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Pittsburgh’s growing network of on-street bike markings

Since 2007, we’ve worked with the City to install a number of on-street bike markings, which include bike lanes and shared lane markings, or “sharrows.” The above map shows the installation of these facilities in the order that they were put in.

The map shows the growing connections that are made by these on-street markings. Sometimes, the road is too narrow, or the project is too costly, so the City uses sharrows to establish the route and connection.  Eventually, similar to what happened on Liberty Ave in Bloomfield, the sharrows may become legit bike lanes, assuming there is physical space, money and political will for change.

The above map also assumes the completion of two projects that are still under construction. While the sharrows were installed over the past couple weeks, we’re still waiting on the bike lanes through the Northside, as well as bike lanes on Millvale Ave and Neville St in Bloomfield and North Oakland, respectively.

The below info was taken from the BikePGH History page. Enjoy.

1983 – Beechwood Blvd had an early bike lane installed.  The lane didn’t conform to current standards of bike lanes, and was treated as a parking lane. There was also a marked path around Highland Park

Spring 2007 – BikePGH’s work gave the city our first commuter-oriented bike lanes and shared lane markings on Liberty Ave in Bloomfield/Lawrenceville

September 2007 Bike Pittsburgh and PennDOT worked together to install bike lanes on the popular Birmingham Bridge. This is also the first use in the City of Pittsburgh of a “blue” bike lane, a method used in many bicycle-friendly cities to help cyclists cross intersections

August 2008 Bike Pittsburgh and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl announce the creation and hiring of a new city position, the Bike/Ped Coordinator. This is the first one in the State of Pennsylvania

October 2008 Bike Pittsburgh and the City work together to give East Liberty Blvd Pittsburgh’s first safety-improving “road diet.” One lane of car traffic was removed to allow for a bicycle-only lane

May 2009 Bike Lanes installed on Wightman and Beacon Sts in Squirell Hill

August 2009 Sharrows installed on Pittsburgh’s most famous road, Penn Ave through the Strip District connecting to the Liberty Ave bike lanes

September 2009 Bike lanes and sharrows installed on Forbes Ave in Squirrel Hill.  This needed “backbone” connects S Braddock Ave to Carnegie Mellon University

November 2010 Bike lanes get installed on Wilkins Ave, Sharrows on Highland Ave

November 2010 Bike lanes, sharrows get installed on Dallas Ave and Hamilton Ave expanding the East End Bike Network

September 2011 With the help from BikePGH, the City installs legit bike lanes on Liberty Ave in Bloomfield, where there were once only sharrows (see Spring 2007 above). This is significant because it shows how sharrows can be used to easily establish a street as a bikeway, paving the way for more complex (and expensive) bike lanes.

November 2011 The Northside neighborhood sees their first on-street bike lanes and sharrows

December 2011 The popular Liberty Ave bike lanes branch off to markings on Millvale Ave, Friendship Ave, Neville St, and Ellsworth making connections between Bloomfield and East Liberty, Oakland, and Shadyside

When you add in the trails, the connections become even clearer. It also shows the areas that are lacking connections, most notably, a clear connection to the trail.  There is also an obvious gap between the eastern cluster and western cluster of markings.  We look forward to continuing this work with the City to make a truly seamless network.

On-street bike markings in green, trails in blue. Click to make bigger.

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Help us reach 2012 members by 2012 and unlock $2012 in matching!! Join today! We need 250 more members by the end of the year! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership