BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Sounds like the general complains that the driving community as a whole has with the cycling community. I will admit that it upsets me when I, as a cyclist am doing the dutiful thing by stopping at a light or a stopsign and another cyclist fly past me and runs said light or stopsign. I could list many behaviors, but in general it just disobeying the same laws that give us the rights as cyclists to ride on the road.

Didn't mean to rant in your thread, but I can totally agree with drivers on many of their observations of cyclists.

Let your friend know my single biggest complaint about PAT drivers is they actively try and hit cyclists. Second is that they blow thru lights with alarming regularity.

I can't say I have ever seen a PAT driver activley try to hit a cyclist. I have seen several close calls where it could be argued that the cyclist could have been at fault. Now Access bus driver and school bus drivers on the other hand I have seen intentionally run me or other cyclists out of a lane or off the road.

I have generally found pat drivers to be some of the more courteous ones out there with respect to cyclists.

Also, realize a bus is a big vehicle and sometimes necessitates the running of a late yellow/red light just to make a turn or get through an intersection.

I ride the bus every now and again. My bus runs red lights with great frequency, has a particular knack for the Pittsburgh left, and drives in the bike lane the entire length of Beacon St, both ways. The one day, there was even a cyclist in the bike lane, bus pulled around her (without fully exiting the bike lane first) and proceeded to pull back into the bike lane 200 feet ahead to let people off the bus, cutting her off.

On another occasion, this same bus (different driver) passed a lycra clad roadie hauling ass up the giant hill on Winterburn Ave, then pulled over to let someone off, without fulling passing this guy first. The driver cornered him between parked cars and the bus, while traveling up hill. The dude just grabbed on to the parked car so he didn't have to unclip and waited for the bus to go away. I'd have been pissed. I said something to the driver like "did you see there was a bike there?" and I got some angry rant about bikers back.. I decided not to pursue the issue.

I have been almost deliberately hit by a PAT bus driver. I was traveling on Liberty close to Baum on the sharows when a bus driver passed me on me left and started to pull over in front of me in effect running me off the road. He clearly saw me because he passed me on my left and he made the decision to pull over while I was still on his right. I reported the driver.

I learned my lesson about passing a bus on the right, it's stupid and inconsiderate to the people getting on and off the bus.

Weaving in and out of traffic. Drivers, cyclists, bus drivers all do this.

Running stop lights and signs. Drivers, cyclists, bus drivers all do this.

Maybe this guy is one of the nice ones, I took the bus today and had a really nice driver but his complaints besides the passing on the right are complaints against traffic, not cyclists.

dwillen, that is the same thing that happened to me. The driver started pulling over with me still to his right. He wedged me in between the bus and the parked cars. He could have just waited or pulled in front of me and not pulled over.

i have been actively and purposefully forced into curbs, parked cars, and other similar things by busses

busses run red lights and stop signs just as often, and with much greater consequence, as cyclists.

I used PAT buses almost exclusively to get around for the first 8 years I lived in the burgh. Buses are the bull moose of the roads, and when I was riding I didn't mind because they were MY bull moose.

... It's like the violent femmes would say...

i think if they are the bullmoose we are the cockroach... and we're multiplying and becoming a 'problem'.

As far as the "weaving"... Pittsburghers all pass

buses when they are stopped. Either bikes are going

to pass on the right, or on the left. One way or

the other. Bikes are to buses are to cars, an

inconvenience.

However it is LEGAL TO PASS THE BUS ON THE RIGHT.

The drivers MUST put on the flashers when unloading

passengers.

And I have been run off the road several times and

also a driver tried to hit me as he made a left

and I went straight and he mouthed "fuck you" to me

as he did it.

and MY FAVORITE was when a bus pulled around me

super close on 837 right before becks run, and it

was smoking super bad. As soon as i hit my brakes

to avoid the smoke, I crashed cause of all the oil

the bus was dumping. It was pulled over like 1/4 mile up becks run. I called PAT the next day and they had no record of the bus breaking down. right.

thats pretty insane... i wouldn't be surprised if the driver just dumped the bus to let the next driver deal with it, or just took it to the repair place and no one filled out paper work... seems like a lot of stuff gets lost in habit at the old PAT HQ

I would never pass a bus on the right if it was about to be at, or actually at, a bus stop. You can almost bet there are, or will be, people on the right of the bus.

I'm careful when passing a stopped bus on the left, too, as people often walk (occasionally dart) out in front of a stopped bus. What, do they think it's yellow and have the blinky-lights going? I dunno, but it happens with some regularity.

I do not pass buses in motion. Period. They're bigger than I am. (So's a Geo Metro, but that's beside the point.)

I go up and down fifth Ave from Craig St to uptown fairly often.

Some of the bus drivers do inappropriate things just to make it so I'm "in the way".

Like speeding and powerstopping to cut me off at a bus stop or trying to pass to stop right in front of me when they wouldn't hesitate to stop 10 feet before the official stop I were a motor vehicle.

I might be just projecting here, but I get the impression that it really, REALLY angers some bus drivers off when I can get from the Cathedral of Learning to town faster than they can.

That being said, the average bus drivers are much better than they were a few years ago. It makes the ones who are not doing what they should stand out as being deliberate piss artists.

I try to be courteous to them - like getting on the sidewalk if I'm going up the bus lane and a bus starts to catch up to me. I just don't think it is fair to make a bus driver pass over that double yellow to do his job.

I get the feeling the drivers through Oakland might even recognize individual regular bikers.

"Weaving in traffic and cutting off the bus" is a hard one.

Some drivers would think a bike is doing that if it switches to a non-curb lane and passing the bus that's stopped when there is some chance the bus might pass somewhere in the next mile

Vs

Some bikers think slowing down a bus is always OK because, hey, some of the drivers are jerks sometimes.

The suicide commando riders in Oakland that we winge about here have to be seriously hard on a bus driver's nerves.

Mick

the "The suicide commando riders in Oakland" are sometimes the ones that know what they're doing the most. think cabbies in nyc

I was pedaling through Squirrel Hill, up Forbes between Murray and Shady last week. Rush hour -- packed with cars. I was moving slowly up between the stopped cars and the parked cars. There was a bus ahead of me who had a few feet to maneuver. The driver saw me through the rear view mirror and moved his bus a bit to the left to give me more room to pass by. Thanks bus driver!

I've had the same experience with being cut off as dwillen, rsprake and Mick describe. I complained, but I probably got the bus # wrong. At any rate, I never heard anything back from PAT.

I was on 5th Ave going uphill just before Wyandotte, and a bus passed on my left and then pulled to the right and stopped to pick up a passenger -- and never did get fully past me. I guess I was doing about 12-15 mph, and I would have had to do a panic stop by the time I realized what was going on. So I shouted to the pedestrian and I passed on the right, and I got to work and complained to PAT that this driver was endangering his passengers. My guess is that he just didn't see the person waiting at the bus stop until the last minute. The better thing would have been for him to say "whoops, rough luck, she'll get the next bus", which he would have done if I'd been driving a car. Or he would have stopped in the left lane and waited. But because I was on a bike, he discounted me.

I'm thinking that I probably should have been farther left, which would have forced the driver to use the full left lane himself, or else to wait. But as it was, he only got halfway into the left lane, which let him think that he was still in the right lane. I might start riding with a mirror...

I'm usually in favor of uphill bike lanes, but I think that would actually make this scenario more likely.

erok: NYC cabbies? Really? Have you been in a NYC cab in the last decade? I always get an Indonesian guy who just got his first driver's license last year and is here driving his third cousin's cab 11 hours a day. Or sometimes the guy who has been driving a cab since he was 14 years old. In Baghdad. Their idea of "know what they're doing" involves a complete disregard for the value of any human life including their own. Just so they arrive ten seconds sooner. Am I just unlucky?

My experience is that PAT drivers are the biggest jerks on the road. I see them routinely run red lights and stop signs. I rarely see a bus signal a turn or a stop.

I agree that bicyclists who run lights and stop signs are part of the problem, and I have no sympathy for a biker who does this and gets into trouble as a result. My experience, however, is that any incident involving a bus usually has the bus driver at least partly at fault.

I know this is a bash-the-PAT thread, but I haven't really had any problem that I can remember for the 3 years I've been biking here. Except, of course, being annoyed at getting stuck behind a bus like every other car. Then again, I make no attempts to buzz around either side, I wait and enjoy the small victory that at least I'm getting some exercise while others are just sitting in their cars.

nyc cabbies, like many cyclists, pull sketchy shit, and for the most part get away with it. usually they (we) know what we're doing, but to someone else not accustomed to it, it appears really dangerous.

Dangerous to cyclists and pedestrians, mostly.

The sketchy shit is in fact dangerous -- the reason that people get away with it is just luck that there doesn't happen to be someone else in the wrong place at the wrong time doing something equally sketchy themselves.

How's that punch line go? "Heck no, my brother might be coming that way!"

I was lazily rolling along in Dormont last July 4th. I just got my bicycle and was super excited about riding it. I was going down Potomac and then turned on Glenmore Ave. an intersection to which there is no stop sign, when a giant red animal control truck from behind me, whom apparently was in some sort of a hurry, decided to cut me off at the turn and almost run me over. Luckily, I came out of it unscathed. But then the dog catcher started beeping at me crazily and screaming at me to pull over. when i didn't he pretty much ran me off the road. He told me he'd hate to scrape me off the pavement. I'm thinking he wouldn't have to if he didn't drive around like a maniac. but i keep that comment to myself. he continues to berate me about wearing elbow pads and knee pads and always pads with wings...i don't know i honestly was not listening. What makes this guy think he has the right to run me off the road and lecture me. THEN out of the blue this guy in a green jetta comes running up shouting something about "there is no helmet law!" and introduces himself as "former bike messenger". He, my hero, continues shouting at the dog catcher in my defense "don't you have a dog to go catch" m f-ing him up and down and calls the police! THEN the dog catcher says he's going to call the helmet police! I am sitting there dumbfounded as people are gathering on their front porches thinking to myself that I could just ride away and let these two hash it out. so I do. but it bothers me to this day that i never caught the former bike messengers name.

@bennyh - crazy story! We need more motorist/cyclists sticking up for us...I kinda hope I get the chance to do that when I'm driving.

I've never been in an incident with a bus...just the whole playing leap frog down 5th. Some of them drive as if they are annoyed, but some of them just seem to accept this as the norm...I pass them, they pass me...we move on.

One time I pulled alongside a bus waiting at a red light in Oakland. The driver sticks his head out of the window and says, "Wanna race?" Of course I won because he had to stop, but that was kind of a nice bus/bike warm fuzzy to share.

I tend to be more sympathetic towards bus operators because that is my other mode of transportation. They deal with a lot of crap. We cyclists also deal with a lot of crap - but that's their job and our grief usually only lasts for 30 - 60 minutes out of each ride rather than all day (unless you are a bike messenger). No excuse for dangerous driving, but not all are like that.

RE: bus drivers. You'd be amazed by the smile you get when, as a cyclist, you block traffic long enough for a bus to pull out from a stop.

RE: sketchy shit. Barring amazing natural talent, the only way to learn to do it well is to start by doing it, uh, less well. That's one of the biggest problems I see with it: those who've been doing it for years, like stereotypical NYC cabbies, have nigh-mystical powers of survival; it's those who haven't yet gotten those years of experience who are likely to end up road pizza.

i have mixed feelings about the port authority. busses are dropping oil all over the road. SOME of the drivers act like they don't care if they hit you. i've had a driver actually tell me that he doesn't care if he hits me, "it's just paperwork for me" he said. they speed, run lights, force pedestrians out of their way at intersections downtown. create noise and air pollution. all while raising their rates and dropping their service. these problems could be solved but i think the people managing the port authority are more concerned with profits.

they do keep some cars of the street tho, which i like. and they get people to work, which is good, i guess.

StuInMcCandless, maybe you could print this thread and show this PAT person all the issues cyclists have with bus drivers. I've had mostly positive experiences, but on multiple occasions I've had buses trying to pass me as if their lives depended on it only to stop 100 feet up the road and cause me and traffic to grind to a complete halt because the driver would not pull closer to the curb (even when there was plenty of space). Ironically, the bus driver's reason for not wanting to pull to the curb is identical to that of cyclists: we don't wanna get stuck against the curb in traffic. In the case of cyclists, getting caught at the curb can be dangerous. For the bus, its just a inconvience and the lost time will likely average out over the normal course of traffice lights etc.

You might also ask PAT if the bus driver's complaints about cyclists differ from those about normal traffic. I see cars passing and cutting off buses all the time. Is PAT asking drivers to "spread the word" amongst the driving community about these issues? Am I to think (from his spread the word comment) that PAT's responsiveness to customer's needs (and as tax payers and PAT users we are ALL customers) depends on their preferred mode of transportation?

I don't want to downplay the progress we've seen with PAT: new bike racks on buses, plans for all buses to have bike racks, modest improvments in T-regulations for bikes, etc.; but when I see comments like this from a PAT official it makes me wonder if they recognize who their customers really are? I pay local and state income tax and property tax (as does everyone in the county). Since our dollars subsidize PAT, we are all PATs customers whether they like it or not.

I had a bus driver treat me poorly this morning, I noticed he had a headphone in his left ear as I passed him.

There seems to be a lot of cell phoning while driving going on. There is one T driver that heads out of town around 5pm that ritually puts in the ear piece going through the tunnel and starts talking with his girlfriend as soon as he is past South Hills Junction. He has completely missed stops with people waiting at them, little kids try to thank him or ask him questions and he is completely oblivious to what is going on around him.

I get a lot of the pass me to get to the bus stop 10 seconds faster. The long haired blonde guy with the aviator glasses on the 44U was always good for a pass with inches to spare on an empty road and then running red lights in order to make sure he'd stay out ahead or pass me. Haven't seen him all summer though.

Haven't seen him all summer though.

Every three months or so, they pick new routes to drive. The last change was Sept. 6. The one prior to that was June 14. Next will be around the end of November.

PAT operators are most assuredly not to be on a cell phone unless parked. I'm not sure if it's state law or not, but it's definitely forbidden. Edit: Ditto smoking.

Yeah, I might just send a link to this thread to my contact there.

oops, pressed the button twice...sorry

While we're on the topic of unbelievable driver antics... 3-4 times where I took the bus this summer, walking to work from Penn Station, I've seen the same driver smoking in her bus waiting to turn onto Grant from Oliver.

Dear Bike Messenger with the orange bag riding inbound on 5th through Oakland at around 8:15AM today:

I was a passenger on the 71A that boxed you in coming down the hill. I truly and honestly thought you were going to hit that car or get caught under the bus wheels, and I'm glad you didn't and were okay. And yes, I saw you stay away from the bus as much as possible both before and after that. He was acting agressively for no reason at all. I reported it to PAT as soon as I got into the office.

And I'm really glad you're okay.

Me.

ha, that was my buddy "stick boy". he's been hit by a bus on fifth already...

How hard is it to get one of those police spike strips? That would be really great.

Dear StuInMcCandless

Is it possibble "the guy at Port Authority who's heading up the effort to install racks on each bus" could also head up an effort to get busses with racks already on designated routes 100% of the time. I am tired of being late for appointments, work, etc. and tired of making repeated, valueless complaints to PAT.

Police Spike Strips may not be easily obtained, but can easily be recreated with a 2x4, some nails and a piece of rope.

As for some of the PAT Drivers acting the way they do, well, they have their own Police force and are self-insured, so there isn't much responsibility to face when everyone is on your team.