BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Welcome to the board, and to Pittsburgh, Amy!

If you haven't scoped out the board for threads having something to do with buses, just type Port Authority in the Search box.

This thread talks about using the bike racks on buses.

You might also want to look at this thread, which started off talking about bus drivers' view of cyclists, but rapidly got into cyclists' view of drivers.

If you'd like someone to talk your ear off about buses, PM me. I don't work -for- Port Authority but I work -with- them, and have piles of inside info about how they do business.

my biggest gripe is that they are the biggest thing on the road, know it, and often use that power to put other people's lives in danger knowing that they have relative immunity. it's a shame that the biggest and least vulnerable thing on the road needs to share the right side of roads with the smallest and most vulnerable thing on the road.

More anecdotal evidence by observation, but since that week or two of bus accidents I haven't had any close calls or perceived harassment from a bus.

I actually have had drivers hesitate, slow down or pass with a wide berth.

you might also search nevertellmetheodds.org or make a post there looking for info... many more people post there and you'll get a wider perspective on the issue than you will here.

Thank you guys for your response and suggestions. I will definitely post on the site you recommended imakwik1.

Erok I feel the same way, why do they have to bully around and endanger the little guy? They're so big, there's no chance of them being hurt, but do they realize what damage they could do to us? This was how I felt at first that they were just kind of bullies using their size to exert their power, but I had never had any encounters where a bus has deliberately ran me off the road or chased me down. I was very surprised to hear of such incidents while on this forum. On the same token, I have seen some annoyed cyclists do some less than admiral things while dealing with busses. This is what made me curious just how serious this problem is with cyclists and the PAT

Imakwik1, I tried to post on the site you recommended, but according to the site I must have someone who is already a poster invite me to join. I was wondering if you're involved in that and could invite me, or if you know someone who is? Thanks!

By the way, you might want to change your approach some.

You want the any information gathering you do to be unbiased. You are pretty much focusd on the negative in your quest for data. Taht will affect your oputcome.

"Trust me, I'm a scientist."

Mick

i can invite you, email me imakwik1 at gmail

Mick you are right, thank you for the reminder. It's just that my only encounters with busses as a cyclist have not been good ones, I have to remind myself that it's not just the bus drivers that express aggressiveness towards cyclists, but the opposite as well. I will try and keep this in mind as I look for information.

86B, worst bus to bike around, no doubt.

I may have been buzzed by a bus or two but mostly they treat me well. I also try to keep in mind that a bus is a big object, and therefore pushes a lot of air around as it moves through space. This means that a bus passing you on a road, a safe distance away, may seem far more menacing than a car when it does so. You can usually hear the bus coming and be ready for it.

You should also think about people who bike along roads with bus stops, and continue biking along to the RIGHT of the bus when it stops, therefore endangering people getting off the bus.

Although having just read some of the other posts in the other thread, you all seem to be encountering different bus drivers than I do...

Most of my biking/ busing is done between East Liberty and Harmarville, so its not quite as in the city, but most of my experiences have been pretty positive with PAT drivers. I rack my bike for the morning commute and ride all the way home. I have had drivers let me bring the bike on the bus when there was no rack available (the buses arent that filled until the get closer to the city in the morning), actually just wednesday the driver noticed that my bike looked a bit different on the rack than nrmal and said he would pull over at the next light so I could jump out and double check it because he "would hate to see somethign happen to it."

I would say I only have 2 issues with PAT and that is the availabilty of racks on buses that are designated rack- n- roll (but this seems to be improving and all new buses have them, so I know taht will fix itself when the fleet is fully upgraded. The other problem that I have is when they speed past you only to stop at a stop for passengers, but after this happening a few times, I know know which buses are likely to stop at certain points and just plan for it to happen and deal with it.

I'm curious to know whether there is any pattern in the garages. There are five bus garages, and while they all have the same employer and union, the fact that there are different workplaces might mean five different cultural attitudes towards dealing with cyclists.

East Liberty is the dominant one for routes in the East End, so 61ABDF, 71CD, 81ABC, 86AB, EBA; all those drivers share the same break room, etc. Harmar is 91A, 1A, the 77s, 71A; they'd hang together but rarely talk with the ELib crew. Ross is 54C, West Mifflin the 61C, Collier the 100s in those huge buses. And so on. (I won't list every route.)

But if one garage's operators seem to have a collective grudge, moreso than the others, that gives us something to work with.

most of my experiences have been pretty positive with PAT drivers.

Ditto. I deal with them most commonly on Ft Pitt Blvd and Blvd of the Allies, and have rarely had any problems.

I keep beating this drum whenever the subject comes up, but I believe that one of the best ways to improve PAT driver-cyclist relations is to make a point of helping out the PAT driver when you can. Simply slowing traffic and waving to allow a bus to pull out takes no time, no effort, and usually garners a smile and a thumbs up.

i think there are 5 PAT bus drivers that hate cyclists, most of them go through oakland, and they ruin it for everyone. most pat bus drivers are pretty cool, but when you're threatened by something like a bus when you're on a bike, it gets the best of you real quick.

Simply slowing traffic and waving to allow a bus to pull out takes no time, no effort, and usually garners a smile and a thumbs up.

Amen to that. This works with cars too.

reddan, that does nothing for you when you are riding at 20+ mph and a bus tries to over take you. This has happened to me a number of times on Liberty. I am riding pretty quickly, they then pass and immediately turn into me before they have fully passed me to pickup or drop off.

Has happened at the sharrows, bike lane and where there is no bike infrastructure.

It seems like most of my negative dealings with PAT have come from Liberty Ave routes.

I do believe most of my negative encounters with busses have been while in Oakland as I spend most of my time cycling there for school. Maybe this is where my bad wrap on busses has come from, thinking back now, I'm not sure I've had any bad encounters with busses outside of Oakland.

StulnMcCandless, that's an interesting thought. I wonder if the negativity of one bus driver just rubs off on the others and creates this aggression. Or is it just on particular routes, such as the aforementioned Oakland area. I am very new to riding the PAT busses around here so I am not very aware of what busses go which routes.

most of my negative dealings with PAT have come from Liberty Ave routes.

Someone mentioned this before I think but those 4 digit numbers on the bus are actually relevant. I'm pretty sure Port Authority knows which bus is being driven by which operator on that route. So if there is an consistent problem it would at least give you some information with which to make a more specific complaint.

reddan, that does nothing for you when you are riding at 20+ mph and a bus tries to over take you.

Agreed. I'm not talking about surviving specific instances of aggressive driving, however; I'm talking about reducing the probability of aggressive driving in general.

My point is that I, as an individual, can easily find daily opportunities to show a bit of extra courtesy on the road. Showing such courtesy does no harm at all, and has at least a small chance of encouraging the other party to reciprocate down the line. Direct action doesn't just mean fighting against things, ya know?

Enough individuals do that, and suddenly you have this bizarre utopia where people are just being nice to each other out of habit. Then the unicorns come trotting down the rainbow, and everyone's happy.

@jeffinpgh They can pinpoint the driver with very little information. If you know the time and route number they can figure it out, but having the Driver ID or Bus ID makes it easier.

I kind of feel bad that we have what has evolved into another PAT driver rant thread. Not all PAT drivers are bad; some are very courteous to Riders, Cars, Peds and Cyclists. Sadly it is true that others couldn't care less about their riders much less other cars, peds or cyclists.

While I think you're living in a dream world where puppy dogs and unicorns are everywhere I do make every effort to smile, wave people in etc when I can.

jeffinpgh, I have made two formal complaints with numbers but I get the bus route and the 4 digit number mixed up by the time I get somewhere I can write them down.

I apologize, I certainly did not mean to start a PAT rant thread, I really just want some data. I want to know peoples experiences with PAT bus drives both negative and positive, not whether you love or hate them. I am not trying to be down PAT drivers, I just want enough info to formulate a conclusion about PAT and cyclist interactions. On that note if you have any accounts of cyclists aggression toward PAT drivers I would love to hear about those as well.

pigtaily, don't take anything on the nevertellmetheodds board personally.

Pigtaily, no worries!

I have lived in Pittsburgh for almost 1 year and have commuted by bicycle probably an average of 2.5 days a week, with the remainder being on the bus.

I have had 2 incidents where I have had to take evasive action to avoid a collision with a bus, both where a bus in opposing traffic turned left in front of me. Both times I followed the bus to talk to the driver and both times I made formal complaints. Once the driver said they did not see me and was courteous and apologetic. The other time the driver said they did not realize how fast I was going and was rude and thought the situation comical.

I can't put a number to the times I have been passed too closely or passed only to stop directly in front of me to drop off/pick up.

i was going straight into downtown on fifth ave. a bus, coming the other way, was about to turn left onto ross st. she waited for me to go thru, but sort of threatened to turn left in front of me. as i passed, i looked up at her with a "Geez gimme a break" face, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

not really sure if that says anything about how we think of each other.

Enough individuals do that, and suddenly you have this bizarre utopia where people are just being nice to each other out of habit. Then the unicorns come trotting down the rainbow, and everyone's happy.

sounds like canada

dmtroyer and erok, thank you this is exactly the kind of thing I am looking for, just peoples actual encounters. Very helpful, thank you, keep them coming. And erok don't worry I'm not taking them seriously, pretty much already done with that site, maybe I'm just naive but I figured people would want to be helpful, guess not. Thanks again!

ya that thread got out of hand pretty fast, oh well, you'll probably get some nuggets of information out of it..

read the links to threads i posted... and you'll probably have some decent people on it from here on out...

imakwik1 yeah it did, what ever, no harm no foul, it's only words. I did get a few things.

kwik1, you gotta warn people before you throw em to the wolves like that. Meanest (and best) board around

i gave her a nice 3 paragraph warning via email... i was pretty much right on too... although i didn't think to define what cop means

spakbros he gave me a little warning, but I definitely didn't expect that. I thought everyone in the 'burgh was supposed to be super friendly (at least thats what they say when you read about living here)?

also, pigtaily, you should create a dummy account on NTMO and ruthlessly make fun of everyone for a while. It might feel real good

@dmtroyer wrote:

I kind of feel bad that we have what has evolved into another PAT driver rant thread. Not all PAT drivers are bad; some are very courteous to Riders, Cars, Peds and Cyclists. Sadly it is true that others couldn't care less about their riders much less other cars, peds or cyclists.

I was going to make this point earlier but everyone else seemed to have such horrible experiences that I thought maybe I was unique. But I would like to add the observations of someone who has been riding the bus to work downtown from Squirrel Hill since 1991. (I started bike commuting three years ago but still use the bus quite a bit, especially in the winter.)

I would say there is a very small number of angry and aggressive drivers who have problems with bikes, and also cars, pedestrians, other bus drivers and the passengers on their own bus. But it is a small number. Most of them are good, careful people. Who do try to be safe.

Riding in Oakland where there are buses nearly always involves riding on Forbes or Fifth or Centre Avenues. None of these are *great* roads for riding even without the bus. The bus is large and can't necessarily move over to get by you as far as you would like.

If they are truly chasing you down @rsprake and cutting you off on a regular basis then I think you should call Steve Patchen at the city and talk to him about it. That is simply not acceptable. I don't see many unicorns when I ride (darn the luck!) but if a bus aggressively passed me, I think I'd just soft pedal for a while and let them go on their way. The bus weighs a lot more than I do and I can't win that fight. And unicorns or not, I find that waving and smiling etc. makes me happier and I'm pretty sure it has a positive effect on some drivers of bus and car alike.

I do think we should also remember that one bus with even modest number of passengers, say 20, potentially represents 20 fewer cars on the road.

amen to this:

I do think we should also remember that one bus with even modest number of passengers, say 20, potentially represents 20 fewer cars on the road.

re:NTMTO

most of those people are actually nice people who would go way out of their way for people in real life who just have horrible alteregos on the internet because they're anonymous. i can't explain it, but lots of really good stuff goes on on that board too... it really is one of the most useful sources for collaboration and information in pittsburgh.

amen to this:

re:NTMTO

most of those people are actually nice people who would go way out of their way for people in real life who just have horrible alteregos on the internet because they're anonymous. i can't explain it, but lots of really good stuff goes on on that board too... it really is one of the most useful sources for collaboration and information in pittsburgh.

Reading back through older posts and saw that Pigtaily wanted examples. I was riding with two friends down Highland Avenue near Peabody H.S. last fall when a bus went by fast and close. Startled the heck out of me. But I just pulled up behind it as did one of my friends. The other friend rode up to the driver's window and commenced to scream at her. He's Australian so the accent might have been offputting as well. Her response to him: "You don't have no G*&*amned MOTOR so you don't belong on ANY ROAD. Get the F&^% off of them."

How are you going to argue with that? Disengagement seems the better approach.

jeffinpgh great response, thank you, it's good to hear positive accounts of PAT. I know they're certainly not all bad, I suppose it's the few angry aggressive bikers that give the PAT a bad name one could say the same of cyclists, like those you said earlier pass a red light while you wait at one, that give us not such a good name in the view of some.

spakbros so is that what that's all about, everyone's just picking on me to feel good? You must have been secretly signed on as one of those guys picking on me, meanie! JK

i post my name on NTMO. I don't hide my identity and snipe people

Spakbros I was totally kidding I'm just not that funny, I know I saw you on there : )

thread turned into a discussion about Hall and Oates anyhow

whoever that is, I'm pretty sure there's nothing else do be said on that thread about PAT and bikes, got some good info on here though and a little there. Not terrible for my first use of online forums, quite the crash course I've had today.

another spak thread

spakbros, biggest cop on any board

Interesting that this thread has such a different feel than the "crash last night in sq. hill" thread that is happening nearly simultaneously.

one good bus driver out there drafts my friend glenn to work every morning through hazelwood.

"i think there are 5 PAT bus drivers that hate cyclists, most of them go through oakland, and they ruin it for everyone"

i agree with this sentiment totally. i work in oakland and am constantly bugged by the buses there, especially on fifth ave. the buses love to speed up to just clear me and then cut back over to pick people up. not only is it annoying and dangerous to cut me off like that, but its a huge waste of gas to be constantly speeding up for no reason. i once played a leap-frog game with a bus for almost the entire length of central oakland.

i have only had a physical altercation with a bus once, and it ended with me catching back up to it, trying to talk to the driver, the driver shutting the window on me, and me turning his mirrors backwards.

although it is not something i would do now, at the time it felt appropriate.

it's funny watching the same thread, with some of the same people, on two different messageboards and be completely different

we are a model internet community. i stalked the columbus boards for a bit the other day when that thing happend... borrring.

I personally haven't had anything really negative involving PAT drivers. I know others on here have and agree that there are some drivers who insist on being a problem. Most of the pat drivers I have encountered are pretty good when it comes to cyclists.

That being said, I also treat a bus with great respect. It could kill me very quickly and I would rather that not happen. So I never pass on the right, and almost never on the left either, unless I know that the bus is going to be making several stops in a short distance and that I have a good chance of staying ahead of the bus for a long time.

I have had incidents with school bus drivers tho. I had one one day from First Student look me square in the eyes and then veer towards me on liberty downtown. He pushed me into the oncoming traffic lane just to get ahead of me and then had to stop 50 ft further down the road.

I have also had problem with the Transportation Solutions drivers that drive the shuttle buses. They are just straight up assholes.

I try to be courteous to bus drivers and respect them and their vehicle.

i think the Transpo Solutions people are the worst. they must've failed the bus driver test or something.

i agree. before i changed my commute route i used to have a daily run-in with a shuttle near pep boys in the millvale/centre/neville vicinity. the one time the dude was even on his cell phone.

I've always been alright on Fifth just riding the second lane from the right, which means I'm not battling buses nearly as much.

A bit more detail on the physical buses. There are six diesel-electric buses -- think of a 15-ton Toyota Prius -- numbered 5371 to 5376. They're very quiet, compared to the other ~994 buses rolling along Pittsburgh streets. They could easily catch you unawares when they come up behind you. All of them run out of the ELib Garage, so are regularly seen on Fifth, Forbes, Liberty, Baum, etc. (And one of the six lacks a bike rack!)

I had a bus driver on the 93A ,which I usually take in the morning but is not a designated bike route apologize to me for not having a rack on the bus. He slowed down to pick me up and i tried waving him on and I guess he wasnt sure what was going on so he stopped and opened his door and was like, "are you sure?" and I told him he didnt have a rack and he said "sorry" as he pulled away leaving me in the cold wind either way, I felt it was a nice gesture.

@the beast: was that this morning?

no, i think it was yesterday or the day before or something. the driver today almost passed me and told me that at the last moment he saw the "chrome" on my bike and then saw me. im not sure what chrome i have on my bike, but it beats getting passed by!

Do you take the early or late 93A?

i catch it at 630am near harmarville, the 93a and 500 come back to back pretty much. you never know which one will come by first, but I hop on the first one that has a rack. I then get off right by highland park.