So as I'm riding down the Forbes Ave hill the other night from Sq Hill into Oakland, I come around the bend at a pretty steady clip over in the right hand parking lane, when WHOA! There's a curb there now!
I swerved around it and all was fine, but it was kinda freaky.
One of the bumpouts has a nice handycap ramp with a bright yellow pad on it, but not the first one you get to coming down the hill.
So I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this message. I guess it's a warning to unsuspecting Forbes Ave riders, and also a suggestion that there be some kind of marking or yellow paint on the first curb so folks can see it coming.
Also, I just want to say that I LOVE CURB BUMPOUTS. I think they're awesome ways of calming traffic, adding more greenspace to the sidewalk corridor, and making even busy streets seem kind of quaint. But in this case helping cyclists merge into traffic at potentially high speeds would be a helpful addition to the design.
ha. there's another thread about this already, but before the curbs were there.
i haven't seen the design yet, but the City is supposed to be putting in bike treatments, sharrows and lanes, from margaret morrison to braddock, so that should help
yeah, all I could think of when I saw those things was doing exactly what you did Jake. Yikes! there's a curb there now! Hopefully nobody swerves into a car.
where's this curb? Margaret Morrison?
no, i believe it's up at the curve, near where you can turn into the park by the golf course
Here's a guess as to what that's about. If you're "turning left" from Forbes to Schenley Dr (ie, going straight) you must stop, but through traffic (ie, turning right) on Forbes doesn't stop. So when someone is stopped waiting for oncoming traffic, the through traffic zooms up behind them and around on the right. Which is great for flow, but it's not exactly safe, and if there's a cyclist or a parked car there...
So, that's not so bad for the cars. However, if the traffic that is going to the park is a cyclist, the through traffic is now going to be passing him much, much closer than before.
This would make sense, but there's actually not a curb athe the curve, it's a bit further down the hill. The new curbs are on the downhill side headed toward CMU.
Maybe the goal is to reduce parking on Forbes? A friend of mine told me they had posted "no parking" signs on the uphill side. Not sure if there is a "time of day" restriction on it, but that would be interesting if true. Would be a bit easier to ride up the hill when a bus passes if you weren't also squeezed into parked cars.
The other thing is that the new curbs have a place where you could plant grass, but right now there are rocks there. Lovely.
The good news: right now the pavement is VERY nice from Murdoch down to Northumberland or so.
i think it has more to do with pedestrians than parking.
Perhaps, not sure how though. They really don't add any useful sidewalk space. Maybe they plan to paint new crosswalks.
This thread is useless without photos.
I think there is a yellow wheelchair cut on the first curb coming down the hill. I walked that way last night on my way to Oakland to try and wrap my gourd around what is going on.
Sharrows/bike lane from CMU all the way to Regent Square? I must have died and gone to Heaven!
It definitely has everything to do with parking and not much to with anything else. I noticed Friday evening that there are No Parking Any Time signs park/golf course side of Forbes from CMU to Sq. Hill. On the downhill side, where they built these new curb bumpouts, and on the streets that join Forbes there like Aylesboro, Northumberland, etc. there are now Permit Parking Area K signs. One hour parking only 7am to 7pm. I guess the people who lived over there didn't like all the cars that drove in from elsewhere and parked on their street all day for free.
A pic from the top of the hill.
