BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Who do we contact about this? It's outside the city, maybe penndot or homestead government?

Also, complaint about the homestead bridge. The west side of the bridge on the north end (opposite homestead), the sidewalk just before the bridge becomes concave, like a drainage ditch and not ADA accessible. It then turns back to a regular sidewalk once you get to the bridge. 311 told me it was penndot's issue. See the setup on street view: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.413028,-79.92166,3a,75y,181.98h,63.84t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sP1KHJJnT5_h2efTX3W0NMw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I have noticed this too. It might be helpful to try and contact Homestead via a phone call. I can't imagine PennDOT will be much help, given their boneheaded moves in the past.

I think that if it's a PennDOT issue you'll get help through their online form. Just because they're really bad at listening to us when it comes to building infrastructure doesn't mean they're bad at fixing stuff they're responsible for. I've gotten stuff fixed in the past, and they've kept me informed about progress. The online form is at http://www.dot.state.pa.us/penndot/districts/district11/d11ccc.nsf. Use IE to access it. If it's not a PennDOT issue, though, they probably won't respond, so it wouldn't hurt to contact Homestead too.

Traffic signals are not owned or maintained by PennDOT. Contact the local municipality. PennDOT does permit signals and signal upgrades are often included in PennDOT projects but they are then turned over to the local government who sometimes does little in the way of maintenance.

Similarly, PennDOT does not deal with sidewalks. Sidewalks once built are always the responsibility of the neighboring landowner. (In other words, you may be better off contacting the relevant state representative if the City won't deal with it, either; perhaps they'll be willing to pressure both to figure out a solution instead of punting back and forth...)

"Similarly, PennDOT does not deal with sidewalks. Sidewalks once built are always the responsibility of the neighboring landowner." Because clearly, people don't need transportation facilities, when they ought to be teleporting from their motor vehicle into the business of their choosing.

@byogman Because clearly, people don’t need transportation facilities, when they ought to be teleporting from their motor vehicle into the business of their choosing. I beleive the method of choice is simply to crash into your destination building, then get out of your car. See thread "Cars hitting buildings." A little hard on the car, but it saves your legs.

Gotta protect what's important. And think about what a business generator it is!

That trough sidewalk is an incredible hazzard. From regent square I like to go down nine mile run through frick, climb up old brownville road hill road from duck hollow, cross the road and use the sidewalk across the high level bridge. That trough is trying to kill me by sending me crashing under cars going 55mph.

The cross-walk buttons on the bridge never worked, as far as I know. But the traffic patterns are such that there's always a gap during which you seem to be able to get across without being run over. Riding down the bridge. Ah... If you're up for it just take the lane and go. If you jam you should should be able to make it to the city line (half-way) before traffic catches up. One day I saw a roadie going uphill taking the lane, so I guess that can be done as well. Note that the speed limit is 25mph (yes that's a misprint, somewhere.) If you're not up for all that excitement I would suggest using the upstream sidewalk which, actually, is a sidewalk.

Thanks all, I'll submit something to Penndot and update if anything comes of it. The strange thing is that the cross signal worked in the morning on Wednesday crossing east to west, but hadn't the day before. It's not a great feeling to not know for certain if I'm going to make it to work on time.....

I use the east sidewalk. I push the button at the 5th Ave ramp and I recall it working sometimes but most times I just cross when the traffic allows. The broken glass on this sidewalk is usually not too bad, but at times in the past there has been lumber and other junk on the sidewalk near the traffic light.

I'm gonnahafta take a ride or four over that bridge on the motorcycle going precisely 25 and see how much trouble that causes.

The upstream sidewalk, the east sidewalk... it's there but it's really, really narrow. More than half of my use cases for going to the waterfront involve taking a possibly non-trivial amount of stuff back, and navigating that sidewalk with a trailer is... interesting, especially at the lightposts and the even more narrow points at the endpoint pillars. As is trying to choose between the nasty little pitches on Saline and the awful traffic pressure when the sidewalk runs out on Browns Hill Rd. That, and the dodge the manhole game going down browns hill rd. is why I've never gone with the kids there, though it's so close, there's stuff, and there's fun trail to either side. It's a major omission to have the to/from access options from the north be so lousy.

I've been going through there on a lot of Sundays this summer. I know the walk signs have worked at least some of the time. I don't recall crossing without a walk signal. OTOH, me being a scufflaw in that respect is hardly a rare and memorable experience.