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Friendship Ave sharrows...

... being laid today from Negley Ave all the way to Penn Ave. Both sides. Woot!




quizbot
2011-12-01 15:22:36

SA-WEET!


lou-m
2011-12-01 15:23:23

How did I ride past this today and not even notice, I must of been in a fog


marvelousm3
2011-12-01 15:25:21

SWEET. I've been growing more and more frustrated riding on friendship. The surface is pretty terrible between Gross and Evaline and cars are always anxious to pass me to stop at the stop sign or traffic light, but I generally take the lane to avoid being doored.


dmtroyer
2011-12-01 15:31:55

Nice. And kudos to the City for freshening the sharrows on Penn Avenue. They were nice and bright last evening.


A cyclist was in front of me at the light at Penn and Butler, inbound, just before 7 p.m. He (relatively cautiously) ran the light at Doughboy Square, while I had to stop and wait for a turning vehicle. By the time I got through the intersection, I could see his taillight, about 3 blocks ahead. He totally smoked me through the Strip. I was really wanting to be on a bike at that moment. (I wasn't because my previous trip had included stops in both Moon Township and Harmarville....)


swalfoort
2011-12-01 15:48:06

Cool. My summer route includes Friendship for a stretch.


rsprake
2011-12-01 15:55:22

This project is also supposed to have legit bike lanes around friendship park and bike lanes and sharrows down milvale.


from oakland, there is supposed to be bike lanes going up hill on milvale and sharrows going downhill. then there should be a combo bike lanes/sharrows on neville to fifth as well


i really hope it gets completed, this is one of the projects that i am most excited about.


erok
2011-12-01 16:04:09

This is so great! I saw a couple of different groups of guys putting the sharrows in at S. Aiken and S. Winebiddle. If you're riding by please take a minute to stop and thank them. I did and they're really nice and appreciative. It's also chilly out there, so if you're in the neighborhood and want to bring them hot chocolate or something, we can use all the good will possible when it comes to getting more sharrows and lanes put in!


beccameadow
2011-12-01 16:07:27

Also new this week were sharrows along Merchant and Martindale Streets on the North Shore!


jeg
2011-12-01 16:10:16

Sounds awesome Erok. I hope it gets done as well.


rsprake
2011-12-01 16:12:17

Like like!!!! But how about sharing sharrows-love to Penn Avenue @Garfield area? And doing some re-paving too? :(


bikeygirl
2011-12-01 16:28:24

Killer. Way into it.


bradq
2011-12-01 16:30:12

Something bigger is being talked about for Penn Ave.


scott
2011-12-01 16:31:48

I like the sound of that!


mfac84
2011-12-01 16:38:14

@erok+scott !!!!!!!!!!!!


dmtroyer
2011-12-01 16:55:04

Our knights in hi-vis armor



erok
2011-12-01 17:06:55

@quizbot ... being laid today from Negley Ave all the way to Penn Ave. Both sides. Woot!



I read this without looking at the topic subject and found it ... puzzling.


mick
2011-12-02 03:44:55

*insert bass slide*


stefb
2011-12-02 11:34:54

Its pretty funny. So at least 3 of us took pics.

These dudes are probably used to cars honking

and being pissed, and then we ride up smiling

and take pics!


I am surprised that they were able to find 4x4

squares on which they could put the image

without it being in a 6" pothole


steevo
2011-12-02 14:26:39

Ha. That road is pretty chewed up. I look forward to some traffic calming lanes around Friendship Park, so many jack asses fly through there.


rsprake
2011-12-02 15:08:07

Saw the sharrows on Friendship this morning = very sexy!!!!


bikeygirl
2011-12-02 16:22:47

looks like they were marking out where the milvale ave and neville st sharrows are going. can't wait to see the bike lanes thru here too


erok
2011-12-02 17:44:22

Not a biker here, just a hardcore pedestrian, so forgive my ignorance.


I'm not understanding the purpose of sharrows. Are they put on roads to remind drivers that bikers are around? Could they actually confuse drivers into thinking "I guess bikers are allowed on Friendship ave since there are bike paintings, but they aren't allowed on Coral cause there are no bike paintings"?


Thanks for any answers. This is a great message board btw.


2011-12-03 13:42:32

Are they put on roads to remind drivers that bikers are around?


Yes, and they also remind cyclists of where they should ride on roads where they are placed. In the case of Friendship, the lane is too narrow to "share" so it's suggested that a cyclists ride on top of the sharrow.


I guess bikers are allowed on Friendship ave since there are bike paintings, but they aren't allowed on Coral cause there are no bike paintings


There is that too, but I haven't come across anyone who thought that. My wife did think that a lane with sharrows in San Francisco was a bike lane though.


rsprake
2011-12-03 14:38:31

@DVR - "I guess bikers are allowed on Friendship ave since there are bike paintings, but they aren't allowed on Coral cause there are no bike paintings."


No. As a general rule we can ride on any street or road unless specifically banned -- such as limited access roads. The other one is roads that are so car-centric that they are unsafe to ride on so we self-limit our choice to use them.


Just because Coral isn't marked doesn't mean you can't bike on it. Streets chosen for marking are selected because for various reasons they are considered to be preferred routes for cyclists to use. The marking alert drivers to watch for us on those streets. And as rsprake said, they tell cyclists where they should ride in the traffic lane.


cdavey
2011-12-03 16:29:16

I just noticed a whole bunch of sharrows on Ellsworth Avenue between Neville and Devonshire. It is a major bicycle route and I'm glad to see some paint laid down here!


ieverhart
2011-12-03 16:41:05

I think it's a good thing when new folks jump on the board with honest questions. This tells me (a) There is a real information deficit in the general community, i.e., there are likely 500 more like DVR who have the same question; and (b) People are finding out that this message board is the place to ask those questions.


Keep 'em coming, folks! For the newbies and lurkers, we have a good many properly informed folks on this board. Ask a well formed question, and you will get the information you need, if not in the first response, then check back in a few hours or day or so.


stuinmccandless
2011-12-03 16:52:39

@ccdavey - Based on DVR's question, I believe HE is clear that bikes are allowed on un-sharrowed streets, but to reiterate the question, "Could they actually confuse drivers into thinking "I guess bikers are allowed on Friendship ave since there are bike paintings, but they aren't allowed on Coral cause there are no bike paintings"?"

I believe that is a valid concern. Where there are bike paths, I have experienced verbal harrassment from drivers with shouts of "get on the bike path" where I was under no legal obligation to be so. This needs to be strongly made clear with the (currently craptastic) driver education and licensing process, as well as the media, that bikes are permitted to travel on all streets, sharrows or not, except limited access highways. Also bicycle advocates need to strongly affirm that there will be no concessions to relinquishing the right to travel on all roads even as some kind of "bargain" in return for the construction of bike specific infrastructure, as was discussed on some other thread.


edmonds59
2011-12-03 18:23:47

I believe people are easily confused, period.


atleastmykidsloveme
2011-12-03 18:36:28

Thanks all for the info and that link from Erok is very good.


@edmonds59 Yeah, that's what I meant. I seriously think there are some stupid people out there who would think this.


2011-12-03 23:44:45

@erok, maybe this has already been thought of, but I'm wondering if a link to that handy FAQ could be distributed via the impacted neighborhoods' CDC newsletter? A lot of Pittsburgh's neighborhoods have Community Development Corporations that maintain email lists or paper newsletters: it'd be great if at least the residents got some info on the new marks.


pseudacris
2011-12-04 00:08:48

@edmonds59 -- referring to ALMKLM's entry, I guess like me.

I misunderstood what he was saying. And then made it really apparent. DOH.


cdavey
2011-12-04 00:28:56

Fresh Sharrows on Hamilton & Dallas!!!


pseudacris
2011-12-04 03:45:46

Fresh ones on Ellsworth Ave too. Saw them painting this afternoon (and torching them to dry them).


rice-rocket
2011-12-04 04:45:23

Those are thermoplastic. The torch is to melt them into the pavement.


cburch
2011-12-04 05:56:40

it looks like one side (outbound) got thermoplastic and the other side got paint. i told my gf that i doubt the inbound side will last the winter. it's already pretty faint. i presume they ran out of thermoplastic?


hiddenvariable
2011-12-04 06:29:34

Or ran out of time. Sort of a placeholder so the guys know where to lay it down.


rice-rocket
2011-12-04 07:37:11

Is it true that te thermoplastic ones can be slippery when wet?


stefb
2011-12-04 12:13:39

(@cdavey - I was intending to refer to humanity as a group, not you directly. Please take no offense.)


atleastmykidsloveme
2011-12-04 12:50:05

The plastic tape (the tape applied a year or two ago by the city) can be slippy and is not permanent by any stretch.


the latest version of the sharrows are true thermoplastic markings. by that i mean that its component materials are mixed in a device and applied to the pavement like icing on a cake. Once applied tiny tiny glass beads are broadcasted over the marking on the pavement.


the glass beads provide the retroreflectivity and the traction.


you can typically feel the thickness and grip of thermoplastic markings. they're not in the pavement surface like regular paint, and they're thicker than the tape that's applied by heat. i think the birmingham bridge has thermoplastic shoulder and center lines, as an example.


sloaps
2011-12-04 13:03:28

**I of course sincerely appreciate sharrows, especially since this is my daily commute**


I really wish more effort went into educating drivers as to what sharrows mean. Try asking someone who is not involved with cycling/general outdoor activities what they think sharrows are for. Most of the people, and I do mean most, that I have asked really have no clue.


I'm also really curious about the idea of bikelanes in friendship park, because that would involve removing the onstreet parking there, or making the park smaller..?


Would be swell if they could repave a large portion of the road from main to negley as well. Those craters terrify me in bad weather and make doing anything but riding on the double yellow a challenge.


robjdlc
2011-12-04 22:25:22

@robjdlc - sometimes on-street parking serves as defacto traffic calming. I would fear that removing on-street parking from Friendship Circle and replacing with bike lanes would result in drivers feeling freer to drive faster. (IMHO).


atleastmykidsloveme
2011-12-04 22:53:09

@ALMKLM: There's lots of ways to slow traffic (though not implying that the city would do so):

1) speed bumps

2) chicanes

3) enforcement (ok, hah...)


ahlir
2011-12-05 01:20:01

4) Awesome DIY road signs like the one that recently appeared on Gold Way that says something like "Local Traffic Only - Road Spikes!" and depicts a tire being impaled on a row of sharp objects. It's day-glo orange with a black stencil (think Banksy-meets-PennDOT- for-drunken-freelance-wayfinding-gig)


pseudacris
2011-12-05 02:05:14

@ahlir - apparently there's a whole science to traffic calming and tons of means of achieving it. I was just responding to the suggestion someone made about trading parking lanes for bike lanes. That swap might just backfire.


But if the question is straight traffic calming (and not improved bicycling) through the Circle, then there are probably more effective means than leaving the cars there.


atleastmykidsloveme
2011-12-05 03:52:42

no parking is being removed in friendship park. this shot demonstrates how wide that lane is:


http://g.co/maps/xc3xe


what kind of person parks on the sidewalk right by a hospital?


erok
2011-12-05 03:52:49

what kind of person? the kind who works for a landscaper, obviously.


atleastmykidsloveme
2011-12-05 03:55:27

Hey, at least now he will have a bike lane to park in.


dwillen
2011-12-05 04:47:23

My experience on the daily tells me that drivers will end up halfway into the bike lane. I hope I'm wrong.


robjdlc
2011-12-05 05:04:53

@rob +1 :-(


dmtroyer
2011-12-05 13:30:24

@rob: my point exactly.


atleastmykidsloveme
2011-12-05 13:43:01

As nice as it would be to remove parking there it's never going to happen that close to a hospital and business district. My experience with the Liberty Ave bike lanes has been positive as of late. Drivers stay out for the most part.


rsprake
2011-12-05 14:05:23

I had a similar reaction as rsprake. The Liberty Ave bike lanes stay pretty much car free in my experience, and I imagine that Friendship lanes would be the same. It's amazing what simply having a line on the ground can do to influence drivers.


willb
2011-12-05 14:29:52

I was actually behind a work van where the lanes end today and he moved over to the center of the lane to give me room to pass. I also saw a woman drive right into the back of a truck while stopped at a traffic light but that's another story.


rsprake
2011-12-05 14:36:12

I always see drivers in the bike lanes on liberty. They use them to pass you On the right (as a driver) if the front of your car isn't in the back bumper of the car in front of you. If I have to drive, I am starting to avoid liberty cause drivers make me so angry


stefb
2011-12-05 15:47:35

I gave up on Friendship long ago in place of Coral. Even with sharrows, in what situations wouldn't that calm street be preferable to the relative hustle and bustle of Friendship?


sgtjonson
2011-12-05 18:48:24

There are a lot of situations depending on where you're going.


rsprake
2011-12-05 20:03:25

It's all degrees, isn't it? Penn or Baum are busier than Friendship. Friendship is busier than Coral. I guess it depends on your tolerance. I must say, though, Friendship does a really nice job of connecting the dots, IMHO.


atleastmykidsloveme
2011-12-05 20:10:48

Even with sharrows, in what situations wouldn't that calm street be preferable to the relative hustle and bustle of Friendship?


friendship connects much more than coral, and i feel safer on friendship by myself at night.


erok
2011-12-05 21:13:01

one thing friendship has that coral does not: a 77 bus driving up your ass. that's the main reason i always preferred coral, although coral does often have cars darting out from side streets


noah-mustion
2011-12-05 23:58:58

I have come across a couple of drug transaction when I was on coral at night so I tend to prefer Friendship, in-fact I find Friendship uneventful. I agree about it being about what you can tolerate Friendship doesn't bother me but Butler St. does, I talk with a lot of people who love Butler. I hate Negley and prefer Highland but I know lots of people who feel the opposite.


marvelousm3
2011-12-06 00:56:37

I really dislike riding on butler st. Friendship, too. I usually just walk across the park and then continue riding on whatever that one street is.


rubberfactory
2011-12-06 01:31:51

On liberty ave I've had good experiences with the bike lanes, but I rarely ride on liberty.


My fears with friendship are taking into consideration how often I have to take the lane because there isn't enough room between cars passing and the curb.


robjdlc
2011-12-06 02:59:36

"one thing friendship has that coral does not: a 77 bus driving up your ass."


Noah, that's the ghost of the 77 bus up your ass. It's the 87 now. :)


lou-m
2011-12-06 14:35:22

i meant to post on sunday: saw some new thermoplastic sharrows on neville, too, between centre and i presume fifth, though i only rode to bayard.


i also saw one under a car on gross, right near friendship. i didn't see any others on gross, so i wondered if they were just practicing, or showing the way to kraynick's.


hiddenvariable
2011-12-06 15:52:15

i also saw one under a car on gross


Was it actually a sharrow, or a crime scene stencil?


reddan
2011-12-06 16:12:59

^ This is awesome!


pseudacris
2011-12-06 21:22:56