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Stu that is one hell of a commute.

The other side of Carnegie is typical ex-urban. More pleasant than Carberry township, but still nto great. ("Carberry" was a typo, but I'll keep it.)

Oscar Swan's Book has a couple rides that might help. Miller's Run and Washington Pike ("The point of the Washington Pike ride is to avoid Washington Pike").

I've done Miller's Run on a Sunday and most of it seemed like it might be OK during a weekday.

You might want to see what Google bike directions give you - most likely not the best route, but some ideas all the same.

PennDOT Bike Route A goes very close to there.

ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf/bikes/state_mapA.pdf

http://www.dot.state.pa.us/bike/web/tour_routes.htm

Washington County public transportation. I know Westmoreland Co. has commuter buses that come to Pittsburgh, I'm guessing Washington Co. does too. You might consider buying a foldy.

The hotels at Southpointe have buses to the airport, you might make a deal with one of the hotels.

Stu,

I don't know all the roads out that way, but I know you could do this. Start out of Carnegie on 50/Washington Pike. Traffic will be heavy but the road is wider once you get into Heidelberg. Right turn into Thoms Run to Presto Sygan Road to Millers Run which rejoins Millers Run after it becomes two lanes to the 980 and south. ~18 miles each way. I remember 980 as kind of hilly but nothing steep and the ride out from Carnegie is fine.

I like the look of Muse-Bishop to Burnside to Angerer roads, but have no experience with that route.

edited to add that, like Mick, I've only been out there on weekend mornings on a bike. I suspect the traffic would be really heavy on weekdays, at least near Carnegie. Once onto Thoms Run you'd probably be running counter to the main flow of traffic.

Yeesh, that is a long trip, by any mode of travel. 17 miles, just from Carnegie? I thought 17 miles from Moon to McCandless was bad.

Thanks for your help, guys. I guess I don't know the south part of the region very well at all, esp. relative distances between southern points.

If you're approaching from the east, W McMurray road is flat, 2 lanes, and fairly quiet (on Sundays anyway). East of Route 19 it gets a bit hillier, with share-the-road signs but often narrow shoulders, and with a bit more traffic. It connects to the Montour Trail.

You could also get from the Montour Trail to Southpointe by following Morganza Road south from Hendersonville. The section of Morganza south of McMurray (the part that goes by Southpointe's entrance) is decent, but I think traffic on it is faster on the section north of McMurray.

Washington County's public transit has several buses each day that go there or nearby (Morganza and W McMurray) on their way to either downtown Pittsburgh or South Hills Village.

I think you'll find it to be a very nice commute, I do 3.5 mi out of its 7 every day. PATs TDP for the Bridgeville busses was just implemented in Sept. and its kind of overdone . There's a 31 and G31 running form downtown to a brand new South Fayette Park and Ride, just outside Bridgeville. These two routes end up running into each other so if one doesn't have a rack you just have to wait a few minutes for the other. Plus during rush hours they (each) leave every 15 minutes. Anyway, I don't go all the way to the Park and Ride but get off in Bridgeville at Station ST. Then I take Mayview Road down past the old Mayview Hospital to Boyce. I turn on Boyce, but from the map it looks like you'll want to keep going straight on Mayview till it hits Baker Road then on to Morganza Rd which takes you to Southpoint. Mayview Rd is very pleasant traffic wise, except on the way back there is a hairpin turn on a hill by Mayview hospital where cars have to be carefull because there is not much of a shoulder on that curve. It a little bit hilly but they're not big hills maybe 200 ft or so and there's no stop signs or red lights at the bottoms so you can just fly down them and climb half way up the next in high gear. See the link to a map below: Its 7 miles or so... I used to do this a Razor kick scooter before they had bus racks.

View Bridgeville to Southpoint in a larger map

Agree with Montour Trail and Boazo's response. You could actually combine them since the trail hits Mayview.

No first hand experience here, but the "T" to Library then ~10 mi on Montour trail or valley brook rd. might be worth a look.

There was a thread on here a year or so ago on this very subject. Turns out someone knows how to get to Southpointe via a back road. I forget the name. I'll see if I can find the thread.