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Possible changes to Liberty Ave in Downtown

Envision Downtown has a new project regarding possible changes to Liberty Ave in downtown: http://www.envisiondowntown.com/lifeonliberty/ You might recall this from that news item on KDKA last week (?) where the Army surplus store owner complained about this, while some of the eateries on Liberty were asking for a wider sidewalk. In any case, Envision D has a survey on the project page, as well as office hours when people can stop by and provide their input. Personally, I'd like to see Liberty Ave become a more efficient transit corridor, with at least one dedicated bus lane. This would  be easier to accomplish on the eastbound lanes than the westbound ones, since only three of the routes that go east on Liberty have to turn left to go north towards Penn and beyond (29, 31, and G31, with only the 31 running Mon-Sun). By comparison, the number and frequency of routes turning left while on westbound Liberty is considerably higher, so it'd be trickier to have a bus lane there. There's also less on-street parking spots on the eastbound side Wider sidewalks could be nice on the north side of the road, but not really required on the south side. Don't really think there need to be bike lanes on Liberty Be sure to take the survey and add your input!
chrishent
2017-03-09 10:07:04
though now that I think about, it might be tricky for drivers to turn right (onto Stanwix, 5th, 6th Ave, etc) if there is a bus lane on that side of the road...
chrishent
2017-03-09 10:14:15
I want a better bike connection between smithfield street and the penn ave bikeway, but that's only like a block. Not that it's typically bad, but there is no wayfinding, and if you're not confident taking the lane it can be scary merging over to the left turn lane.
benzo
2017-03-09 10:35:26
@benzo, yeah this one is a little funky, but it helps if you have a green light on Smithfield. It gives you time to take the left lane, though wayfinding would help the newbies. Aside, I know the city has talked about a north-south bike route in downtown, and the more I think about it, the more I'd favor such a route if it was on Cherry/William Penn, since that road connects seamlessly to 10th St and the Penn Ave cycle track. Smithfield is a little too busy to accommodate a cycle track, what with a bus lane and a lot of onstreet parking in front of businesses (Cherry/William Penn has onstreet parking north of 6th Ave, but there are no businesses on that stretch of road. Only hotels and the HYP club). Then again, the city removed all of the on-street parking on Smithfield on the Mellon Square block (Oliver to Sixth) in order to accommodate a valet parking lane for the Embassy Suites hotel on the opposite side, so anything can happen!
chrishent
2017-03-09 11:57:58