BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

dedicated path from jail trail to the point without crossing any bridges

Maybe, just maybe, a bike trail that goes past Sandcastle?

Oh, but I'm being silly here!

Extend North Shore Connector to Zelienople.

Run bike trail parallel along right-of way.

Extend T from downtown to Oakland

Run bike trail parallel along right of way.

Extend T from downtown to airport

Run bike trail parallel along right of way

Open existing rail right of way up Allegheny Valley to commuter rail

Run bike trail parallel along right of way

Open existing rail right of way up Monongahela Valley to commuter rail

Run bike trail parallel along right of way

Separated bike lanes on Liberty Ave in the strip.

Spring way is repaved, and the only motor vehicles allowed are delivery trucks.

Also, in a perfect world, broken glass on the street would be cleaned up immediately.

+ a gazillion almklm!

Trail expansion and maintenance funded by tourism dollars, not the "support" of shale drilling industries.

A trail along Allegheny River Blvd up to Oakmont from Highland Park (and the completion of the East End Loop to get there from points south safely).

Extend the trail at Millvale to Etna and beyond.

Why do we have to just dream? How many people enjoy driving to work? For the brief time in my life the transit system actually worked for me, I loved it.

I walked outside of my apartment, waited a few minutes, got on the bus, walked a few blocks to work. It was great.

When I worked in the South Hills for a bit, riding my bike downtown and then taking the tram was great.

Why can't we muster the political will to get more tram lines?

Why the heck can't we muster the political and business will to get the trail connected through Sandcastle?

I think the political and business will for the Sandcastle stretch, at least, has been successfully mustered.

Here's a January 30th 2012 post from Steel Valley Trail Council member Paul Heckbert:

The latest word from Jack Paulik, project manager for the Regional Trail Corporation, is:

He expects the missing link in the GAP near Sandcastle to be completed in late 2012. The construction work near Keystone Metals (scrap metal yard) just downstream of the Glenwood Bridge, in Pittsburgh, is expected to begin construction around August or September. At Sandcastle water park, just upstream of that, the trail will run between an existing road and railroad tracks. Some utilities will be relocated in the Spring, but construction at Sandcastle will cease while Sandcastle is open (June-Aug.) and then most of the trail construction work near Sandcastle property will take place starting in August or September. Construction is expected to take 2-3 months, at both sites, so that suggests the trail might be done in October or November 2012.

At Keystone, negotiating with the landowners has been easy, but the construction will be expensive, and fundraising took time, while at Sandcastle, the negotiations were difficult, while the construction will be relatively easy, and less expensive. Jack stood up for a good (10' wide) trail, and not content with the 6' wide easement that was agreed to by Sandcastle, initially. Getting approval from Sandcastle's owners for the trail alignment has taken a lot of time.

-Paul

Steel Valley Trail Council

Note that he uses the past tense in regard to the fundraising. It sounds like that roadblock has now been addressed too. I understand they're bidding the Sandcastle trail construction job this month.

Nice - thanks for the update, that's awesome.

so it will be done around 12-21-2012? coincidence? i think not.

I have to say that those pictures of NYC and DC bike lanes really had an effect on me. I also got to see (though not ride on) one of those lanes in NYC when I was there in March 2011.

"Why can't we have those nice things in Pittsburgh?"

Lose an entire traffic lane on all these streets where it's just a given that "we need all those lanes". B.S.! Talking to those traffic engineers about West Carson back in December, I thought, "Nothing is really going to change until we can get through to them."

Driving around this morning in McKees Rocks and Ohio River Blvd, and riding around last night on the Flock ride, I started to look at all this infrastructure we have differently. If we'd just stop dropping tens of millions on road repair, and instead drop hundreds of thousands here and there on bike infrastructure, we could really make a difference in making bicycling just plain pleasant, not some obstacle to be overcome. And save oodles of tax money in the process. And save oodles of fuel money in the long run.

I think the lack of a grid makes it more difficult to accomplish that here... and of course the geography here plays a big part in that. I don't mean to sound discouraging, just that it probably requires more of a commitment to make a similar amount of progress.

My “dream” would be to get our local & national decision makers (re: politicians) out on a few group bicycle rides. Some rides would be recreational in flavor, and other rides would be more commuting in nature. I don’t think anything will happen until the decision makers understand the issues – most only drive cars. (see Dick Chaney’s stance on gays as an example of changing your views)

As an aside: we should invite the whole city council and public works director out for a flock style ride sometime.

extending the trail from Station Square to just 5 miles north by the Ohio River hitting Neville Island where you can cycle to Groveton,(Beginning of Montour Trail).

We don't have a grid; we don't need one. We have rivers. Next to rivers are flat areas. We either have industrial sites or traffic-clogged streets connecting those flat areas. Un-clog the streets with dedicated, two-way bike lanes, and figure out a way (as with Carrie Furnace and Sandcastle) to get through the sites.

Also add a bunch of switchbacks and (re)built pedestrian sidewalks to various bridges, as was done for FtDuqBr and Herr's Island. I'm thinking of:

* Birmingham Bridge to Jail Trail

* 10th Street Br to Jail Trail

* Glenwood Bridge over the railroad tracks to connect Duck Hollow Trail with Hazelwood

* A "Norwegian bike escalator" mechanism to get from behind Carnegie Museum on Boundary up to Forbes Ave

* A bike/ped bridge to replace the Davis Ave bridge

* Every staircase street that needs work to get that work

* That includes reconstructing some of the staircase street infrastructure that has been taken down

* Where there already exists a path but which has become essentially unusable due to growth, splash, holes, closed sidewalks on bridges, etc., fix it; like PA65 from McKees Rocks Br to Beaver/Chateau

Back to my list of bigger things:

* A two-way separated bike lane along East St and McKnight Road all the way to Pine Creek Plaza

* A two-way separated bike lane along Banksville from the dead railroad (that connects West Liberty Ave, the Wabash Tunnel and the West End Circle) all the way out to McFarland

We need to think BIG.

And I don't think that the entire set of those together would exceed eight digits, and most of them are six digits, low-end seven.

Also, greater enforcement of traffic laws for all vehicles, but specifically targeted to road rage.