Pittsburgh and Bill Peduto Get Cracking on Downtown Bike Lanes

Big things are happening in Pittsburgh.

Last year, the city elected new mayor Bill Peduto, who came into office with a bold message about remaking the city’s streets. Pittsburgh was then chosen this spring as one of six focus cities where the Green Lane Project will help fast track high-quality bike infrastructure. Peduto wants to make progress before hundreds of bike and pedestrian advocates arrive in the City of Bridges for the Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference in September.

It looks like at least one signature street redesign will be finished before the conference. Bike PGH refers us to reporter John Schmitz’s article in the Post-Gazette about the city’s plan to convert a traffic lane downtown into a two-way bike lane:

Two bike lanes, one in each direction, will occupy the eastbound side of Penn Avenue, replacing the existing traffic lane from Stanwix Street to 11th Street. Eastbound vehicles would be rerouted to Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Liberty Avenue, which are parallel to Penn. Westbound traffic and on-street parking would not change.

A row of delineators, collapsible posts that would have reflectors on them, would separate the bike lanes from traffic. Locations where vehicular traffic crosses the bike lanes would be painted bright green.

Elsewhere on the Network today: BikeWalkLee explains that the Fort Myers, Florida, area has settled on a land use plan that will prioritize walkability and transit access. The Chicago Bicycle Advocate outlines a case in Illinois that helped clarify drivers’ legal responsibility to avoid dooring cyclists. And This Big City wonders whether Florida’s intercity rail plans will live up to the hype.