BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Swalfoort wrote:Potholes are so bad on Negley Run that the City will close the street and repave it rather than fill potholes. Road will be closed starting Monday, but probably best to start avoiding it now.

Per the PG, they'll mill it Monday, then leave it concrete until hot-mix is available to pave with.

Yeah...I made the mistake of taking that on Monday up from Washington Blvd. Holy hell.

I was party to a discussion where a bunch of suburbanites were complaining about this... but hey, representation without taxation is apparently all good (and no, $52 a year does not count).

Don't like our roads? Pay a commuter tax to help alleviate the damage your vehicle is doing to them.

If there was a commuter tax the city would waste it on pensions and cars for people who dont want to drive their own car to work. Lets be real.

It is obvious where heavy machinery has been sitting on the roads in the past few years. A bit of the bike lane approaching negley has potholes from people using the bike lanes as a turning lane and from that semi that parks there. I glad there will be some repaving though.

I drove down Negley Run twice this weekend. It is amazing. Road looks worse than the abandoned turnpike.

The abandoned turnpike really isn't bad.

Hey Eric, what gives? You had to take Negley Run twice? what the first experience wasn't bad enough? Actually this is just a reminder that Negley Run will be closed on Monday and Tuesday for this work to be done. That means all the alternate routes will be crazy....or could be.

The two kids in the car got a kick out of it.

Swalfoort wrote:That means all the alternate routes will be crazy….or could be.

really? i ask this earnestly: does anyone ever travel on negley run during rush hour? have you found it to be congested? i ask because every time i've ever been on it, which, to my recollection, has not been during rush hour, it has been virtually free of traffic.

The 74 bus uses that route, and I think truck traffic, too. The bus alone is enough to account for all the road damage. A city bus damages the road more than 100K cars.

The 74 isn't supposed to take Negley Run. It's on Larimer Avenue in that area. Unless perhaps it's going to or from the garage? But it doesn't seem like Negley Run would be a great way to get there. The 89 takes East Liberty Blvd, and the P10 and P13 take Washington Blvd, but as far as I know, there shouldn't be any buses on Negley Run between the two.

Seems like an excellent opportunity to put that road on a clandestine diet. Repave one lane each direction only for "budgetary" reasons, get everyone used to it, in the summer slip in protected bike lanes.

@Steven I must've misread the map.

The clandestine road diet is brilliant. There's part of me that wants this to be a case made loudly, though. It's a road cars destroyed (not unique). A road we can't really afford to repair (not unique). A road that is built wider than it needs to be (not unique). A road that would last longer if speeds were lower and some fraction of the traffic weighed a couple hundred pounds instead of a couple tons. And hell, it's a road alongside a friggin park, that connects to the east libery blvd bike lanes, and comes dangerously close to connecting to the oval. I have a dream, perhaps no more likely than the cantilever one, but that that same sort of thinking might eventually, some planet, some distant day come to panther hollow road through schenley park. I keep screaming in those dreams, it's a park, it's a park you idiots! Just do it!

HiddenVariable wrote:

Swalfoort wrote:That means all the alternate routes will be crazy….or could be.

really? i ask this earnestly: does anyone ever travel on negley run during rush hour? have you found it to be congested? i ask because every time i’ve ever been on it, which, to my recollection, has not been during rush hour, it has been virtually free of traffic.

Am rush hour inbound up negley run is a extremely dangerous. traffic travels at about 55 mph (35 zone) and regular passes on the right are common at the speeds. Couple the blind bend and large overgrowth to the curb, it is a formula for disaster. Right lane should be a bike lane, force murderists to travel up washington boulevard. Frankstown to Hamilton is a safer route from north along the Allegheny. Crazy dangerous scenarios play out on that road every morning.

There is NO reason that road is two lanes in each direction. The only issue about putting a bike lane on it is it dumps on Washington Blvd, which is crap for cyclists. Not sure if you can connect Negley to the oval or not, but that would be nice if it could be done.

I remember asking about how to get to the oval on a prior thread. http://localhost/mb/topic/a-moderately-safe-way-to-get-to-the-oval-highland-park-reservoir/ Having the bike lane coming back up negley run would be a nice step in the right direction. Also from that thread, it looks like you can dismount at the intersection, cut through a relatively small amount of grass and then have access to the oval between parking lots and pseudo-driveways. If that linkage could be made all the way to Negley run and negley run intersection could have something to make that routing obvious that would surely be nice. And here as in everywhere, tho whole is greater than the sum of the parts. So, if improvements could continue, not just trail surface, but lengthening, and real access to key intersections so that washington blvd as as whole can be bypassed here, that would be pretty huge.

Down-laning Washington Blvd to one each way would help, as would lowering the speed limit to 30 and actually enforcing it.

StuInMcCandless wrote:Down-laning Washington Blvd to one each way would help, as would lowering the speed limit to 30 and actually enforcing it.

As great as that would be it will never happen. That road is filled with cars at the 4:30-6:30PM hours with people leaving Oakland. I wonder if one could create a bike path from Negley to Allegheny River Blvd and have the path connect to One Wild Place? If you can do that, it would be used a lot I think.

gg wrote:I wonder if one could create a bike path from Negley to Allegheny River Blvd and have the path connect to One Wild Place?

What's the advantage of that over just using One Wild Place? Looking at the map, I think it makes sense to avoid Negley Run entirely. Getting a good connection between One Wild Place and the Highland Park bridge (or to a trail along the Allegheny) would be the place to invest resources. Anything with Negley runs into Washington Place and Allegheny River Blvd.

Lenk42602 wrote:Crazy dangerous scenarios play out on that road every morning.

i have no doubt; i've ridden it on numerous occasions. but it seemed like @swalfoort was implying that there would be congestion on alternate routes caused by overflow. i never imagined there would ever be enough cars using this road for that to happen. perhaps i misinterpreted her.

jonawebb wrote:or to a trail along the Allegheny

See Allegheny Green Boulevard project. The plan would be to have a bikeway or multi-use trail at least somewhat parallel to the Allegheny that runs from the strip district near the convention center all the way up to the zoo area (to provide a connection to highland park) adjacent to the rail right of way. It would be awesome if they could make a bike connection through highland park, to the oval, and then back through negley run to make a great car free connection (with negley run as a connector). Possibly as part of stormwater upgrades around the end of washington boulevard.

Actually, I think that plan said that the trail connection would go all the way to Washington boulevard. So that is a good portion of the way. Great idea, assuming the green boulevard actually gets built in the next decade, and according to the current plans.

There is a trail from the Oval to the intersection of Butler and One Wild Place. It isn't flat, and most would consider it a mountain bike trail, but it is there, and pretty fun.