BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I would rather see them disappear all together and either get rid of on street parking (probably not happening, though it seems almost every house has a garage and driceway), or move the bike lane next to the curb with a buffer and do it right. Door zone bike lanes aren't acceptable.

I've noticed that they didn't add bike lines to the southern end of Beechwood (close to the Waterfront) after repaving but I didn't think there were ever bike lanes there. I don't think it is wide enough. The only section I noticed that was recently being repaved where there were bike lines was the one just after the intersection with Forbes in Squirrel Hill (heading north). Not sure if they added bike lanes there since I haven't been through there in the past couple of weeks. Last time I went through, they had just torn up the road and hadn't repaved yet.

Actually, the section I just mentioned is shown in your second link. Looks like there weren't actually bike lanes there to begin with.

Before Bike Pgh, the fake bike lanes on Beechwood were the only bike lanes in the city and I'm guessing the county.

I know door side bike lanes arent the greatest but without the pavement markings Beechwood looks a lot wider and thus car speed will increase. My guess is faster cars going around some of the Beechwood turns and hitting a cyclist is more dangerous than a door. Not that being doored isn't dangerous.

Does anyone know Bike-Pgh's involvement with this? Or the city's? What actually is supposed to happen here?

I would also be interesting in finding out BikePgh's position on those lanes.

Beechwood is wide enough for them to have a parking lane wide enough for a door zone, then a bike lane., then still plenty of room for cars .

Beechwood had parking+bike lanes from 5th to Northumberland. These turned into wide parking lanes from there to Forbes, then afterwards reverted to bike+parking. The street remained the same width (to my untutored eye); but the house density is higher. It never seemed to make sense. Surely our city bicycling coordinator is right in there, making sure the right things happen. A narrower car lane, if needed, would likely help keep car speeds down. It would certainly make life easier for the (I'm told) 12 police officers detailed to traffic law enforcement for the entire city. Though I can't say that in my many years trundling up and down Beechwood have I ever observed any enforcement activity.

I thought Beechwood was being re-zoned for local traffic and bike only...as part of the Beechwood Blvd Bridge Project... :-) [I am domiciled on the Wooden Beech.]

Since I rarely ride this street, I cannot take a defensible position on any design. I can state with some certainty, though, that the level of transparency could use some improvement.

I can't recall a spot on Beechwood that I've seen that requires all that street parking, except maybe at Frick Park, and once you near Greenfield. Not to stereotype, but every resident there has more than enough garage and driveway to park a dozen cars. They could basically cut it to one lane of parking, and everyone would be happier.

@rice rocket I suggest you refresh your recollection by taking a ride on the Boulevard. ...especially the southern half...not to stereotyoe...but you'll nitice the people there talk with a southern Pittsburgh accent...and some use wooden horses to claim their parking spots in the winter...north of Forbes they use thoroughbreds ...

@rice rocket - You'll never make everyone happy. At least some of the people who can't park directly in front of their house would be furious. At least that's what I would assume by taking the temp of this issue by reading the Nextdoor posts about parking in my neighborhood and attending the 40th street bike lane public meeting. Though, I generally endorse the idea of 1 side parking only.

Lots of people park on the street to use Mellon Park.

We at BikePGH have no reason to believe the city won't repaint the bike lanes. They often don't paint everything at once, usually the yellow middle line goes in, then they get to the white lines (bike lanes) at a later date. The last time that block was paved, for some reason it was repainted with the 1980s design, while the rest of Beechwood got the modern bike lane design, and nobody was able to explain how that happened. We've put in requests to make sure they paint the modern one, which i hope there isn't the disconnect again.

True, but the street near mellon park is already wide enough and has both parking and bike lanes on both sides. So that's not a problem. Beechwood has the extra wide parking lane / ambigous bike lane further down more towards where it intersects with browns hill road. Also, though, it seems weird that there is no inner line (adjacent to parked vehicles) for the bike lanes between northumberland and forbes, it's a very wide parking lane. Though before and after there are normal bike lanes with inner and outer line. I think this section between northumberland and forbes should definitely get new bike lanes painted. Full bike lanes continue from forbes, past blue slide park area of frick, to forward and from there on it's mostly a large parking lane with 'BIKE LANE' stenciled in yellow paint. Those parking lanes narrow further past Beechwood Pl where they are pretty much only wide enough for parking between there and browns hill road. Some of the existing bike lane and parking lane paint is very worn and needs to be redone as it's very faded in places. Not sure exactly where those spots are though.

I guess it's hard to get excited/hopeful when East Liberty Boulevard was repaved about 2-3 weeks ago and still has no bike lanes.

As opposed to a general 311 request, I sent one into the Councilman's Office (Corey O'Conner) and received this response: "Good morning Mr. Ferrante, On behalf of Councilman O'Connor, thank you for reaching out to our office to bring this issue to our attention. I would like to think that the Department of Public Works is scheduled to replace the bike lanes after the paving, but I will double check to make sure. Please let me know if you have any updates, and I will do the same. Best, Curt Conrad"

Thanks for doing the work, Jason

The ELB bike lanes haven't finished being restriped either because of weather or because the city failed to post no parking signs which needs to happen before striping happens. I'm not sure why the ones on Beechwood weren't restriped, but all streets have corresponding paint work orders that correspond, so in theory it should happen as soon as the weather permits. We (BikePGH) paid for the engineering work orders to create the actual bike lane on Beechwood years ago. That added 1-2 more feet of space away from car doors than existed in the past, and narrowed the travel lane for cars.

just a quick update. the beechwood lanes have been restriped. https://goo.gl/photos/gidkuQHwvH2W1tq78

Repainted lanes are looking good on the climb up to squirrel hill from 5th ave.