BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Oddly, this came up in my conversation with the former traffic engineer for the city last Sunday. He said that the issue came up before, and everyone said it would take ten years to get permissions etc. So nothing was done. That was fifteen years ago. So it is a complex issue that requires a lot of work, but if we don't start it it will never get done. I'll see if I can put you in touch with him...

It's quicker, and ultimately cheaper to have a flyover bridge over or portal tunnel under the railroad. Before you ask them the question, their response is No and the feds are on their side.

Having no money, that I understand, though I guess I'd like to know how much money we're actually talking about since this is such a heavily utilized area so overdue for improvement. 10 years?? That I don't understand at all. sloaps, what on earth do you mean the feds are on their side?

It's my general assumption that the city isn't going to go out of its way for cyclists, there just aren't enough of us. My general thought process is that any improvements had better be cheap (paint), or clearly beneficial for other uses of the infrastructure, chiefly walking/jogging.

Eliminating a nasty little bottleneck/dipsy doodle would create a more continuous and far nicer transition from park to trail that would benefit all users. So, I think this qualifies, but again, I have a lot of things on my wish list. Just trying to get an idea of relative costs.

It takes 10 years because anything involving changes to the railroad takes that long, as I understand. I don't think that means it's impossible or not worth doing.

from the link: "The railroad, in its commitment to employee and public safety, is firmly opposed to the establishment of any grade crossing. Both federal and state government policies discourage the creation of new grade crossings." Not only are the feds on their side, so is Harrisburg.

That sounds more like never than 10 years. It also makes prospects of a first class connection from the pond to junction hollow substantially dimmer. SIGH.

Do we have an idea of flyover height requirements and costs? I think a tunnel would be friendlier, but making a tunnel without undermining support for a train sounds much more difficult/expensive/political than a flyover.

Ask the Steel Valley Trail peeps how much those flyovers by kennywood cost. Maybe we can browbeat UPMC into modifying their private parking lot for their private transit system to accommodate a flyover crossing?

Where is that UPMC lot you're mentioning?

Isn't that a UPMC lot back there? I don't think it's a Pitt lot.

I had never paid attention to how the lot was divided because I've only parked there twice and there were spots then where I was looking, by the trail.

But, I see a transportation solutions van in the street view, which, quick googling suggests UPMC. So, you're exactly right.

Anyone know what the big shed is for?

I think the Steel Valley Trail bridges were a few million each.

This PDF from Montana suggests a minimum clearance for a bridge over a railroad is 7 meters from the top of the rail. That's 23 feet, but the SVT bridges seem higher than that to me.

Hey there, I happen to be a bridge engineer interested in the same question. I'm putting together a study to answer the "how much does it cost" question for every potential pedestrian/bikeway bridge in the city. If you can instruct me how to place a PDF, like Steven did, I'll show you the executive summary.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that sounds prohibitively expensive to me. Then again, how much is this used vs. the steel valley trail bridges? It's a real non rhetorical question, I've just never been out there.

Regardless, I feel like I should not be at a loss for potentially cheaper ideas. Let me float this... there are... three tight lanes is it on that little stretch? How about make it two lanes and a much wider (bidirectional without the even worse squeeze at the corners) area for pedestrians/bikes?

What that still doesn't solve is the frankly terrible little situation on the ramp going back up to the lot. It could be made better than it is today but I'm not sure it could be made good. Would need to get measurements, find out about whether signage/utility poles can be moved at semi-reasonable cost, find out whether the opposing hillside higher up could be dug into where it currently narrows, etc.

So anyways... that's my idea of the moment, but I'm at a loss for something that really feels any good here. Please share your better ideas!

Why not just improve/replace the chute? It's part of an existing route under the tracks, and it would certainly be a lot cheaper than building a bridge over an already elevated train track (and it's really not that far out of the way to just go under the tracks and around to Swinburne).

@HorseBread, just post the PDF somewhere else and put a link to it here. Or copy and paste the executive summary directly into the post.

That's more or less what I am suggesting, using the route, claiming more space on it for bikes and pedestrians wherever possible.

I'm thinking about this some more now and I'm still puzzling how to get what feels like enough space to have a credible bidirectional lane.

Assuming I've solved my problems on the other side, which is a big if, what do you do with the tiny section of greenfield avenue under the bridge?

I think you have to claim the lane on the inside of the turn under the bridge to make it work. That would make for an awfully weird intersection.

Again, better ideas appreciated!

Wouldn't a bridge have to be super high? Coming from Greenfield Ave it would be like climbing four or five stories and then coming back down two or three to get back down to the parking lot.

The tunnel idea seems cool. It could kind of make a broad bend to connect up with the jail trail.

Now where it would be cool to have a bridge is over Second Ave from that parking lot over to the Hazelwood Trail

If I was putting in a bridge I would just connect Swinburne Street to Swinburne Street. You don't have to cross the railroad tracks and Swinburne Street runs right up into South Oakland, which is a pretty useful place to be. Back in the days when Pittsburgh was Steel City they would do things like this just for kicks.

Edit: the more I think about it the more I like this idea. You would just build a ramp up the hill to the Swinburne Street bridge. That would make a decent connection between the Eliza Furnace trail and South Oakland (removing the need to do something about Bates Street) and also connect Eliza Furnace to Greenfield without having to use Second Avenue. (I'm assuming that we could take some space away from drivers on the Swinburne Bridge and Swinburne Street up the hill.)

Given the height requirements, I'm not sure there's any way to make it make sense coming down from Schenley park.

The only way it makes sense coming from Greenfield avenue would be if you got to it from Frazier street (which would be pretty sweet actually, but complex and expensive).

So, I think the flyover idea is pretty much toast. Thanks for the mention of the Hazelwood trail... I didn't realize there was another trail right there. How do you get there now? Where can you take it?

@ jonawebb, I was thinking the same thing. If you turn on Swinburne Street and keep going straight instead of turning into the lot, you could cut out a lane on that hillside and connect to either the other end of Swinburne or Boundry Street without crossing the tracks. I’m not sure how stable that hillside is, but it would probably be less red-tape than crossing the RR tracks.

http://goo.gl/maps/LbRKV

I very, very much like the elegance of connecting Swinburn street to Swinburn street.

My hesitation is that it seems like it would be really expensive due to the height, elevation change, and need to do another piece of major work if this were in any way help connect the park and the trail.

Also, it looks to me like connecting Swinburn to Swinburn wouldn't make for a great route for cycling into southern Oakland, the road looks too narrow for a bike lane going up, and it looks like it would be difficult to widen it.

Not trying to throw water on things, I love the ideas, just want to focus a little more on what can be done cheaper and quicker.

What about getting rid of the jersey barrier and putting in paint and reflective bollards like they have out at Homestead?

I think the problem is that there's not enough width inbound and it's probably hard for 18-wheelers to make that turn without cutting into oncoming traffic;

It's also used as a bus stop, which complicates matters because people are standing around in what is otherwise a right of way for cyclists

Almost anything would be less of an eyesore than what we have.

That said, the aesthetics, aren't the big problem here, functionally we just have a nasty "bike! bike!" bottleneck in a place that intersects a lot of people's routes.

Pierce thanks for pointing out the other issues here, too. Bus stops can be moved a little, but we really have to support 18 wheelers here too? UGH.

Another idea would be to merge the two sections of 2nd Ave together by making a larger train bridge and then have Greenfield Ave connect like a T.

Gah, just realized the Collision Center would be in the way for that to work

Don't forget that if you connect the Eliza Furnace trail to the Swinburne Street bridge that automatically avoids the chute for bike traffic down the bridge. Riders would just turn onto the Swinburne Street bridge instead.

That leaves traffic from the Panther Hollow trail, though. You could also connect to the Swinburne Street connector the same way, staying on the west side of the railroad tracks the whole time.

And you could widen Swinburne Street by cutting into the hillside if you couldn't get away with just taking space away from cars. My guess is that car traffic uses Swinburne Street as an alternate route mainly, and it wouldn't be a big deal to narrow the streets a little.

As a result, you get rid of the chute, make a good connection to Oakland from Eliza Furnace trail (eliminating the need to do something about Bates St), and make a new bike connection between Greenfield and South Oakland.

Guys, The railroad belongs to CSX. CSX does not use it and it cannot drop it since it in use by Amtrack. Government does not let CSX to drop it completely. I can see Schenley tunnel as a part of our dispatching software for CSX. On a left side (if you stay north) there is a UPMC parking lot. And this lot is not a part of the trail. So you have to get permission from city, from government, from CSX, from UPMC. And liability is everywhere.

OT https://maps.google.com/maps?q=swineburne+street+pittsburgh&hl=en&ll=40.430279,-79.940944&spn=0.004499,0.006475&sll=41.117935,-77.604698&sspn=5.436686,7.712402&hnear=Swinburne+St,+Pittsburgh,+Allegheny,+Pennsylvania+15213&t=h&z=18 -- I started to look into Saline, Naylor and there is a access road or something like this to Bridle Trail

@byogman 2nd Ave is a snow route.

Mikhail, you make me want to cry. But if you stay left aren't you skirting the CSX/federal government involvement at least? What about the city using eminent domain if need be to get that little strip of pavement from UPMC to connect the two ends of their own street together? Seems like a pretty good reason for it and it's not like it would be displacing anything.

Don't get me wrong, I still think this would be expensive and entail a range of potential complexities depending on what the hillside gives you to work with. But legally at least, wouldn't this approach simplify things quite a bit?

Swinburne street is already quite narrow--it's barely two lanes wide, no shoulder. Though there's not a whole lot of traffic, it tends to move quite fast, often too fast for conditions---this is the road where a schoolbus once missed a curve and dove through someone's house. There's no room to cut into the hillside, either; there's problems with subsidence already (though mostly, admittedly, further up towards Oakland).

No idea what the warehouse is, though I was able to figure out its address is 88 Swinburne if anyone wants to dig further. Interestingly, its ownership is very similar to, but slightly different from, the parking lot wrapping around it (which is signed for UPMC, though they apparently just lease it).

It might be possible to squeeze something in between the railroad and the cliff, running at railroad height between the end of the Furnace trail and the bottom of Boundary Hollow--it does, for what it's worth, appear to be commercial-zoned and city owned. But I have a feeling you'd have to do a lot of digging to get us far enough away from the tracks for the RR--or anyone else--to be comfortable with it.

It seems like that's the best, simplest option -- connect the Eliza Furnace trail with the Panther Hollow trail by cutting into the hillside and staying to the west of the tracks the whole way. At least that way you don't have to deal with railroads (assuming you stay far enough away) and don't have to build any bridges. Maybe retaining walls. But it's a shame not to get a way up into South Oakland out of it.

I thought the warehouse was used by the DPW? I've seen city trucks parked there in the past.

When I started the thread, I was hoping there was a way to bite this off that also was economical.

It was fun to bat around there are good ideas here, but unless HorseBread wants to jump out and say... hey guys, this actually isn't so bad, I'm going to assume that it is, and move on to other things.

I'm not a natural salesman that can smile my way through sticker shock and sell a vision. I'm sorry if I raised anyone's hopes. I'm much better at being annoying and getting people to throw a bone in my direction to shut me up. That puts a low limit on the price tag.

I still am actually, looking for stuff like that, but maybe that's better handled by starting an area of the page for requested sharrows, etc.. things like that. Just a thought.

I think you started an interesting discussion that led to some new ideas. It is good to have this sort of thing thought about because every so often money really does become available for this kind of thing and it helps a lot to be able to propose some possible ways to use it. Plus, maybe someone will get inspired and work to make it actually happen -- that's where the TRHT, GAP, Eliza Furnace, etc., trails came from.

In regards of building. Just found (legistar.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/attachments/5665.doc):

Resolution amending Resolution No. 545, effective August 14, 2002, entitled “Resolution Providing for a Lease Agreement with Peter N. & Maria DePasquale, owners and/or other assignees or transferees, for warehouse and office space together with the right to utilize right of way surrounding said property known as 88 Swineburne Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 for a term of (5) five years with an option to extend for (5) five years by amending the annual lease rental payable by the lessee during the option term.

Whereas, Resolution 545 authorized the City of Pittsburgh (“City”) to lease property at 88 Swineburne Road for a term of five (5) years, commencing February 6, 2003 and ending on February 7, 2008; and

Whereas, CITY was granted an Option to extend the Lease for an additional term of five (5) years, which Option is requested to be exercised by CITY, and the City and Peter N. & Maria DePasquale agreed upon the following annual rentals for five (5) years;

Be it resolved by the Council of the City of Pittsburgh, as follows:

Section 1. The Mayor, the Directors of the Department of Public Works and the Department of Finance , on behalf of the City of Pittsburgh, are hereby authorized to enter into an amended Lease Agreement with Peter N. & Maria DePasquale, in a form approved by the City Solicitor, providing for exercising the extension term of five (5) years and adjust annual Lease rentals during the 6th through 10th years of the Option term based on the utilization of the CPI Index as currently defined in said lease on page 2, paragraph 2B during each of said extension years, plus all applicable Real Estate Taxes on said property which amounts are to be chargeable and payable subject to and contingent upon the annual appropriation of funds for said agreement of lease from the following:

Department of Public Works, Rent Building, in the amount of $78,821.04 PLUS the current 2007 CPI index as defined in said agreement plus all applicable real estate taxes on said leased property from Organization 420000, Subclass 140, Fund 1000, Account 560100, Budget Year 2008 and subsequent years thereafter; With all other terms and conditions of the Lease to remain in full force and effect.

Slightly OT but I prefer this access to Oakland from 2nd Ave (and from Jail trail) -- http://rockalley.org/routes/rock-alley/ -- but it looks like it goes nowhere soon.

BTW -- http://rockalley.org/routes/bike-routes/swinburne-street/ Swinburn street in pictures

http://rockalley.org/routes/bike-routes/panther-hollow/ -- ha-ha, look for "Saline Street to Eliza Furnace Trail".

Hi Mikhail,

I agree it appears this rockalley.org site has a pretty good summary of a lot of the problems, and a lot of good suggestions.

Are we as an organization working with them? It seems like it would be fruitful. As jonawebb said, every so often there is money to do something and these folks have evaluated a lot of alternatives already.

Anyways, time to pack it in for the night. Fun stuff everybody.

Cheers,

Ben

Thinking about the Swinburne street connection, I can pretty much guarantee that there would be more people using the road if it was closed to car and truck traffic from Sestili's down the hill and a ramp was built connecting it between the Eliza Furnace trail and the Swinburne Street bridge. And there wouldn't be any more issue about car/truck/bus crashes coming down the narrow and twisty street.

But, of course, the very idea -- turning a road motorists can use over to cyclists -- is absurd.

It's a pretty route, I would enjoy it I think if not fearing for my life by, as you say, turning it over toward safer and lower speed transport.

I get a similar feeling about the tiny stretch of Pocusset street between the greenfield bridge and the homes starting in squirrel hill.

Maybe you can be less confrontational but get a lot of the same benefit with speed humps?

@jonawebb I can pretty much guarantee that there would be more people using the road if it was closed to car and truck traffic from Sestili's down the hill

Would there?

For sure, there would be more bicyclists.

I'm pretty sure that the car/truck traffic there now is considerably more than the total bicyle traffic would be. That would be fewer people.

Well, it's an empirical question, so we would have to count, I guess. I'm basing my statement on the number of people using the Eliza Furnace trail now versus the limited amount of traffic I've seen on Swinburne Street. Opening Swinburne Street would make a pretty good bike connection between South Oakland and Downtown (as well as Oakland and Greenfield) and I would expect that would increase traffic since it would then be possible to ride pretty safely between Oakland, Greenfield, and downtown.

Well, we used 2nd->Greenfield->Swinburne->Dawson on some PMTCC rides. I would agree with Mick. Even it was on Wednesday around 18:45-19:00 or Saturday-Sunday around 10:00 there were cars.

What I would like to see is an access to Bridle Trail from Boundary St just pass Proctor's Garage so it still before going under Rail Road Bridge.

@byogman, I sent you a PM.

@jonaweb Hm, you have number of people using Jail trail? I rode it during lunch hour Mo, Tu, We and amount of people I saw each day was about 15-20. Not that many. Four weeks ago I catch my coworker (I talked him into biking ) with his 8 year daughter. And we rode Jail Trail from parking lot and to Smithfield Bridge very slow. Took about 45 minutes. And we counted riders. About 40.

Maybe some numbers form BikePGH could be released? We know that BikePGH had some counters installed for some time at both ends of jail trail.

There are school buses on Swinburne. Each school bus easily exceeds my numbers.

Pretty cool, this, from the Atlantic. Crowdfunding as seed money, like Kickstarter, but for civic projects. Need;

http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/goldman-sachs-progress/archive/2012/11/neighborly-helps-communities-build-better-towns/264542/

I'm sure there aren't that many people using Eliza Furnace trail right now. But in warm weather there are a lot. As I said, we would have to count.

@byogman

Thank you for startign this dialog. Maybe nothing specific will come of this dialog.

But having the bicycle community pondering the advantages and disadvantages of different schemes can help with focusing on what we need, what we want, and what we can realistically hope to get.

Or at least I think it can. May the Bike-Pgh staff is so far ahead of us that this is spitting in the Mon.

edmonds59, I very much like the idea of some crowdfunding goodness for this. How big is our crowd by the way? Think we can get joggers/runners in on this? What's the right way to reach them?

This wasn't part of the X,Y or Z mentioned in the movepgh meeting and I think it may cover only a small part of the cost in absolute terms unless someone is sitting on a pile of cash.

But still, I think putting your money where your mouth is is worth A LOT.

We may be able to get buy in and matching funds or even more substantial bankrolling from sources more like the X,Y and Z mentioned in the meeting if they see that we're serious in this way.

I'll go out on a limb here. I'll spend as much to support this as I did on my bike. Granted, my bike sure ain't much, but hey, I'm in my early 30s and have 3 kids... how much extra money do you think I have lying around? (hint, it's negative).

Moreover, I'll keep doing this as I spend on biking (better gloves next). I'll try to keep that 1 for 1 ratio, improving my situation, improving the situation for us all. Now who's with me?

Said one way:

The more you buy into sustainable transportation in any form, the more you want these ideas forwarded, and are willing to front a few bucks to see it happen.

Said another way:

Every $50 bill you fork over to fill your gas tank is not helping fund any of these projects.

Said a third way:

Gasoline is expensive. So is caviar. I don't buy caviar.

Bought gas last weekend for the first time in, if my bank record is to be believed, three months. prices have actually gone down a bit. I still don't buy caviar, though I did just order a rack for my bike.

Gas is only part of the cost, generally maintenance is worse than gas on old cars, depreciation much worse than gas on newer cars. And that's not accounting for insurance, parking, tolls, and government fees.

In comparison, the 1 for 1 I'm proposing here: here is awfully cheap.

I've ventured a little bit into UPMC parking lot/

It's pretty tight spot to make a ramp off bridge and not to cross RR.

I talked with my friend, the former city traffic engineer, and he said that Swinburne Street is, indeed, a major commuter route from Greenfield to Oakland. So it is probably not conceivable that we could somehow take it over as a bike-only road. Too bad.

@mikhail, I went exploring back in there last week. The hillside looks like it could “hold” a trail rather easy all the way to Boundary Street, but there is a bridge abutment/pier that would force the trail to be very close to the train tracks. Both sets of tracks are shiny so obviously they are both in use. I’m not sure what the minimum distance is to keep things safe for the RR, but a narrow single lane bike trail with fence could probable be put in there. They do stuff like this in D.C., but I haven’t seen a willingness to do it in PA.

EDIT: the single lane would only need to be thirty feet or so to get you around the pier.

You're talking about the lower part of boundary street, the parking lot/loop thingy before the field, right?

Clearances are clearly a big question and this all needs to be properly surveyed if it hasn't been already.

In terms of bike only infrastructure, I think that it's glorious when we can get it, but I'm mostly ok with sharrows downhill, and lanes uphill, provided that shoulders and bike lanes are well maintained, there's traffic calming on straightaways people tend to gun, and sturdy barriers between cyclists and people on turns a distracted driver might miss.

Now, I'm not everybody, I think my wife and many other current non-cyclists would probably never ride in the street, period. So this approach buys you only so much, and if you want to showcase your city to the world (say, like is coming up in 2014) as bike/pedestrian friendly you need to do a whole lot more.

But what it does buy you, it buys on the cheap, so you may as well do a lot of it... returning to the name of the thread, that is.

Yes yes yes. The issue is not us fearless (mostly male) cyclists, but everybody else who doesn't want to have to compete with two ton vehicles being driven by people who are also texting. That is why we need separated, safe bike infrastructure. Without it we'll never get beyond a few percent use. And many more people can make use of the same space riding bikes.

> Swinburne Street is, indeed, a major commuter route from Greenfield to Oakland.

if the greenfield bridge is still scheduled to be demolished next month, swinburne will see even more traffic

Wasn't that supposed to be in 2014?

@byogman i hope youre right, because im going to be pretty bummed when it happens.

The news reports from a year ago say the plan was to implode the bridge for Christmas 2014, so it's still 2+ years away.

http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_764046.html#axzz2C4kXXNjh

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2011/10/27/city-planning-to-implosion-rebuild-greenfield-bridge/

(Of course, it's in such a state they may wind up closing it early.)