BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Is there a non-facebook page to view this at?

here's the info...

Date:

Friday, January 22, 2010

Time:

3:30pm - 5:00pm

Location:

1000 Hamburg Hall

Street:

4800 Forbes Ave.

City/Town:

Pittsburgh, PA

What is the city's vision for transportation in the next 21 years? Join local politicians, advocacy organizations and community stakeholders in a discussion on how transportation can be an integral part of the region’s future growth, how transportation can positively benefit the many stakeholders involved and how we can work together to achieve our goals.

The moderator of the panel will be Allen Kukovich, Director of the Power of 32 Regional Visioning Project and former Pennsylvania state senator. Panelists will include:

Stephen Bland – CEO, Port Authority of Allegheny County

Court Gould – Director, Sustainable Pittsburgh

Breen Masciotra – Director, Uptown Partners

Councilor Bill Peduto – Pittsburgh City Council, District 8

Patrick Roberts – Principal Transportation Planner, City of Pittsburgh Dept. of City Planning

Rep. Chelsa Wagner – PA State House of Representatives, 22nd District

Stick around after the panel for refreshments and an opportunity to interact with the panelists.

Funding provided by a grant from Union Pacific. This event is sponsored by the Heinz College Smart Growth Club.

If you're coming from the Jail Trail, you can come up Boundary and use the secret shortcut up the elevator in the CMU parking garage by the train tracks.

Map, with Neville/Boundary and the Carnegie Museum as landmarks:

Where's the city's traffic engineer or a representative from PennDOT District 11? Also on Fridays Al Biehler is usually on this side of the state.

Someone should go to this and write something about it!!

This is something I would like to go to, but I have to work.

I saw something about this, if I remember correctly the focus is intended to be transportation and its impact on the economy. If someone is able to go, there is a good evaluation of the economic impact of the GAP trail on the trail communities on the Adventure Cycling wesite. I would be willing to bet none of the knuckleheads on this panel are aware of this at all.

I don't know 'bout posting no links, but here:

http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/nbrn/usbikewaysystem.cfm

Whoo-hoo! It seems to have just worked!

here is what was advertised in the 3E links:

“What is the city's vision for transportation in the next 20 years? How Pittsburgh can be a hub for the region's economic expansion.”

Transportation Panel

Friday, January 22

3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Hamburg Hall 1000, H. John Heinz III College, School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Oakland

The purpose of this panel is to engage a combination of local politicians, advocacy organizations and community stakeholders in a discussion on how transportation can be an integral part of the region’s future growth, how transportation can positively benefit the many stakeholders involved and how we can work together to achieve our goals. The moderator of the panel will be Allen Kukovich, Director of the Power of 32 Regional Visioning Project and former PA State Senator. Panelists will include:

Rep. Chelsa Wagner – PA State House, 22nd District

Patrick Roberts – Principal Transportation Planner for the Pittsburgh Dept. of City Planning

Stephen Bland – CEO, Port Authority of Allegheny County

Councilman Bill Peduto – Pittsburgh City Council, District 8

Breen Masciotra – Director, Uptown Partners

Court Gould – Director, Sustainable Pittsburgh

Refreshments will be served following the panel. Funding for this event will come from a grant received by the Smart Growth Club from Union Pacific.

I think I'll go. It's right next door.

I am at this right now.

union pacific? i didn't know they had any business interests on this side of chicago.

Can anyone tell me if they talked about the plans to put a hydrogen fueling station in Pittsburgh, or about the 15-years-old maglev plan?

nick: The moderator said UP was recruiting for employees and a professor hit them up for some cash.

alnilam: They haven't mentioned silly things like that; it's pretty much all been rebuilding neighborhoods & smart growth. One guy specifically downplayed "hydrogen, hybrids, and hovercrafts."

Port Authority guy is mentioning bike racks on every vehicle & bike storage. He's also really into smart-carding all the buses & everything like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card

alankhg: It's less silly than you think. There's already a hydrogen station at WVU; Pittsburgh's supposed to be the next stop.

alnilam: I guess I'm not terribly confident in the potential of hydrogen. At least when it fuels automobiles, it seems to be something with most of the same negatives as gasoline except for less localized pollution when its stored energy is used.

alan: I used to think the same thing, but when you think about it, gasoline has zero potential to ever be a clean car technology. Hydrogen can be as clean as the means of producing it, even though at present it wouldn't be that great. Plus at least when it's centralized, the emissions can be captured (although I don't have much confidence in pollution capture either).

Anyway, I was just wondering if they mentioned it

I guess I just see a lot more potential for bigger wins elsewhere.

Like Peduto is talking about encouraging a culture change so that you don't need to weave between cars making turns when in a crosswalk. That sort of things seems like it has a lot of potential and just requires cops to make an effort (and probably is budget neutral) as opposed to replacing one of the biggest distribution networks in the world.

alankhg:alnilam: I guess I'm not terribly confident in the potential of hydrogen.

I thinn one of the big things the hydrogen has going for it politically is a result of misimpression.

So many people I've talked think hydrogen is an energy source. They don't realize that when you use hydrogen for fuel (in a non-fusion sense of course), that it is just a medium for energy that comes from somewhere else.

The generation of hydrogen might have tremendous economies of scale as far as pollution goes. Creating the molecular hydrogen for a million cars would pollute far less than a million little hydro-carbon burning plants (i.e car engines), and then being a central source, it would also be easier to clean up.

Mick

I've seen more hydrogen powered busses than anything else (not in Pittsburgh). Seems like a good idea in theory at least. For one thing, it is way nicer riding behind a bus that isn't billowing black smoke at you.

Hydrogen powered buses at least don't have nearly the same problem with fuel distribution.

i think we should go back to blimps.

The pittsburgh area is better suited for natural gas. There are well established interstate transmission lines for natural gas around here, on top of the shallow reserves which have been fueling the area for many years.

The city had a natural gas motor pool ten years ago. The port authority had a few natural gas buses which ran the downtown loops. With Marcellus extraction firing up, it would be difficult to justify an alternative gas.

Think regionally with the energy; what works here, may not for Maryland or California... Let them have Hydrogen.

Steve Bland actually suggested the smart card in the same breath as bike racks? Geez, I only mentioned it as pie-in-the-sky stuff a couple of days ago here.

Hydrogen itself is merely an energy transport mechanism. Generate it one place, use it another.

I like the idea of wind-to-hydrogen. I've heard it said that North Dakota alone has enough wind to power a large chunk of North America's electricity needs. So, let's!

He not only mentioned bike racks, but protected bike parking stations near transit nodes like park and rides. We're getting through to him. Hopefully within a year/year and a half we have bus racks on every bus.

Hopefully within a year/year and a half we have bus racks on every bus.

Does the smaller bus have a bus rack too?

The last I talked with them, the 8600s would probably be the last to get them. Those are your mini-buses: 84B, 51E, 6D, 24A, 25A. They look more like big milk trucks than city buses. They're leased vehicles, with a shorter expected lifespan than all the rest.

But as I've said several other times, nearly all the shorter 1500-series buses already have them. I know of two that don't, 1553 and 1556, both running routes like 81C. Next batch of racks will go to finishing them, the rest of the 3100-series articulateds, and any 40-footers not about to be retired. Last to get them will be the 1900-series big monster Greyhound-like buses.

A slight worry on my part is that the last of the 2600s/2700s will get retired (they're 14 years old, end-of-life for a bus), some of which have racks, before the large number of 5000s/5100s are outfitted, so that the effective percentage of rack-equipped buses will stay level or drop.

Wouldn't electric buses make a lot of sense? With the constant stop/start, a regenerative braking system would be a lot more effective than on any car, and since you know where they are going to stop, they could have inductive charging pads every several stops so they wouldn't have to have ginormous toxic batteries.

For Pete's sake, the "old" freaking trolleys were electric, it doesn't seem like that much of a leap.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/12/designline-turbine-hybrid-buses-take-off-in-nyc-could-multiply/

More realistically, I'd hope these turbine-hybrid happy buses work out.

Mmm, interesting. But they're still burning stuff to run, diesel, and it could be bio-diesel, so we could get away from petroleum.

I'm a little skeptical about the "quiet" part though. Anybody been around the UPMC Bell Jet Ranger chopper when it heads out?

I'd also be a little skeptical about PAT mechanics, would they all of a sudden need $200/hr mechanics instead of $100/hr mechanics?

Also, does anybody know why all these locks we have laying around in our rivers couldn't be retrofitted for some power generation? I would think they could at least power themselves and their immediate vicinity, the best ideas I've heard have been all about widely scattered, small scale generation, de-gridding ourselves.

We now have 26 of the "diesel Prius" variety hybrids, 5371-5376, and 5701-5720. Same mechanics we've already had, only now trained in the upkeep of the new engines. I don't have the specifics of the latest contract, but if the mechanics make anything like the drivers, it's more like $25/hr.

Myself, I'd like to see a lot more medium-sized power generating windmills. That ridge between I-279 and PAT's Ross Garage could fit a couple, and power a good bit of the garage's lights, tools, & other equipment. We have a lot more ridges around here than rivers.

And those old trolleys pretty much only ran on the zap from coal-fired power plants, the only juice we had around here for decades.

Yeah , I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of beautiful big white windmills on Mt Wash or up on the hill right behind town. Instantly give Portland "windmill-envy".