BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I read their master plan (big pdf, Schenley Park starts on page 97) and am very concerned that cycling is being left out. It looks like this thing was made back in 2000.. so perhaps cycling wasn't even on the radar back then? Unfortunately, they tout it as a 20 year plan.. and we're half way into that now.

In short, they propose replacing the two intersections of Panther Hollow (Greenfield/Panther Hollow) and the cloverleaf clusterfuck with roundabouts, which I am skeptical about. I haven't had particularly positive experiences cycling around roundabouts (cars don't yield at stop signs/red lights, why would a roundabout convince them to stop for me?), is there any way to make them bike friendly?

They also propose shrinking Schenley and Overlook Drive road surface (auto lanes), making overlook 2 way, and adding physically separated sidewalks to each road, at the expense of road width. This sounds great for stroller jockeys, dog walkers, and so on, but not so great for people biking through the park. Shrinking the road surface of Overlook Drive, making it 2-way, and keeping the parking on both sides sounds like it would be awful to bike on. The 2-way part of this road is already lousy...I can't imagine losing another 5 feet. People parking, unparking (without looking), swinging their doors open, and running out from between parked cars. They mentioned keeping bike lanes on Schenley drive (but shrinking them?). Sounds like maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a few cyclists show up. Anyone from bike-pgh involved in these park projects?

I've been passed & then right hooked several times on the roundabout at Reynolds + S. Homewood, even while indicating clearly with my arm that I'd be continuing the circle. People seem to treat it as the Ultimate Bike Passing Lane. I can only imagine them doing it at a greater speed in Schenley.

Roundabouts are unusual in this area, so drivers (and cyclists) don't have a lot of experience with them. That usually leads to a mess of buttonhooking. I'm not sure how to fix that. On one hand, you could just not build more roundabouts. On the other hand, you could build more, and wait 40 years for everyone to figure it out.

Geez, everything Dwillen mentions sounds like it's a potpouri of really bad ideas, definitely seems like it needs attention.

But it's the taco ride day, argh.

Quick note about the location: If you're wondering where the Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy is, it's the old Frick Middle School.

A proper roundabout can be reasonably bike-friendly and it would be great to have more of them instead of four-way stops. The trick is to keep them small enough that cars have to drive at about 10 mph through them, but then bikes can zoom right through if they're going straight. Of course, you can find idiots anywhere, but I've learned how to keep motorists from right-hooking me in the roundabout on Reynolds. On the other hand, I've noticed that nobody seems to know that traffic in the roundabout has the right-of-way. And every once in a while, someone goes the wrong-way around. I favor building lots of the little suckers until the smash-up derby teaches people to drive counterclockwise.

They do have to be kept quite small in order to maintain slow auto speeds through them, which fire departments don't like, but there are techniques for mitigating that. Unfortunately, most of the techniques for satisfying hook-and-ladder crews also satisfy drivers of Escalades.

And they work best if everyone uses their turn signals when exiting the roundabout, so entering traffic has an advance clue that there is an opportunity for them. Good luck with that.

Also, I don't think they work real well when a major road intersects a minor one, as motorists on the minor road may never get a chance to enter the roundabout.

On the other hand, a rotary, which has multiple traffic lanes, is a giant game of automotive chicken. I know motorists that are frightened of them. A familiar example is the West End Circle, which finally proved too much for the locals to handle. They're more common in New England, and still more common in Europe (like the Arc du Triomphe, or the Piazza Venezia, or.. oh, I can't remember the name of the place in London but it's nuts), where the locals seems to just close their eyes and floor it. If you flinch, they're in. Also, honking seems to help. It would be a hoot to have one of those here, but since PADOT just tore up the West End Circle, I don't see that happening.

I am skeptical that PADOT would allow a small single-lane roundabout at Panther Hollow and Greenfield Rd, or at Panther Hollow and Schenley Drive. But WOW, if they really did it, Panther Hollow Rd would be bikeable. Jammed with cars creeping along at 10 mph day and night. It would be heaven.

Behold, the Normal, IL roundabout.

I sent info on this one to a few folks regarding the Route 51/88 intersection

The key to a working roundabout is the opposite of what is generally advocated on this message board; drivers maintaining their speed in spite of merging vehicles. That's why the one in London seems to be so crazy and dependent on faith and luck. If people could refrain from slamming on their brakes as traffic merges around them, the world (and the roads) would be a lovely place. But bikes can (and should) easily be sent around the relatively small amount of right-of-way a roundabout requires.

Roundabouts work really well if they're designed correctly. Irrespective of that, it seems that bikes can do fine if they simply take the lane when entering the circle. This may be a bit daunting in heavy traffic, but the entering cars are in the same position as you, waiting for a break.

Admittedly this is based on experience driving but I'd be willing to give it a try if they put in circles.

(BTW the intersection east of Phipps used to be turnabout a long time ago. It was taken out.)

Admittedly this is based on experience driving but I'd be willing to give it a try if they put in circles.

You'd be right, it worked with the West End Circle and the Drum Hill Rotary, and those are worse than mere roundabouts. (aside, I just looked at the satellite view for the Drum Hill one and, OMG, they rebuilt that thing and made it twice as big. It's challenging Rome now. It used to be just two lanes around, and about two-thirds its current diameter -- now it's SIX lanes! wtf. And they had to add traffic signals to it. I guess the Massholes weren't any better at rotarizing than Pixbergers are. I bet it's actually easier to bicycle through now, though.).

I lived in a city with tons of roundabouts. I still didn't like them. They were okay on the roads where traffic was restricted to bike only, but on shared use roads, they were narrow little things where bike lanes vanished (because it wasn't wider than a single car) and people rarely acted like they should in a roundabout. Cars don't yield when they should, they try and pass you and right hook you. It was chaos.

The city where I grew up, back in Minnesota, started hopping on the roundabout bandwagon recently as well. They are putting them in 45 mph posted highway type roads. My dad says he sees tire tracks straight through the bushes and plants in the center at least once a week. I guess accidents are fairly common as well.

I don't know how they are going to make a 4 lane road (where the flow of traffic is routinely 45-50mph) go through 2 roundabouts, but if they do, I can't imagine it would be very fun to bike along. Can you imagine a bike vs PAT bus in a roundabout? I shudder.

Seems there might be better ways to road diet the park, to accommodate all park users. This plan emphasizes pedestrian and auto access, but leaves out bikes.

By "around" I meant a separate lane outside the perimeter of the roundabout. It is extremely easy and only requires a small amount of right-of-way through the surrounding area (which in this case is mainly wooded). It puts the bike/car intersection far enough away that it eliminates right hooks. If I didn't despise my short tenure as a transportation engineer so much, I might be inclined to draw a picture.

Do you mean a separate sidepath way outside the roundabout, so that it intersects the roadways at a perpendicular, or am I misunderstanding?

Then you'd have to put stop signs (or traffic signals, but those are too expensive so wouldn't happen) at the intersections. Would those be four-way stops or would only the cyclists have to stop? If the former, I think you've mostly eliminated the value of the roundabout. If the latter, you've screwed the cyclists.

@dwillen - where did you live that had those roundabouts with poorly-designed bike lanes?

More of a yield sign for the cyclists than a stop sign. Which results in way less screwing than getting right hooked by cars that are both yielding to the left and watching out for cyclists on the right. The latter in that scenario doesn't seem to be a priority for drivers.

I think I'll try taking more of the lane on the Reynolds roundabout. There could be worse things than a few honks and glares. Some folks are in a real hurry to get to the dead end of Reynolds.

Daivs, CA. They take a 4 lane road with beautiful bike lanes, smoosh it into two narrow lanes with no bike lane to go around the roundabout. There are also huge apartment complexes on each side, with their driveways right on either side of the roundabout, so you have to watch that too. As courteous as drivers there are to cyclists, this roundabout seems to erase all that, despite it being right smack in front of the police department. And it is only a 3-way intersection too.. both the Panther Hollow ones are 4-way.

The google street/sat view shows this one.

I think that all of the others are on low traffic residential streets, and despite the lack of bike infrastructure around them, they seem okay as long as you aren't trying to make a left turn with a car waiting on one of the other sides. It is kind of nice not having to stop. I picture Panther Hollow roundabouts being more like the above, rather than these:

low traffic one, one with "merge" arrows at the bike lane, pretty low traffic, low traffic one, but lousy sight lines due to all the trees and bushes.. easy to miss a cyclist if you're flying..

The separate sidepath idea would be fine, but maybe they could engineer some of those big steel tube corrugated tunnels or something as long as they're digging up and relocating the streets to make the roundabout.

@Morningsider, I've got a funny feeling you're talking about cyclists overtaking motorists on the right, at the entrance to the roundabout. The easy solution for cyclists is not to do that.

That's an intersection, and overtaking right-turning vehicles at intersections has got to be the most appalling stupid cyclist trick I ever see. Of course, if there's a bike lane painted there, it's awfully hard for most cyclists to resist.

A right hook is when a motorist overtakes the cyclist and then zooms over right in front of her. That will certainly happen from time to time at the exit from the roundabout if the lane is wide enough and the cyclist is timid enough to allow overtaking.

@dwillen, I'm going to have to go visit that roundabout. Davis is a *platinum* bike-friendly city, so that must be god's gift to cyclists. The satellite view shows almost no traffic, though. I'm sure it's different during rush hour.

Seriously, I think that multi-lane rotaries are beyond the comfort level of most American motorists and cyclists, and should be eliminated from consideration out of hand. The only kind of traffic circle we should be considering are single-lane roundabouts.

Given that, I don't know how else to design a traffic circle like the 5th St and Cantrill one. I think they did a remarkably good job given what they had to do. What would you do differently?

Mind you, if you put a bike lane in the roundabout, it stops being a single lane roundabout. It now has two lanes of traffic flowing through it, and it's a rotary.

Maybe it just shouldn't be a roundabout at all, but a signalized intersection. I could buy that.

I wouldn't have painted that any other way, I just don't think it is appropriate for the road its on. I would have kept it as a normal intersection. 5th St is the main drag through town. Most people escaping from work back to Sacramento avoid 80 at all costs for as long as possible, because it backs up during the rush hour. 5th is one way to get to the other end of town (because driving down to the next onramp saves you tons of time). There are lots of apartments in this little area, some industrial stuff, and an auto shop, so it does get busy. The tow truck drivers (entering and exiting at the south end of the intersection) at that auto shop are by far the worst offenders.

I loved biking in Davis. Most of the stuff was fantastic: off road paths, bike lanes everywhere, tunnels and bridges under busy roads and trains, and special signaled intersections for bikes. There really isn't much to complain about, and I probably shouldn't. While I lived there, they started putting in these traffic circles, my least favorite of the cycling infrastructure. It looks quite nice on the photos, and it is nice in the middle of the day when there aren't many/any cars (you just roll right through!) but when you add some traffic there it is not much fun anymore.

There was a perfectly acceptable intersection there before. There are stop lights on every other part of 5th St. I don't know why there is a circle at this one. Cars are already jockeying to get ahead of one another, since there are two car lanes coming down to one, cars are turning off those driveways, and people are scoping out the circle for other cars that might get in their way. Throw a merging bike lane into that mess, a pretty heavily trafficked one at that.

Think of it like the beginning of road construction. Three lanes come to one narrow one and people are always in a rush to get ahead of whatever might be next to them. In my experience, that instinct holds true for these types of traffic features as well. Same with cars entering the circle. They floor it so they don't get stuck behind the bike and be slowed down 2 seconds. This is in a place where I hardly ever have a problem with cars or the people driving them. You can't drive a few blocks without seeing a dozen people on bikes, so the drivers there are used to driving with bikes. Maybe the circles are new, so drivers aren't used to them yet or something. I imagine the intersections on Panther Hollow get a lot more/faster traffic than 5th Street, and I think the drivers are even less comfortable with merging and being courteous to cyclists (and judging their speed) here.

There are a lot of intersections in Pittsburgh where adding a traffic circle would make sense, and be an improvement for bikes and cars, but right now, I can't put Panther Hollow on that list.

The circle in East Aurora NY hasn't changed to speak of in 40 years. Three major two-lane roads converge in a triangle. Said circle has an adjacent McDonalds and a gas station. Works amazing well with just yield signs. [street view][overhead view]

@Lyle No, that's not what I was talking about. In fact, the thought of "overtaking" a car while I'm on a bike rarely crosses my mind. But I do try to avoid the hook as much as possible by taking the lane when appropriate. This probably isn't the best venue to propose alignments.

At the Reynold round about, I stay far enough left that a car would have two tires on the inner curb before they could right hook me.

I don't understand exactly how a sidepath for bike would work on a roundabout.

Sounds like the biker either has to stop and yield at each street or die? Is there some other way it could work?

At the Reynold round about, I stay far enough left that a car would have two tires on the inner curb before they could right hook me.

I don't understand exactly how a sidepath for bike would work on a roundabout.

Sounds like the biker either has to stop and yield at each street or die? Is there some other way it could work?

South Park has a roundabout:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=maps+pittsburgh&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Pittsburgh,+Allegheny,+Pennsylvania&gl=us&ei=liG6TNTZOIOClAeJjq3PDQ&ved=0CBYQ8gEwAA&ll=40.311845,-80.013272&spn=0.001824,0.004764&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=40.319396,-80.008707&panoid=hDnNBDj-Ag1VYq08zM_2ag&cbp=12,75.66,,0,6.93&source=embed&output=svembed

Cyclists on the outside path of South Park's roundabout have stop signs when crossing the intersections. (The SW side is an exception because it's just a driveway with no through traffic.)

It works OK when traffic is light: cyclists treat the stop sign as a yield, and the speed limit is low too. I've never seen it with traffic nearly as heavy as Panther Hollow Road gets.

If the radius of the bike path is much larger (i.e. it is further away from the roundabout) then the bike/car intersection is ninety degrees and it gives the cyclist a good line of sight to decide whether they need to yield or stop. Add signs to the roundabout for motorists to yield upon exiting the roundabout and is provides a safer option for cyclists that don't feel comfortable riding through the circle with cars.

The biggest problem is people (cyclists and motorists) just don't do what they are supposed to do on roadways. It is all well and good for an engineer to design a clever system, but everyone has to know how to use it correctly. And they don't. Or they won't.

The biggest problem is people (cyclists and motorists) just don't do what they are supposed to do on roadways. It is all well and good for an engineer to design a clever system, but everyone has to know how to use it correctly. And they don't. Or they won't.

I'm going to frame this and hang it on the wall.

I'm pretty into the idea of traffic circles, but they have to be designed properly. That means serious traffic calming going into the circle so no one is going over 15 or 20 tops through the circle. Adding bike lanes around the circle... not sure how that would work. I've never seen it. I'm not saying it can't happen, I'm just thinking that if it does, they should be painted green at the intersections with lots of bicycle symbols in them. Here's more on roundabouts and bikes/peds: http://www.walkinginfo.org/faqs/answer.cfm?id=3454

I think there should be a roundabout without a doubt (hey that rhymes!) at Schenley Dr near Phipps. I'm not sure that it would work well, given the slopes of the streets, at Panther Hollow Rd and Greenfield. It may, I would just need to look at the design. I am convinced that there can and should be bike facilities on the Blvd of the Allies/PHR/Hobart from Craft to Beacon. We would need to do a serious road diet through the park, but it can be done.

Anyway, glad this meeting got posted. It's been on our calendar of events for some time. Curious if anyone reads that thing? I'll be sure to post this event to the blog and FB/Twitter. Seems like folks use the forums/blog/social media more than the calendar.

It's worth noting that roundabouts do a pretty good job of eliminating the high-speed red-light-running T-bone accidents, which is a fine thing. There are probably more fender-benders. Unfortunately what would be "only a fender-bender" when it involves two cars, is something worse than that when it involves a car and a cyclist or a pedestrian.

Also, that the goal of high-volume traffic throughput is somewhat at odds with the goal of traffic calming. Sure, you could replace the 5th St traffic circle with a signalized four lane intersection, and you might get twice the automobile volume through there, but I'm pretty sure it would be ugly and not "calmed".

You can have traffic calming without increased congestion only up to a point. After that, you don't get it for free.

I think there should be a roundabout without a doubt (hey that rhymes!) at Schenley Dr near Phipps. Ditto that.

I'm just thinking that if it does, they should be painted green at the intersections with lots of bicycle symbols in them.

Nah, put your green lane right down the center of the road and guarantee no right hooks. If we want traffic calming, why would we want to get cyclists "out of the way" so that the cars can zoom through? At a design speed of 15 mph, even kids can navigate the roundabout on bikes.

I have the calendar loaded in Google Calendar and my iPhone, but there is so much stuff in it that I often keep it hidden or else it takes over my own calendars.

+1 what rsprake said. Maybe you could split it into two calendars, one for rides and one for everything else.

I tend to see things if they're posted on the forum or facebook, but I don't go to the BP main page (or the blog, calendar, or anything else) much.

At a design speed of 15 mph, even kids can navigate the roundabout on bikes.

Again, the concept of The Popsicle Index rears its attractive head. To wit: When the roads are safe enough that you would let your kid bicycle to the store to buy a popsicle, unaccompanied, we have won the war.

Part of the trick there is having a store close enough to you that isn't on the other side of a railroad, highway, river, or other obstruction. It's not always necessary to level every obstruction in order to easily reach every amenity. You can also move (or clone) the amenities.

If Panther Hollow road was reengineered so it wasn't 4 narrow lanes with no shoulders, capable of handling 50 mph traffic, I would be all for traffic circles. My fear is they will keep the rest of the road the same, and just add circles to the intersections/cloverleaf. They just resurfaced the part of Panther Hollow that turns into Hobart St, so I don't see that changing anytime soon.

The intersection at Phipps already has a confusing mishmash of stop signs and "keep going" signs, handles pretty low speed traffic, and would probably benefit from a circle.

Keep the geometry, but install Belgian block for the cars and smooth pavers for the bike/ped sidewalk.

I know it's pie-in-the-sky thinking but it seems like the Dutch have had solutions for these issues for some time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDN0anOVRRQ&feature=related

From the air, the Phipps ex-roundabout and the East Aurora NY one are darn close to identical. Phipps might be a little smaller, but then again, isn't on the end of the village's Main Street and handling three numbered highways (NY16, NY78, US20A).

Seattle was full of little roundabouts instead of stop signs in residential neighborhoods. They were awesome because bikes could ride straight through at full speed but cars had to slow down.

There are some roundabouts on a road here with bike lanes. You have to merge in-and-out with traffic at the roundabout but they keep speeds low enough that everything feels safe, and even normal folks bike through them.

I think others have it right, you have to tame the 2 land highway before and after the roundabout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYpiMjmhJB0&feature=related

This looks like what Morningsider proposed. Notice that the cars yield to the bikes. Also that the average speed on the bike path looks to be about 10mph, and about 15mph on the roadway. I think that making that happen here would be the bigger challenge.

+1 Sloaps on Belgium blocks for cars.

I can see the traffic circle at Phipps as being good with the proper traffic calming for cars.

I cannot see side paths making it safer for bikes. Lyle's video looks good. But then - if we could get American drivers to act like Dutch drivers, many of our problems would disappear.

I'm very skeptical of "YIELD" signs doing much in a town where slowing to 10 mph constitutes a typical "STOP."

Go watch the large "Yield to pedestrians in crosswalk" at Bates and Semple sometimes.

That video is awesome but drivers would always clog the bike lane, no question in mind. You have to make it so driving has to slow down considerably before it enters the roundabout.

if we could get American drivers to act like Dutch drivers, many of our problems would disappear.

Exactly. In fact, if we could get Americans to act like... Oh, never mind.

just to throw out another interesting option - my dad lives in White Rock, BC (Canada, suburb of Vancouver literally on the US border), and they added two round abouts to the sides of a cloverleaf... http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=Unknown+road&hl=en&geocode=FQjw6wIdYt2u-A%3BFaTv6wId4suu-A&mra=me&mrcr=0&mrsp=1,0&sz=16&sll=49.016707,-122.759857&sspn=0.008908,0.022681&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=16

Dad had driven in London quite a lot as a grad student, and had no trouble with the concept, in fact they eliminated some red lights that were "the bane of [his] existance" (he's one of those drivers that doesn't like to stop or slow down for... anything). So he was very excited about these roundabouts until...

He was IN the roundabout and a lady coming from one of the streets literally pulled her car into his, caving in the front corner of his car (declared a side hit, not him hitting the front of her car but her front hitting his side).

Verdict? His fault, because he didn't yield. Those two roundabouts, and as he learned later, all roundabouts in BC, unless marked otherwise the spokes have right of way and people in the circle have to yield. This does not work, even there. She just had the balls/idiocy to enforce it with an accident. I've driven around those thousands of times, and if you don't yield from a spoke, you're in an accident (but not at fault, little comfort).

So even a well designed roundabout can turn into a nightmare. But I still prefer them to stop signs or redlights.

There are two kinds of roundabouts: (1) yield before entering, (2) yield while in circle. At one point, Britain had (1) and France (2). Eventually France switched to (1), much to the delight of British patriots (I'm told).

I actually don't understand how (2) can work; don't you eventually end up with gridlock?

My old neighborhood in South Buffalo has three roundabouts [aerial view]. They all work marvelously. Unlike the East Aurora one, they all have stop signs. This works pretty well, as people just slow-and-go at them, making them work just about as well as the yields at the circle in EA.

Note also the housing density in this view.

My understanding is that "old rules" were that the entering traffic has the right of way, but modern roundabouts work the opposite way. It's no surprise that there is confusion.

Wikipedia has a fascinating article on roundabouts. Check out the "turbo roundabout". Interestingly, it cites the Drum Hill Rotary I mentioned, and it also calls out the sidepath suggestion as being especially hazardous for cyclists, citing this German report.

@ejwme - I have to take issue with your statement "she just had the balls/idiocy to enforce it with an accident". If she had the right of way then she's no more to blame than say, a cyclist who "runs into" a car that turned left in front of them.

And, I think either way of yielding "works", but obviously the drivers need to know and follow the rules. Most of the discussion here about roundabouts has been coddling to people who aren't following the rules of the road. Screw them - that is how we ended up with stop signs every 20 feet that no one stops at anyways, and a 35mph road through a park to become a 55mph superhighway in the first place.

My suggestion was more in line with the "Modern Design Guidance" section of that Wikipedia article. But, as I mentioned earlier, it is difficult to convey ideas using words alone (let alone with limited traffic signs). People interpret signs and words in a fraction of a second and then proceed accordingly; not necessarily appropriately.

Just (trying) to catch up on this thread here. Are we talking about the intersection on the uphill side of Phipp's, at that 3-way "stop unless you're coming from the pool direction or turning right towards that direction" intersection?

I ride that one every day going to work (coming from the pool, making a left towards the cloud factory), and I always worry about people who don't ride it every day and aren't used to it. It took me a week or two of riding it to realise I had to come out to the double-yellow way early to avoid right hooks, and even still I have the occasional close call. I think it's one of the worst right-hook spots I know. Nowhere else have I had people try to pass and right-hook me while I was out at the double yellow with my left hand out.

Morningsider My suggestion was more in line with the "Modern Design Guidance" section of that Wikipedia article.

The Modern Design section of that article says "Design guidance for modern roundabouts recommends terminating cycle lanes well before the entrances, so cyclists merge into the stream of motor traffic. Cyclists who lack the confidence to do this may use the footpaths as pedestrians. "

The first part of that is a good idea, in my opinion.

I'm not sure about the business of sidepaths for pedestrians. It might be OK in a place where pedestrians are rarely expected, but still are to have a viable option.

For Schenley? Ugh.

But, unless I'm reading something incorrectly, the suggestion is not what what you were getting at. Note that the sidepaths may be used by cyclists as pedestrians . It doesn't appear to be talking about bike side paths.

That is, if you are a bikers made nervous by riding in normal traffic? Walk and deal with the pedestrian infrastructure.

If I understand correctly you were advocating the sidepath for bike travel. A bike belongs in the traffic, IMO.

alnilam, yea.. they suggested 3 roundabouts in their drawings: one at that 3 way at Phipps with the confusing signs - this one I don't have a problem with, anything would improve that intersection. I also get right hooked here all the time. It amazes me since I'm coming off Panther Hollow going well over 25 mph over that bridge.. where I take the lane for the last half, in order to quash that, and I still have people passing/right hooking me. Insane.

The other two are at the cloverleaf where the pool is and at Greenfield Rd and Panther Hollow. These are the two I am unsure about.

salty - she did have right of way, and my dad should have yielded, you are dead right. But right of way wasn't marked via any signs, and 99% of the vehicles going through those round abouts give the circle the right of way because if they don't, there will be an accident. Since the court case (the insurance companies took each other to court, just to show you how screwy this was, in CANADA, where people aren't so sue happy) the province has marked that the circle has to yield (which the spokes ignore anyway, since they're not interested in getting hit).

I have the balls/idiocy to take my turn at stop signs, but if a car is actively turning in front of me while running a stop sign, I'm not going to speed up and slam into the side of the car simply because it's my turn (exactly what she did to dad). I'm not saying dad was right, he wasn't. But you don't accelerate your vehicle into another one simply because it's your turn, not theirs.

Morningsider - I like the way you put it - people procede according to their split second judgements, not necessarily appropriately. That's why 99% of those two roundabouts yield to the circle despite the signs, they're full of fast moving vehicles and people don't want to get hit.

Interesting side note - in South Korea, financial and legal responsibility for a car accident is at least 20%/80% (I think, though my memory insists it's something weird like 17%, but it's no 0%). Meaning even if your car is parked and you're in bed and asleep, and someone hits it, you are 20% (or 17%, whatever) at fault.

dwillen The other two are at the cloverleaf where the pool is and at Greenfield Rd and Panther Hollow. These are the two I am unsure about.

If they calm traffic enough to make a roundabout feasible in those places, then it will change the character of Pather Hollow Blvd (Blvd of the Allies when it enters the park) something wonderful.

From pseudo-expressway into a nice park drive. Yum!

@Mick - My bike, your bike, and the bikes of 99% of the people reading the board belong on the road. However, we are talking about a park aren't we? And one of the goals of Bike-Pgh is to advocate cycling for everyone (within reason of course), right? Well, most people who are biking for the first time or that just do it on a nice weekend afternoon will have no problem hopping off to walk a path around a big-bad-scary traffic circle. I have no problem taking the lane and pulling a "Pittsburgh Left" at these intersections to get to where I'm going; and I don't expect any changes. But if they are making improvements, they should consider everyone.

I have another question: why are there so many cars going through the park? Is everyone actually going to the park, or is this a thoroughfare for commuters because of the topography and/or infrastructure of the city? If the answer is the latter, then traffic calming would only take a matter of weeks (maybe days) with roundabouts. Once people see they can't do 50 mph through the park, they'll take the Parkway. Right?

@Morningsider: If the inbound Pky East is backed up, you exit at Wilkinsburg, L on South, wiggle over to Forbes, L/R/L at Dallas onto what becomes Beacon thru the park to BlvdAllies, to beat the SqHill Tunnel backup. Cuts easily 10 minutes off the trip into town, esp if you blow through the park at >45.

15 years of living &/or working on the east side of town, you learn every trick in the book.

Many people are cutting through the park to get from Oakland to the freeway onramp in Greenfield. If you sit at the Greenfield Bridge at rush hour, you can see both the freeway backed up and the line of left turning cars on the bridge itself, waiting to turn to go get on that backed up freeway. It is also faster than sitting at stoplights on Forbes for those who live in Sq. Hill and beyond. Panther Hollow is a road with a passing lane, only one stoplight and no speed enforcement. Sounds pretty good when the freeway is a parking lot.

There are also hundreds of people who use the park as a free parking lot while they're at work. They park on Overlook drive, Schenley Drive, and in the little playground parking spot. Not sure how to fix that. I suspect meters that cost 25 cents an hour during the workweek and have a 3 hour limit would probably solve a lot.

Mick, I think that's the intention. I don't know where the traffic will go, though. If I'm driving home from downtown by car, the BofA, PHR, Beacon, etc is about 13-16 minutes. The parkway is hours. Forbes is 35 minutes and would certainly get much worse with just a tiny bit more traffic. The busses that use Forbes would get caught up in the traffic just the same as the cars do. I think that if they build two roundabouts like that, the PHR/Greenfield one will back up, some people will go up and over Overlook, some people will go around to Schenley Dr and then up through the golf course, and pretty quickly that roundabout at Schenley/PHR will gridlock. People will get off the Blvd at Forbes, but then Forbes will back up all the way down to the Blvd, so people will bypass it and try to use Haliket or Dawson or something to get back to Forbes farther along into Oakland... Ugliness.

I'm not sure how I feel about this idea. I think it's important to the health of the city that city residents should be able to get downtown as easily as suburbanites, if not easier. If travel between Squirrel Hill and downtown gets a whole lot worse, that's going to make living in the suburbs more attractive, and there goes your tax base.

dwillen, what's so bad about parking in the park during the workday? Those cars have to go somewhere, and that way they're not jamming up oakland cruising for a space. Meters would probably get vandalized.

I can't believe that they would be cruising Oakland looking for a metered spot if they park in the park on a daily basis and no longer could (it is the same set of cars there everyday). If these people didn't have free parking, maybe they would take the bus? Or get a garage lease.

When I think of a park, I don't think of a commuter parking lot+thoroughfare. If meters don't work, throw up some 4-hour limit signs, and chalk some tires. Commuters probably wouldn't park there anymore.

I have a coworker that lives on Beacon in Sq. Hill.. drives to Overlook Drive, parks, and walks to work. I can't figure that one out for the life of me, but I can promise this person would take the free bus (or bike!) everyday, rather than the free parking, if the free parking wasn't available anymore.

where would the cars go? They have to go somewhere? Back into their owners' garages, and the people in them would go on buses. No parking, less traffic.

How awesome would it be if they calmed all the traffic and the public clamoured for MORE public transit funding for more route options?

I know a lot of the cars parked in Schenley are CMU/Pitt commuter students. I use to take the bus (and had to pay) back in the day, but a lot of my friends would park there.

Get 50,000 warm bodies, who currently do not use public transit, to buy an annual pass, and PAT's deficit evaporates. They don't have to ride, just buy the fare. (~50Kbodies x ~$1K fare = ~ $50M deficit erased)

Annual fare: $1K (approx)

Annual cost of one car: $5K-$10K

The financial incentive of putting people on transit is already there, by almost an order of magnitude. The TDP is making the system efficient, now we just have to get people out of cars and onto the system.

But it still doesn't resolve the fundamental problem here, namely whether you're passed by 100 cars going 50 mph through the park or 130 cars going 50 mph through the park.

Speed-detecting cameras and mailed fines would work, I think.

I'm thinking that Blvd/Panther Hollow road should be reduced to one lane of automobile traffic in each direction starting at Dawson, with nice dedicated bike paths on each side, except for turning lanes at Greenfield/Bartlett, and maybe Overlook. And Greenfield should be clearly striped as one lane, each way, the whole way down the hill to the bridge. There is no reason for this 4 lane highway through there, it just gets people to the backed-up intersections, faster. Any chance this "study" proposed that? I didn't look at it.

Not seeing a reason for roundabouts, lots of money, little gain.

I'm guessing that the 4-lane capacity of Panther Hollow Blvd is much more than is used at rush hour. When I rode through there on a bus twice a day at rush hour, I don't remember things being backed up in the park - ever.

I think roundabouts "slowing people down" might not back up traffic. The time to go a mile or so though through the park at 60 mph is only a few seconds faster than at 30 mph.

Of course, the first few days with a roundabout will lead to traffic clogs and fender benders. Once people get used to traffic flows it could improve. They cynic in me hears squealiing tires as the roundabouts get navigated at 50 mph.

There are trails through that area and it's important to have good pedestrian access. That pedestrian access should be part of whatever design is done. I'm guessing it would not be a roundabout sidepath, though. More like an expansion of the paths they have now, like the tunnel under PHB.

I would be in favor af any reasonable scheme to limit parking in the park to users of the park. If this would push people to mass transit, so much the better.

And they re-visit the design of Schenley Plaza back into a more automobile oriented configuration? WTF!?! We have a large ped friendly lawn and they want to go back to an autocentric design so they can regain "axial symmetry"? Fking A$$hats.

Granted, the study may have been prior to the reconfiguration of the plaza, but really, they better not seriously be thinking about going there.

Yea, they published that thing back in 2000, the plaza was renovated in 2004–2006. Glad it didn't go down like they planned.

It sounds like there are lots of opinions that could be really constructive if everyone attends the workshop (although I'm sure more would go if they didn't give it a cheesy name like workshop). I guess I'll RSVP and plan on attending. Who knows, we could have a say in creating a decent park.

The more helmets that show up, the better.

The real question that needs to be asked, for anyone not going through the park but not to the park itself, is "Why are you in a car in the first place?"

The tamest car is a parked one. Best off left in one's driveway.

I've RSVPed. I think having people who live 300 yards from one of the proposed roundabout site will be a good thing.

I like Edmunds idea of changing the speedways into appropriate roads by putting bike lanes in. That has worked well with the bridge on Schenley drive. It's so much cheaper than other modifications Some minor traffic calming strategies would be good, too.

A roundabout instead of the killer three-way in front of Phipps is probably called for.

I really like the diagram at the bottom of this page:

http://www.alaskaroundabouts.com/mythfact2.html

Another really good point about roundabouts is that since they are more efficient and smooth at moving traffic than signals or four-way stops, the roads between roundabouts can handle a higher capacity without needing to be widened. This makes the overall system more bicycle-friendly.

@johnwheffner - There is a cautionary but positive discussion about bikes/peds and roundabouts from that page [link].

One thing that is true is that roundabouts are murder for blind pedestrians.

For a detailed discussion that includes references to original studies regarding roundabouts and cyclist safety please refer to this publication from the US DoT (pp. 120-121).

If you don't want to download it, what I retained from reading it is: the UK studies on roundabouts indicate they are far more dangerous for bikes compared to signaled intersections. The most striking difference is when you look at "flared" roundabouts, those designed with flared lanes as you enter the roundabout (to increase traffic flow), have 7.85 bike crashes per million trips. Signaled intersections have only 1.75 bike crashes per million trips. Ouch. Not sure what sort of roundabout they'd put in on Panther Hollow, but I'm guessing they'll put traffic flow above bike safety.

A single french study indicates that all accidents and severe accidents go overall go down, but proportionally, accidents involving two wheeled vehicles (relative to four wheeled vehicles) go up, compared to signaled intersections, and they are proportionally more severe compared to those at signaled intersections. And apparently, like anything having to do with bike infrastructure, if you want to do it right, go ask the Dutch for some pointers.

Get 50,000 warm bodies, who currently do not use public transit, to buy an annual pass, and PAT's deficit evaporates. They don't have to ride, just buy the fare.

Sure, if they don't ride. But if they do ride, then PAT needs more funding from the state because, as I understand it, the fares aren't sufficient to cover the costs of moving the people. Is that not true? What would happen if PAT got a few thousand more riders between 7-9 and 5-6:30 spread over, oh, ten routes.

Of course, even before the roundabout is built, the construction will close that intersection, so I guess we'd see the worst case well in advance.

Might be interesting to put a temporary roundabout in there for a month before committing to the construction. I bet that there's room to build one with jersey barriers, barrels, and paint.

@dwillen - That is a very interesting article. Thanks for posting it. I noticed that some 77% of crashes in the UK were "failure to yield by entering vehicle". I'd bet that when the vehicle in the circle is a bicycle, the rate of yielding goes way down.

At a signalized intersection, motorists don't yield to the cyclist so much as they yield to the signal. When the signal isn't there, it's just the law of the jungle.

Exhibit 5-17 claims that bicyclists have a lower accident rate at signalized intersections than motorcyclists do. !@#$% scofflaw motorcyclists.

Something I saw in California on what I would call "highways" (no idea where, SF or SD probably, it's been a while), where traffic lights on highway onramps. That way people didn't just barrel their way through en masse and slow down the whole highway because a green light happened .2 miles back. It was one car per green, and the green allowed the car to YIELD and merge (if the highway was too busy and the light turned green, they still had to yield). When there was no traffic (not rush), the light just stayed green and it was a normal onramp.

Maybe it could be something like that... signaled yielding? Crazy californians do it, it can't be that hard. I'm not saying perfect imitation of what I'm describing, but maybe there's something we could pick out from them and the Dutch and mix it up to make sense for the intersections in question.

They do that all over the country (except for PA, I guess?). It is meant to reduce congestion. There is very marginal benefit, from most studies I've seen. Most of the time the light turns green and people zoom to the end of the onramp to join the long line of parked cars on the freeway. At least the middle of the onramp isn't congested.

In this case I think it would be worse for pedestrians and cyclists cause people driving will be more worried about the light than looking to see if the coast is clear.

Good meeting today. Lots of folks interested in making the streets through and connecting to the park more livable. Happy to see lots of Bike Pittsburghers there and even met ejwme which was fun to put a face to a name.

I ended up sending the following links to the Parks Conservancy and City Planning of what NYC just did on Prospect Park West which I think is fantastic.

watch: http://ow.ly/2YdbU

results: http://bit.ly/cimCoN

Traffic circles elsewhere:

http://azbikelaw.org/blog/ahwatukee-traffic-circle-updates/

The (unscientific, for entertainment value only) poll at ahwatukee.com says "traffic circles should go: people here don't know how to use them."

But the residents of one neighborhood are happy with theirs and want to keep it:

Wilcoxon said that since the temporary roundabout was installed in July 2009, speeding has dropped significantly, from 21.7 percent of vehicles observed by city staff to only 1.7 percent.

Here's a picture of the nifty temporary roundabout they built to prototype the thing.

A commenter at azbikelaw last year wrote: The location monitoring lines across the road to measure the speed and volume of traffic is flawed also; they are located very close to the traffic circle. If they were located farther west on Equestrian, I would guess that the speed has not decreased much, if at all.

Seems like a reasonable point.

My god those roads in AZ look horrible. What is with those fenced in neighborhoods? I've never been to AZ, and I'm hesitant to write off anyplace on the planet as somewhere I would never care to go, but the more I know about the place, yuckk. I guess people go there to golf and die, and I don't golf, so.

That is very common out west. That is the burbs, and most of those giant burb houses have swimming pools. Most places have a law that you need a 6 or 7 foot solid fence with a latching/locking gate if you have a swimming pool. Even if there isn't a law, do you really want to be sitting out by your expensive burb swimming pool on display for all the traffic?

Phoenix is simultaneously one of the most beautiful and most ugly places I have ever been if that makes any sense at all.

It just looks like what I imagine suburban Baghdad would have looked like, you know, pre-2003.

It just occurred to me how much I miss Edward Abbey.

Phoenix/Tempe has an awesome Desert Botanical Garden.

Another interesting web site that seems to be focussed on traffic lights.

http://www.fitroads.com/

@Pseudacris, Their botanical garden is indeed awesome and even has bike lanes / trails leading to it and the zoo. Tempe was pretty rad in general, a bustling business district, bike infrastructure, a light rail into downtown and it's near South Mountain Park.