utterly opinionated

Four hours and forty-one minutes outside Pittsburgh, anger slapped me in the face.  How ridiculous is this, I thought.  Only two hundred and thirty-three point eight miles in four hours and forty-one minutes?  If I were flying, I’d almost be in Paris.

While we fuss about better transportation inside our city, we are missing the boat (or the high-speed train).  Who cares about a slightly better connection between Downtown and Oakland?   We need a better connection between us and the rest of the world.  Right now it takes a startling twelve hours to go by train from Pittsburgh to New York.

A train that moves at just one hundred miles per hour would not only make it possible to get to New York, DC or Philadelphia faster, but would also open a flood of opportunities for Pittsburgh.  More jobs for those who live in our region, spread over a wider geographic area.  More opportunities for businesses located in Pittsburgh, with ready, fast connections to other places.  More.

Come on now.   Who’s working on this?

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a weekend bicyclist, “might consider keeping his head down and his helmet on” suggests the Huffington Post this morning.  ”A backlash is brewing over his new bicycling policy.”

LaHood blogged that he is ending the era of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.   “The new policy has vaulted LaHood to superstar status in the bicycling world. Bike blogs are bubbling with praise. A post on Ridemonkey.com calls him “cycling’s man of the century.” The Adventure Cycling Association’s Web site calls LaHood “our hero.” says Huffington.

He’s my hero too.

Paris is a dense city.  There is not much space here.   Streets are narrow and crammed with cars.

A typical parking space in Pittsburgh measures twenty feet long by eight and a half feet wide.   This smart car fits into a space just nine feet long.  I measured it.   Fill a city with tiny cars and there’ll be twice as many parking spaces.

Our bus stop shelters are as dreary as January in Pittsburgh.  While they may be utilitarian they are quite pedestrian and uninspired.   The essential bus stop sign hasn’t even been integrated into the shelter.   It stands all alone, attached to a nearby post or pole, an afterthought.  What a shameful solution for a bus system that has more riders than most other cities in the US.

Santa Monica, on the other hand, is celebrating its bus system   Last year their Big Blue Bus Agency awarded Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects and Bruce Mau Design the Big Blue Bus Architectural and Branding Package.   These two internationally recognized firms were charged with the job of exploring how public transportation has the potential to cultivate, enrich and connect the community.

Their joyful solution, “The Blue Spots” takes the dreary out of bus stops.  Eventually, these flexible blue shelters will be implemented at 360 stops.

Ours or theirs?   You pick.

Endless miles of freeway have always irritated me.  They plow through neighborhoods, dissecting blocks and turn well worn paths and local connections into dead ends.  Instead of sustaining cities they perpetuate sprawl.

Someone in Melbourne must be thinking the same thoughts.

While riding a 20 mile loop through Melbourne’s close-in neighborhoods, I found myself riding UNDER a freeway.  This creative solution, while not a pretty ride, re-connects the neighborhoods on either side of this freeway and gives back what it took away.  I rode for miles with the sounds of fast-moving traffic above, on a smooth concrete deck, hung by steel straps from the substantial freeway structure above.

Brilliant.

There was a traffic jam on Pittsburgh’s South Side this Sunday.  This one was new and different.  Between 1:00 and 2:00 pm I passed 227 people on the riverside trail.  There were young, very young and not so young  all jammed together.  Most of them were on bikes and some were runners and skaters, elbowing their way through the crowd.

Three years ago I would have been lucky to pass fifty people on the trail.

Now bikes are everywhere, but not everywhere enough for us to rank as one of the top ten great biking cities.  We should aim to be in that top ten.  Cities that are bike friendly are cities where we want to be.  Bike trails, bike lanes and friendly drivers are golden assets that bring new people and new life.  Here, in Pittsburgh, we have all the pieces we need to get onto that list.  There are three rivers, six river fronts and miles of trail connected to distinctive and authentic neighborhoods.  We already have what many cities are now struggling to create.

My favorite list of the top ten bicycle cities is Wired Magazine’s. It wanders all over the world.  Beginning with Amsterdam it ends in Basel, passing through a host of great cities in between.  Four US cities make that list: Portland, Boulder, Davis and San Francisco.  

National Geographic lists their top five as Portland, Davis, Tucson, Madison and Boulder.  The Washington Post likes Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Davis, Tucson, Madison, Chicago, Austin and Philadelphia.  Some cities are repeats.  Some are on everyone’s list.  Pittsburgh is on none.

A study is in order.  Someone needs to send me to study these cities. I’ll figure out what makes them great.  I’ll put a plan in place to inch Pittsburgh up that list.  And I’ll try not to have too much fun doing it.  This is serious work.

So, Mr. Mayor and Mr. County Executive, get rid of those gaps in the trails.  Finish those last connections.  Get those shared lanes painted.  This is economic development at its best.  Quick, inexpensive with the potential for extraordinary results.

Finally.  The Federal Government wants to develop greater inter-city connectivity through the development of high speed rail corridors.   If you are interested in hearing more, the US House of Representatives will be hosting a hearing in Pittsburgh on expanding passenger rail service.  

Come to the US Post Office and District Courthouse located at 700 Grant Street,  Room 6A, at 10 am on Monday, June 22.

photo by freefoto.com

Some people get energy from a quiet weekend in the country. I soak up energy from a new city, and that was the purpose of this weekend’s trip to Toronto.

A little advance research indicated that Toronto has a decent number of bike trails and streets that connect them. I dusted off my German Birdy bike, folded it up into it’s tiniest folded form, threw it in the back of our car, and off we went. I figured I could cover more ground and explore the city more completely with a set of wheels.

My travel mate fretted that I wouldn’t be safe, so I set off cautiously on my first day. I discovered quickly that I was one of thousands on bikes in Toronto. Bikes are everywhere. Every size, age and shape can be seen on a bike. Most bikes have big commuter bags or baskets attached to them. There are city bike posts everywhere and plenty of bikes chained to them. Bike commuting is clearly a standard way of life in Toronto.

This is the first time I’ve ridden in a city where drivers are polite and give way to cyclists. You have the sense that bikes come first here. Yet Toronto, at 2.5 million residents, is the fifth most populous municipality in North America. It’s extraordinary that a city this size is able to cater so successfully to the everyday person on a bike.

Toronto gets it. Will we?