There’s a little blurb referring to us and the Bike/Ped Coordinator position in bold below.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007
By Joe Grata, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Anybody who has done a fair amount of driving in recent weeks should be well aware by now: ‘Tis the season. For potholes.

The combination of freeze-thaw temperatures and above average rainfall thus far could not create a better recipe for unraveling asphalt on main highways that have not been paved for some time, and a whole bunch of secondary roads.

Look at developing cracks, especially at joints and along pavement edges, and you get the feeling this will be a banner year for potholes. And winter arrived only three days ago.

“Our road surfaces are tender,” a PennDOT engineer recently told me. For sure.

The last several years have not produced nearly as many potholes as the past, when the region unceremoniously bore “Pothole Capital of the World” notoriety.

Trucks, especially big ones, that run over ponded water and puddles of water cause the most damage. The dy namics of the weight and speed of their large tires create a hydraulic-like force that, in essence, blasts apart asphalt and concrete tenderized by the freeze-thaw cycle.

Route 51, Business Route 22 around Monroeville, parts of Interstate 70 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike between New Stanton and Allegheny Valley — especially the “truck lane” — are among major roads where drivers have already started to play a dangerous game of dodge ’em.

• • • •

Open the HOV? Bill Trathowen thinks lifting the two-to-a-vehicle occupancy restriction on the Interstate 279/579 HOV lanes would help ease traffic when PennDOT closes the Boulevard of Allies outbound east of the Birmingham Bridge for 11 months of work starting Jan. 3.

“It’s a consideration for those of us who work in Oakland but who live north of Pittsburgh,” he said. “Our only alternative will be to use the Sixth Avenue Exit off of Veterans Memorial Bridge. I can imagine the traffic backup.”

By opening the HOV, North Hills drivers could exit at Bedford Avenue, pass Mellon Arena and drop down to Forbes Avenue to head to Oakland in the morning.

“This would be counter to the intended purpose of the HOV lanes,” PennDOT District 11 traffic engineer Todd Kravits responded. “We would waive the occupancy requirement under extreme circumstances such as an accident or emergency closure of I-279, but only as a short-term measure.”

He suggested Mr. Trathowen find a carpool partner, a good idea for lots of people who will discover the new challenges of getting to Oakland when PennDOT resumes building the new “gateway.”

Incidentally, Sixth Avenue Exit is not the only alternative. PennDOT suggests continuing on I-279 to I-376 (Parkway East) and using the Oakland/Forbes Avenue Exit.

• • • •

Ride on! City legislation quietly passed early this month authorized Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to enter into agreement with the Richard King Mellon Foundation to fund a bike-pedestrian coordinator position for the first time.

The grant covers a two-year salary and fringe benefits for the person selected to oversee the fast-growing movement in a place once rated one of the nation’s most unfriendly cities to bicyclists.

“This is a huge step for the city,” declared an e-mail on Bike Pittsburgh’s Web site, www.bike-pgh.org . “Whoop! Whoop!” a blogger added.

As part of its 250th anniversary next year, Pittsburgh will be the finish line in June for “Tour Pennsylvania,” an internationally televised race for cyclists from around the world. They’ll be starting in Philadelphia, competing for $250,000 in prizes as they make their way through Western Pennsylvania.

Although some nitwit drivers out there think they own it, remember to “Share The Road.”

• • • •

A misnomer? Mark Lape, of Green Tree, who passes the $37 million construction site on his way to work, wonders: Why is the 1,050-space parking garage and Greyhound Line bus station being called the Grant Street Transportation Center?

“If I’m not mistaken, the building is flanked by Penn Avenue on one side and Liberty Avenue on the other side,” he e-mailed. “The front faces 11th Street, and the back, 12th Street. How does Grant Street play into this?”

Unlike something akin to the New York Port Authority transportation center in Midtown Manhattan, which ties together multiple transportation services, Mr. Lape raised several points about Pittsburgh’s new center, among them:

• There’s no direct connection to the Amtrak Station on the other side of Liberty Avenue. People will be forced to walk across a busy street.

• The Port Authority’s light-rail stop at the Downtown end of the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway, also across the street, is a seldom used, vestige of the T, and no effort is being made to make it relevant and useful.

• The center does not take advantage of tying out-of-county buses, such as those of the Beaver County, Westmoreland County and Mid-Mon Valley transit authorities, to one location . “No other city forces you to know every downtown point in order to leave the city for an outlying area,” Mr. Lape said.

• No allowances are being made for bicycle parking or bicycle storage at the center.

“I understand these may be small matters,” he wrote, “but am I the only person who notices or cares about this stuff?”

Probably. It’s a ‘Burgh thing.

Joe Grata can be reached at jgrata@post-gazette.com.
First published on December 25, 2007 at 12:00 am