Your input is needed – Help make East Liberty safer!

UPDATE: DOMI will be hosting a public meeting regarding this plan on May 2nd, 6pm at Kingdom Light Ministries. See more details here.

After a robust community engagement process, Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) recently published their “Pedestrian & Traffic Safety Plan” for priority corridors in East Liberty. BikePGH applauds DOMI for their hard work to develop this thoughtful and comprehensive plan that, when implemented, will make great progress towards realizing the City’s Bike (+) and Pedestrian Safety Action Plans, while working towards the necessary goal of zero traffic fatalities. Read on to learn more about the plan, what we’re most excited about, our recommendations for further action, and how you can show your support.

What’s this plan for East Liberty about?

A priority corridor is a heavily trafficked route that’s key for mobility of all kinds: people who walk, bike, bus, use a wheelchair or mobility aid, and drive.

The 5 priority corridors in East Liberty include:

• Penn Ave
• Centre Ave
• Negley Ave
• East Liberty Blvd
• Highland Ave

These corridors are long overdue for upgrades to make them safer, especially for people who walk and bike. According to DOMI, “A Data driven traffic crash analysis has revealed that the East Liberty neighborhood has three times the number of pedestrian crashes per 1,000 residents than the city average and hence need immediate attention. These corridors account for 77% of the total crashes in the area:

• 93% of pedestrian crashes
• 86% of bicycle crashes
• 82% of serious injury crashes”

We are glad to see that the engineers and planners at DOMI used the City’s Complete Streets Policy to guide their development of The East Liberty Priority Corridors Pedestrian & Traffic Safety Plan to address this major public safety issue. The Department solicited over 450 community responses, held focus groups with local stakeholders, and conducted an extensive traffic & safety study to inform their designs, which will help make East Liberty’s priority corridors safer for all users.

From the City’s Engage Page for this project: “The purpose is to prioritize various safety and mobility improvement projects that the community has identified for the coming years. This mobility plan will act as a blueprint for the future transportation investments of the neighborhood and will ensure the City is prioritizing projects already developed in close collaboration with the community.”

This plan will serve as a blueprint for local bike & pedestrian advocacy groups including BikePGH to work towards through advocacy efforts. There’s a lot to be excited about, and a few things that could be added or improved. Now is the time to ensure the blueprint reflects what we want, so that we can work with the city to make it actually happen.

Read on for our thoughts on what we are most excited to see and what we think could be improved. 

What do YOU  think about this plan? What do you like, and what would you like to see more of? Share your thoughts in the comments, and more importantly share your thoughts with DOMI by taking the survey at the bottom of this page! The city is accepting online comments until 05/12/2023.

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Love to see it

We like a lot of what we see in this plan. Read on for some highlights, and click the links to go to specific pages in the plan (reference #’s in parentheses).

• New bike lanes! [Examples: Highland Ave (5), Penn Ave (4)]
• Protecting bike lanes at intersections, and extending them past vehicle turning lane to increase visibility of/for cyclists. [Example: E Liberty Blvd @ Larimer (2)]
• Innovative infrastructure such as the raised bike lane at the bus stop on Centre Ave near Beatty (7), which makes it easier for bus riders to alight while maintaining the bike lane.
• Thoughtful intersection redesigns along E Liberty Blvd, especially floating bus stops that form protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges. [Examples: E Liberty Blvd @ Euclid (7), Centre (8), Larimer (3)]
• Raised intersections and crosswalks that bring the street up to sidewalk level. This makes crossing safer for pedestrians, especially people using mobility aids, and it slows traffic. [Examples: Negley @ Friendship Ave, Coral St (2,3), Highland @ Broad St (9), E Liberty Blvd @ Sheridan (5)]

• Pedestrian refuges that allow pedestrians to take a break when crossing wide and busy intersections. [Example: Negley @ Broad (4), E Liberty Blvd @ Euclid (6)]
• Curb extensions to shorten crosswalks and slow vehicle turns [Example: Negley @ Penn (2)]
• Right-sizing our streets by removing turn lanes that promote unsafe maneuvers, adding buffers between driving and biking lanes, widening/adding bike lanes, and removing travel lanes to reduce speed. [Example: Negley from Rural to E Liberty Blvd (3, 4, 5), Penn @ E Liberty Blvd (4), Centre @ E Liberty Blvd (1)]
• Adding diverters to reduce traffic at key intersections. [Examples: Penn @ Beatty (7), Whitfield (1)]

• Speed reduction on E Liberty Blvd (see here)
• “No turn on red” signage to reduce crashes with pedestrians and cyclists at intersections with low visibility. [Example: E Liberty Blvd @ Hamilton (3)]
• Improved signaling at intersections throughout the area to direct all users safely

Opportunities for improvement

There are also some important additions and revisions we would like to see made to this plan.

• Add protection to bike lanes wherever possible, especially along Negley Ave and Penn Ave. This could be as simple as adding concrete barriers or flex posts in the painted buffers already proposed in many portions of this plan.
• Consistency of design. In some places, such as East Liberty Blvd, how the bike lane interacts with the intersection changes nearly every block. 
• Maximize protected intersections. Although we appreciate the idea behind mixing zones / floating bike lanes at intersections to reduce the threat of right-hook turns by drivers to bikers, they can be uncomfortable for cyclists (see Negley and Baum, Highland and E Liberty). We’d prefer to see protected bike lanes against the curb with a barrier between the turn lane and the bike lane such as at Larimer & E Liberty Blvd (2) or Centre & Euclid (1). This would also promote consistency, so that users are not confronted with multiple different styles of intersections.

• Place buffers between moving cars and the bike lane whenever possible, especially on E Liberty Blvd and curves. There are several areas along E Liberty Blvd especially where cars don’t usually park, and a larger buffer between moving cars and the bike lane is warranted.
• Paint bike lane intersection stop bars ahead of the automobile stop bars, or include bike boxes to encourage bikes getting in front of turning videos. The proposal for Penn Ave and E Liberty Blvd (8) is a good example of this, and we’d like to see more.
• Consider safety improvements for bicyclists making left turns such as at Shady & Penn.
• Create more pedestrian refuge islands where possible.
• Further improvements at Centre & Penn due to the unusual angle of the streets. We propose reducing travel lanes on Penn at Centre to one, increasing the curb bumpout on the south corner, and giving pedestrians a true refuge island.

• Add continuous, raised sidewalks across small cross streets such as Penn & Sheridan, Sprit.
• Remove parking on Highland between Centre & Penn because people see parking between Baum and Penn and think they can park on the rest of the block, forcing people who bike to dodge parked cars and enter oncoming traffic.
• Better lighting at crosswalks, especially at wide intersections such as at Penn & Negley so that all portions of the intersection are well-lit.