BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I submit for your consideration Transit Road in suburban Buffalo. Like McKnight, it’s a high capacity traffic sewer with commercial property on both sides for miles. Sidewalks both sides. Google StreetView It can be done.

link doesn't seem to work, stu.

StreetView this: Transit Road and Garfield, Williamsville, NY. Transit is like eight lanes across, strip malls out the wazoo, and they still found space for a sidewalk, and in some places, a strip of grass.

@Stu, you should bring this up with Walk/bike Ross. Adding green bike turn boxes to facilitate two-stage turns would also be a good idea. Most urban sprawl can be retrofitted with walkways to create shorter distances for cyclists and pedestrians so they can more easily get to the sidewalks, cycle track, and bus stops on McKnight Rd. or any other suburban main street.

McKnight is US 19 Truck route and managed by Penndot. My guess is that nothing will be done with mcknkght until it needs to be repaved again. That's probably 10-20 years away and as far as I can tell isn't on the SPC radar for projects. The PG had an article today about crumbling Penndot/interstate highway infrastructure around here and there are so many needed projects and little money so a sure to be politically unpopular road redesign of McKnight won't happen anytime soon. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2019/04/21/Interstate-highway-system-PennDOT-funding-federal-gas-tax-pennsylvania-transportation/stories/201904200008

We don’t need a single sign, inch of paint or shovel of cement. Install speed cameras. Mail out warnings for the first six months, then switch to citations.

Except only speed camera law in PA is for work zones on highways and interstates, not McKnight. And I haven't seen one yet.

"Politically unpopular", How so? I once heard about someone getting busted for speeding in Penn Hills by Penn Hills police. If Penn Hills police can write speeding tickets, why can't the police departments of Pittsburgh, Ross, McCandless, etc do the same?

They can, but they’re prevented from using modern technology like radar guns. PA is the only state that doesn’t allow local law enforcement to use radar guns, only the state police, a law we’ve been trying to get changed since the early 1980s. Speed cameras were allowed on a trial basis in I think 2014, on a five-year trial. Do the math. I don’t know where that is, though, and with Mike Turzai still holding the reins, we’re likely to get nowhere for another two years, same as radar.

@Stu, City police can still write tickets using VASCAR as well as by following the suspect and taking note of their own speed in the process. I would think once enough speeding tickets are written, people will be fed up having to go to traffic court and adjusting their behavior accordingly. Fixed speed traps can also be installed along state roads by PennDOT that have radar and cameras. When the radar detects speeding, it can take a picture of the license plate and the state police can mail the vehicle owner a ticket. Other automated devices such as spike strips can be deployed by these fixed radar guns.

I think camera-based enforcement is only allowed by law as a piolet in construction zones