used to spending time and energy and money enabling cycling.

The hard part of getting them to acknowledge the need is done. Now that the baby is born it needs to be nurtured and encouraged to grow in positive directions - but the hard work of birthing seems pretty much done.

I would argue that Forbes, Dallas, Hamilton, Wilkins, ELB and Highland are also good commuting routes.

Scott, I agree with you. I just think that Wilkins, Dallas, and Hamilton at least, really didn't need any help. And I've concluded that Wilkins was actually harmed by the new stripes, which I'll have to explain in the Wilkins thread.

I disagree, but that's ok.

The hard part of birthing is done....

pretty soon they will be drinking and sleeping around, Talking back...

and I'm not even going to mention drugs!

waiting for morewood and ellsworth - those would be huge!

Baking of the sharrows on Hamilton this morning. Next week, the turkeys.

Sorry for the crappy smartphone photo.

I love this photo!

Yeah, that's a good placement, considering the lack of on-street parking. If there were cars parking there, I'd argue for two feet farther left.

Mostly, I like the fresh pavement

That's great. Were those guys at all curious that you were photographing them?

so while I was in a car, and it was night time, I couldn't help but notice last night there were no sharrows on the part of Hamilton that I use... They don't go to the end do they? If so, I missed them and shouldn't be mobile in any form after dark.

My understanding is that they're only going on new pavement.

ah. not that it doesn't make sense, but the parts of town I bike through in haven't seen new pavement since Clinton's first administration.

If they limited personal vehicle weight to 300 lbs or less per axle, they'd have fewer re-paving issues, and could probably paint the lines much faster, if that's what they're waiting for. Just sayin'

Yeah, or could tax vehicles based on GVW^2

1. I didn't want to intrude so I just took a quick shot and left. There were actually 3 guys with blowtorches, it would have been cooler to compose a shot with all three going at it; if I had a real camera along I might have done that.

2. There are now sharrows on the "old" pavement between 5th and ELB.

3. The new pavement goes to Murtland; I expect the sharrows to go at least to Dallas; east of there Hamilton traffic gets pretty light.

It was awesome to see these this morning.

Personally, the Reynolds/Dallas/Hamilton/ELB route seems much safer than Penn, especially with the redesigned (for cars) intersection of Penn and Fifth. But maybe you meant further west on Penn, Lyle?

I think you misunderstand me. Everything is better than Penn. That's why I want the sharrows on Penn, see... (Now, even saying that, the redesigned bit of Penn is safer for bikes than it had been. Eliminating the free-flowing right from EB Penn to SB 5th has helped a lot, and the extra light at BqSq seems to have reduced peak speeds.)

I rode Hamilton this morning, and noted that on the new pavement east of 5th, where there is no on-street parking (not that it's illegal, there's just never any reason for anyone to park there) the sharrows are actually too far left. This is not a serious complaint, I'm just saying -- that lane is plenty wide and shareable.

But on the old pavement, west of 5th, where there IS on-street parking, the sharrows are actually closer to the curb and in the door zone. I think somebody missed the point.

Interesting. I ride on Penn regularly. The only place where I really have a problem is the Penn/Friendship intersection if I'm going outbound and staying straight on Penn.

I'll admit that if I'm heading outbound, I don't usually go past Swissvale Ave, because I'm usually headed either home or somewhere in the east end.

I lost Penn this morning... I found it, right where I presume it's always been. West of the circle, when it's all super slow traffic, it's easy. The other side of the circle I try to take something else almost all the time. Had I remembered the Hamilton sharrows I'd have hopped on that coming home this AM, at least part way. As it was I completely misplaced Lincoln instead... found that one eventually too.

Remember that thread where people could vote for what signage to put where directing people to/from whatever? I think it's moot, but Eastern "on street bike routes" connectors would be nice. Then again, usually after I get lost a bunch of times I learn to do it constructively.

rode these yesterday and there was a old dude riding the wrong way! he's probably been riding the wrong way for 50 years without any formal indication that he should be riding with traffic