BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Traffic is just about horrible by this point. Bellefield has been reduced to nearly a parking lot, so you may want to find a different street if you had planned on that.

But! Cars are typically going at speeds slower than bikes are.

True, but given the lack of paint on the roads, and, at least this morning, the fact that DPW was stripping and milling the road during rush hour, things were Extra-Special Crazy(tm).

Mental note to avoid this way that I would usually take towards East Liberty.

I think heading outbound through Oakland would be okay, assuming you use Forbes Avenue, as I don't think they are working on that. You just need to avoid that stretch of Fifth/Bellefonte.

That said, I could be wrong.

(Best Thread Title of the Year!)

When you say Bellefonte, do you mean Bellefield?

^^^ Yes, I do. Duh.

Just making sure, because they both intersect with Fifth though not both in Oakland.

Roads without lines. How do they work?

The title of this thread is a lot better than the one I was going to post.

Oh god that was terrible. I just rode from Shadyside down Ellsworth to Fifth to class in Oakland, and back. There are some terrrrible drivers out there.

Drove down it yesterday on my way home from work and for once I was glad I wasn't on the motorcycle. The road surface, amount of debris and dust of the road, and the fact that drivers think a road without lines means anything is game would have probably ended poorly for me.

The project extends at least from Morewood to Bellefield, and possibly back farther into Shadyside. There was a middle yellow stripe painted as of this morning (September 28, 2011) but no white lane dividers that I saw.

Blew out a car tire on a pothole on Zulema St. yesterday morning. I can't imagine riding in on a spare helped my trade in value when I took my car to the dealership in the evening.

Being a stubborn idiot, I took my usual route this morning. DPW definitely swept the road surface, so it wasn't terrible, but there are still no white lines painted. That seemed to be less of an issue this morning, though traffic was a bit lighter since many schools are on holiday.

And the road work does extend on beyond Morewood.

For some reason (i has the dumb?), I didn't remember this thread when I decided to go this way to get to a building on Pitt's campus today. It was... regrettable.

OT, but the result of my decision to go down Fifth this morning: further down Fifth, I stopped at a red light at the intersection with Tennyson - and then suddenly some guy in a suit on the sidewalk sort of blurted out, "You're the first cyclist I've ever seen stopping at a red light! Good work!" No sarcasm, he just seemed really amazed. I was caught off guard and just said something like "Oh, really? Well, I think more of them should," so I probably could have done more to take advantage of this as a rehabilitating-his-image-of-cyclists moment, but it was still an interesting interaction. I still don't understand how it was possible that he'd *never* seen such a thing... but then again, if Oakland is the main place where he sees cyclists, I guess he has had experience with a strange sample. (My feeling about the behavior of students on bikes in Oakland can be summarized by this thread title, hah.)

@atleastmykids too bad the quote is "All hope abandon ye who enter here"

@dmtroyer: too bad the quote is actually "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate." [*]

Signor Alighieri was emphatically NOT English.

welp, chalk that up to humbling embarrassing moment of the day #4

@dmtroyer: If you're only up to #4, you're having a much better day than I.

--Dan "Egregious Pedantry is my middle name" Blumenfeld

Update: a base layer of tarmac was put down overnight (or, at least prior to the morning rush). Some of the utility covers still jut up quite a bit, and the intersections have no transitions between new and old, but the surface is much better.

Okay, last update. Tarmac is finished and lines are painted. It looks like the right hand lane in front of St. Paul's has been narrowed a bit (it used to be fairly wide to accommodate cars parked in front of the church), so be aware things might be a bit tighter than before.

It looks like the right hand lane in front of St. Paul's has been narrowed a bit (it used to be fairly wide to accommodate cars parked in front of the church), so be aware things might be a bit tighter than before.

I haven't noticed that so much but I have definitely noticed the absence of the terribly-potholed road surface. At least for now...

So when do the sharrows get installed?

Perhaps the narrow lane means parking on Sundays and shared lane every other day? Is there a shortage on sharrow stencils or a shortage of staff to paint?

Can we paint our own sharrows? I know the answer is no, but it is nice to wish.

So, lines were painted, removed, and repainted over the weekend. At least between Craig and Bellefield, the lanes are now as they were (wide right lane in front of St. Paul's).

Of course, you can still see the old lines, so doubtless that some drivers will be a bit confused.

The new surface of fifth is so nice. Haven't ridden it on a bicycle yet...However, it is extra slippery in the rain on a motorcycle. At least it's straight.

Why did they remove the painted lines and then repaint them?

They screwed up the first time.

I guess we should be happy about that. In days past, if it went down it stayed down, no matter how wrong it was.

@stu: That used to be my exact philosophy with regards to food and drink whilst pub-crawling.

Wow, the afternoon rush was a total mess. Some vehicles used the "old" lanes while others used the "new" lanes. Total bedlam.

Also, Dan wins the thread.

Also, Dan wins the thread.

There is empirical evidence that his position is incorrect, though!

@Mick: Generally, by the time such evidence materialized, I was in no condition to quantify the counterfactuals.

Ha ha!

I noticed this morning that they finally painted the cross walk and stop line at Dallas and Reynolds but they screwed up there and painted black over the first stop bar.

At lunchtime today, I saw a guy on a skateboard taking the lane going inbound on Fifth Avenue by Rodef Shalom. Way to go! Try doing that on any other (potholed) street in the city!

maybe they can put black paint over the old lines. coming past there today cars seemed so confused with the multiple lines in the road.

@ mr marvelous coming past there today cars seemed so confused

+1

Usually I think of the space in front of St Paul's as a short respite from the traffic combat of 5th. Not right now, though, with confused cars weaving back and forth.

You know your countries drivers license requirements are too easy when a large portion of drivers get confused by fully distinguishable road markings and road markings that are halfway painted over and obviously not correct.

+1