Archive: August, 2011

The Steel Valley Trail is Good

Alan, Heather and Monica on the Steel Valley trailhead

The Steel Valley Trail is a recently completed section of the Great Allegheny Passage that starts at The Waterfront and ends in McKeesport. I’ve been on it myself a few times already. A couple weeks ago Monica and I met Alan and Heather at The Waterfront and went for a nice slow ride to McKeesport and back ending at Rock Bottom for beers. I sometimes dwell on so much of the bad stuff on this blog that I forget about mentioning the good. This is good.

From the McKeesport end one could connect with the Great Allegheny Passage and end up in Washington DC or the Montour and Pandhandle Trails and end up in Wheeling West Virginia.

All of this just a few miles from my house! Now, riding to The Waterfront isn’t the greatest trip ever and there are no bike racks anywhere you would want them but I will save that for another post.

Sent a letter to Mayor Ravenstahl

Instead of installing lanes and sharrows to get to the promised “additional 25 miles of on-street paving markings and 5 miles of shared lane markings” I feel like we are taking them away. Liberty Ave through the Bloomfield business district has been paved for months and yet the sharrows have yet to make a come back. In Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent campaign for office, he promised to install 100 miles of protected bikeways in the city and within his first month in office he was already installing the city’s first protected cycle track. You’re one of the youngest mayors in the country and have a city council who seems ready to support more cycling, yet you do what it takes to only maintain the status quo. If you want Pittsburgh to remain most livable city and continue to attract and retain young people and professionals, you’re going to have to continue working at it.