By Matthew Santoni, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, August 8, 2009

Pittsburgh officials aim to add bike lanes or shared-lane markings to as many as 10 streets by February, starting with lines painted on Penn Avenue in the Strip District this week.

Public Works crews were painting “sharrows” — shared-lane arrows with the outline of a bike — in the right lane of Penn Avenue between 32nd and 16th streets, said Stephen Patchan, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.

Crews on Friday morning reached 26th Street, but when the work is complete, cyclists will be able to follow lanes almost entirely from Liberty Avenue at Baum Boulevard in Shadyside to the edge of Downtown through the Strip, with only three blocks of unmarked lanes in Lawrenceville.

“It adds a little structure to that share-the-road message,” Patchan said. “Cyclists tend to bike with more confidence and stay in their lane, and motorists can still pass with the left lane.”

Drivers should yield to cyclists in the shared lane, and cyclists should ride through the center of the arrows to avoid the “door zone” where they can be hit by doors opening on parked cars, he said.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl wants the city to earn a “bike friendly” rating from the Washington-based League of American Bicyclists by 2010 and plans to apply for the designation in February, Patchan said.

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