By Karen Price
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 23, 2007

Commuting by bicycle in Pittsburgh is about to get a lot easier for those needing to get from downtown and Oakland to the South Side.

Wednesday is the grand opening of the Hot Metal Bridge pedestrian and bicycle bridge, which will allow safe, non-motorized transportation between the South Side portion of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail and the Eliza Furnace Trail between Oakland and downtown.

“It’s really important; it provides a really well-thought out connection between two trails and a part of the South Side that wasn’t accessible before without having to ride on the streets,” said Scott Bricker of Bike Pittsburgh, an advocacy group working toward making the city more bicycle friendly. “It’s about having connections and staying car-free.”

Cyclists making the commute before were forced to compete with cars and trucks for space on the narrow, two-lane bridge over the Monongahela River that gets heavily congested at rush hours.

The connection is also part of the Great Allegheny Passage, the nearly-complete 150-mile trail linking downtown to Cumberland, Md. There the trail meets the C&O Canal Towpath and continues on to Washington, D.C.

It also creates a six-mile loop in which runners, walkers and cyclists can go from the South Side, across the Smithfield Street Bridge, onto the Eliza Furnace Trail and across the Hot Metal Bridge back to the South Side.

“We’ve been waiting 15 years for our first loop, and this is it,” said Tom Baxter, executive director of Friends of the Riverfront.

Baxter said that based on their trail usage estimates, more than 400 cyclists and pedestrians will use the bridge every day.

“That’s pretty good, and that number could go up once people find out it’s there,” Baxter said.

The Hot Metal Bridge is really two bridges in one, and the conversion of one to a bike and pedestrian bridge began eight years ago. The project cost $10 million and was paid for by various government sources as well as local sponsorships, Baxter said.

Bricker said that a key feature of the bridge is that it features overhead lightning.

“This is a good start that this new facility actually thought of nighttime biking, which is a big concern this time of year,” he said.

The ribbon cutting ceremony is at noon on the Second Avenue side of the bridge. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl will attend and then lead an open ride/walk across the bridge to REI in the SouthSide Works for coffee and hot chocolate.

In other bicycle access news, the Birmingham Bridge now has buffered bike lanes that are six feet wide with a two-foot buffer between the outside of the bike lane and the inside of the travel lane. The recently-reopened 31st Street Bridge also now has a wide shared-use sidewalk meant for pedestrians and cyclists to allow easier access to Herr’s Island.

Karen Price can be reached at kprice@tribweb.com or 412-320-7980.