Thursday, November 24, 2016

Coffeeneuring 2016, a summary

A recap, for those unfamiliar with the term: coffeeneuring is a seven-week series of bike rides ostensibly to get a cup of coffee. The term derives from the term randonneuring, taking long bike rides, sometimes very long, dozens or hundreds of miles. Coffeeneuring is intended to be fun, to get you out on the bike, exploring different places, and takes place as the weather is starting to get colder.

A blog post on the topic a few months ago mentioned that the hobby was particularly popular in Pittsburgh, and I'm proud to say that I've participated most years. On that post, I made the comment that it would be a fun project to try to hit seven wholly different destinations in the region. It would be too easy to hit seven coffee shops where it's easy to get to them, such as on or near a flat river trail, but a different game entirely to spread them out. Our hills and the terrain in general are famously difficult to traverse, so let's use that to our advantage, shall we?

My goal, as played out and achieved, went like this:
  • Week #1: South up a hill. I climbed Josephine Street in the South Side and explored Mount Oliver, before heading out Brownsville Road into the neighborhood of Carrick. I saw few cyclists in this part of town, not surprising as this area is all hills.

  • Week #2: North Side, near the river where it's flat. I met up with an old friend who works as a barista in one of the local chains, Crazy Mocha, and caught up on what's new and doing with her.

  • Week #3: Between the rivers. I had been in a crash only a couple days earlier and still quite sore, so kept it simple, another Crazy Mocha that's the café in the main branch of Carnegie Library, just prior to the observance of a ghost bike placement (first anniversary thereof) just a few yards away.

  • Week #4: A distant diagonal. Allegheny County is roughly round, with rivers going off on three diagonals, NW, NE and SE. I rented one of the city's HealthyRide bike-share bikes and rode southeast, out the GAP trail to McKeesport, some 17 miles each way, taking a side trip into Duquesne. The side trip was a little unsettling. While I was tying up the bike at a possible destination, three teenage girls started questioning me about the bike and why I was there. They assumed that I'd stolen the bike, and were incredulous that I'd biked from downtown. Every answer I gave prompted ever more probing, to the point where I started to feel unsafe, and so left. Even at that, I didn't get out of town before being asked by a motorist what sort of bike I was on. Needless to say, here was another town where I didn't see a single other cyclist. Rather disheartening, in fact. They'd never heard of the bike-share system, and couldn't believe people use bikes as transportation. If this was part of the point of coffeeneuring, to get out into the environment we live in and learn about it, it succeeded. I eventually got coffee and dinner in McKeesport, the next town on the trail.

  • Week #5: Northern suburbs. I live north, so needed a destination I was not already familiar with. Because of time, I didn't get started until late afternoon, so opted to replicate my son's commute by bike to his job at a local Panera. I ran video of the trip there and showed it to him later. Apparently I made a wrong turn and ended up in weeds taller than I was, which he found hilarious. Oh well, sense of adventure and all that.

  • Week #6: West. The western part of the city, and its suburbs, are very difficult, even dangerous, to get to. There are only a couple of ways to do it, none of them safe or pleasant. I rode a sidewalk along the one major street, West Carson, where a cyclist was killed only days after the road was reopened after a three-year construction project.

  • Week #7: South, near the river where it's flat. Actually on a Tuesday, since I knew the coming weekend was overbooked. I took in my last trip at a local coffeehouse, Big Dog. I was also looking for a particular church building, part of a game we play in Pittsburgh called Tag-o-Rama. Figure out where someone has taken a picture of their bike -- in this case, in front of an unnamed church -- post the photo, then go somewhere else to take a pic of your bike in some spot that someone else has to figure out where is. So this trip was part of that game, and a reason to go exploring that part of town. I didn't find the tag, but did find some great coffee.

For a couple of these rides, I made use of alternative starting locations and ways of getting there, or home. Three of them, I used the HealthyRide rentals, starting downtown. Two others, I used the bus to get me home afterward because of the amount of stuff I was carrying. Our company moved to a new location during the ride series, and I took the opportunity of being downtown to take bagsful of stuff from my old desk home, rather than try to pack it. For me, much of the difficulty of coffeeneuring is the 10-mile trip each way just to get anywhere that isn't north, and then that again getting back home, probably in the dark. Getting hit within a mile of my house commuting home one night didn't help.

Still, each of these rides was eye opening, getting me to experience new parts of town, or known parts in new ways. And isn't that the point?

Being passed unsafely

Some people should not have driving licenses. A license indicates you have knowledge of the rules of the road, and apply them in the second-by-second navigation of the roadways such that you can get where you are going safely. If you cannot or will not do that, you should have no such license.

Tuesday, 22 Nov 2016, again I did not die at the hands of an idiot motorist, nor did another totally innocent motorist who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was returning home from work, and used the bus to get 90% of the way home. It takes less than four minutes from exiting the bus to standing inside my house. The 0.9-mile trip on Perrymont should be simple, just a short climb then a half-mile downhill. Should. But often isn’t.

There are two blind crests going west off of McKnight, the first at the top of the aforementioned climb, the second a bit later before the big descent. It was at that second one Tuesday night that someone passed me, at speed, at the very top of that crest, and very nearly hit an oncoming car head-on. They were both going 35+, and missed each other by less than 50 feet.

Front video. The incident occurs just after :50, or 20:04:58 on my camera's clock (which was an hour fast).

Rear video. The car at :25 is fine. It's the second one, at :50.

You can see in the rear video that the guy made no attempt to slow down. He just saw me in the lane, changed lanes, passed, and pulled back in. Which would have been fine if there hadn’t been oncoming traffic he could not possibly see.

It's easy enough to figure out what he was thinking. It's a sense of entitlement, a belief that one should and must proceed at least at the speed limit, without ever needing to be delayed for anything. Absent any other traffic, motorized or not, this driver would be going 40 or better, on a road posted 35. I've lived in my house over 25 years. This is simply how people drive, not just here, but everywhere.

But you cannot. If you see an obstruction in the road, be it a cyclist, a garbage can that fell over, a disabled motorist -- whatever -- and cannot see the way clear ahead, you slow down, or stop if necessary, until you can see the way clear. If you will not do this, you should not have a license to drive.

This has nothing to do with a cyclist's right to use the road or where in the lane I happened to be at that moment. This is all on the motorist. The motorist passed me at the very top of a blind hill. Had I been a mere 15 yards farther along, that would have been either a full head-on crash, hood ornament to hood ornament, or an immediate swerve back into his lane, taking out the softer target -- me -- similar to how he might have been trying to avoid a raccoon.

What else could I have done? Even if I had been stopped on the shoulder, he would have moved over the center line at the top of the grade, still colliding head-on but headlight to headlight. So, no, it's not on me to move over or do anything differently. It's for that motorist to lose the sense of entitlement that says, "I shall not be delayed even the slightest."

PA plate ZFY-8649, pickup truck, could not tell make, model or year.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

2016 Coffeeneuring #6 - West

Six hours later than I wanted to get out the door, but here I am in Stowe Twp, adjacent to McKees Rocks, a western trolley suburb. I am seated in 1905 Eatery, a really nice restaurant that's beyond my budget, big time, but it's about the only choice in town that isn't leaning against the wall of a convenience store. I got here right at opening time, 4pm. The featured entrée is a crab cakes special at $28.95. I'm hoping to get out of here for $15. I did look around for alternatives, but there really weren't any. Morning and lunch, there were other choices, but not late afternoon on a Sunday.

On a positive note, though there's not a bike rack in sight, this town is straight out of the 1950s. I found a parking meter solidly rooted in the concrete sidewalk and just as solidly bolted together. Back in the days when a nickel bought something and quarters were serious revenue for a small town, this old meter is the best thing to lock a bike to, and anywhere else, they're becoming as rare as getting a Buffalo nickel in change.

I was their first customer of the night, so they hadn't even put a pot of coffee on yet. Talk about fresh! That, and the little pitcher of creamer contained real half & half. Dinner itself ended up being this yummy eggplant appetizer.

For the trip over here, I chose to go outbound on West Carson Street. For those unaware, this road is a death trap for cyclists. PennDOT rebuilt this road down to bare dirt, a three year project that wrapped up only three months ago. The cycling community objected strenuously to the rebuild design, but they ignored all that and built it their way without substantive deviation from the original plan. Sure enough, only nine days into the road's opening, there was a fatal cycling crash. My plan today was to travel the same way as the cyclist who died, to see if I could discern anything. I ran front and rear video but will comment on that separately. All that matters here is that I used the sidewalk, not the street, to get out here.

The sidewalk is rideable from the West End Bridge to Stanhope Street on the McKees Rocks border, but as with any sidewalk, there are pedestrians, it's too narrow for two bikes to pass side by side easily, knotweed blocks half the available space, and sight lines at the few intersections are almost non-existent. This will not scale, if any significant increase in bike traffic happens. This was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in mid-autumn, but I didn't see a single bicycle between WEB & MR. Any guesses why not? Thanks for nothing, PennDOT.

For most of that distance, there would be plenty of space to add a bike lane, using the suggestions we originally gave them at a December 2011 design meeting. Another thing they should do is use an existing abandoned railroad bridge to get cyclists across West Carson, as part of a larger project to provide a bike route from Rocks into downtown. Instead, they plan to tear down the bridge, even though it's in nobody's way, has plenty of height clearance, and is not in danger of collapse. Again, short-sightedness on PennDOT's part, and precious little else, is behind this logic.

I did keep the final bill to sub-$15, with tip, my upper limit for coffeeneuring runs.

For the trip back, I considered taking the bus, but thought it would be interesting to try the horrid road at night, with cameras rolling. Turned out to be no worse than I am used to dealing with on any other road. I did not take the sidewalk, but used the road itself. Traffic was light, and everyone who passed me gave me the required four feet of space. This is a single 14-foot lane, with a 10-foot center lane that is really a second outbound lane that is totally unnecessary for most of its length. Fourteen feet is wholly unnecessary for a 35 mph road, but it does make it at least possible for light traffic to get by without difficulty. I rode this the entire distance from McKees Rocks to the entrance to the South Side Trail by 1600 West Carson.

From there, I rode Smithfield Street through the city, to 9th Street, to East Street, to Perrysville Avenue, then up Perry Highway to home. Most of this was uneventful, except for the last 100 yards of Perry before the turn onto my street. Only then, literally within sight of my house, I get nearly sideswiped by a white Cadillac whose driver had trouble figuring out how to get into an empty passing lane.

Thus concludes six of my seven coffeeneuring runs around Pittsburgh. Only one left, the South Side Flats.

Monday, November 7, 2016

2016 Coffeeneuring #5 - Northern suburbs

If the Oakland Carnegie Library was my ace, this was playing my next highest card. I live north of the city, so the challenge was to bike to someplace new, or in a new way, north of the city, but not the North Shore, and far enough from the house to qualify.

My choice was the McCandless Panera, if only to replicate my son's commute. He works at this very restaurant (though not the day I went there), and commutes by bike, but I had never traveled there via his route.

The first 3/4 mile is identical to my trip to the bus in the morning, but he makes a left into the nursing home, where he cuts through a parking lot, a fence, and a yard, then down a steep hill, into the parking lot for a new bit of suburban sprawl -- a parking lot for a hotel, a gym, and a restaurant. I almost did this without error, but did not see and so overshot the mowed path, and ended up bushwhacking my way through 30 feet of tall weeds.

Normally I would prefer to avoid national chain restaurants, but I also know how the business works, so the best way I knew to keep my son employed was to give the place some business. Plus, I needed dinner anyway, and it was getting late. I wanted to ride earlier, but the To Do list at home took priority, and further had to hook up my lights to Bike #2. The whole point of having Bike #2 operable is so he or I can hop on it on a moment's notice to make this exact trip. Coffeeneuring simply made the drill a more enjoyable chore.

I don't know where he ties up his bike, but I could not find a single rack in the entire set of restaurants in that little sprawlplaza. The only post that I could fit the U-lock around was a temporary sign I could pick up which weighed less than the bike. I will not lock to trees. I ended up wedging it between a bush and the wall of the building.

[Update: New photo] In my rush to get out the door, I forgot the cell phone. Here is one pic of my meal, a still from my helmet cam.

I also managed to get a video of the ride (here), and this pic of the receipt. The chili and sandwich were decent.
The trip back was uneventful, the biggest concern being that it was now dark. I somehow found my way back up the path through the grass to the nursing home, then it was the usual 3/4 mile on Perrymont I already know pretty well. All told, round trip was about five miles, barely enough to qualify, but certainly with a good deal of exploration and experimentation under my belt.

Only two more rides to go in my Pittsburgh series -- level south-of-the-rivers, and west of town.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

2016 Coffeeneuring #4, McKeesport

This was "distant diagonal" week, and I went southeast, since that's the farthest I can get purely on a trail. McKeesport is the last really big town on the GAP before you head into the boonies of southwest PA on your way to D.C., fully 17 miles from downtown Pittsburgh.

The day got off to a late start, with a trip to Monroeville that should have wrapped up by 2, but I didn't get on the road for there until 2:30. Coin shows are morning events, and sure enough, by the time I got there, dealers were already packing their cases. With my choices of dealers disappearing with each passing minute, I hurriedly decided on purchasing 20 Buffalo nickels for my annual Halloween handout. (As detailed elsewhere, I always give out coins to the kids, not just money, but items of some numismatic value and educational interest, with the hope that it inspires some kids to become collectors someday.)

For that leg of the trip, I was on motorcycle, but like the first week, parked that downtown and rented a HealthyRide bike-share bike. Where to go? I opted to head for the Hot Metal Bridge, and decide then whether to find something on the level South Side, or head way out to do my distant diagonal. Once there, I chose the latter, but what constituted distant enough? I passed the Glenwood Bridge (still in the city), then the Rankin Bridge (barely outside the city). That was distant enough, but my choices once I got up to street level would consist of some fast food about a mile away, near Kennywood, on a road that's notoriously difficult to bike. Nope, better stay on the trail a bit farther.

Next up, Duquesne. There is a strip mall right across from the trailhead, but nothing resembling a restaurant or coffee shop. I headed up the hill, well into the town, seeing a couple of candidates which I thought I would consider on the way back out. None looked all that appealing, but I chose what was billed as a sub and coffee shop. It even had what might once have been some sort of chest-high street light, with a knob that might work for the rental's built-in cable lock. But I never made it in the place. A gaggle of early teen girls started asking questions. They assumed I stole the bike, and every attempt at an explanation begat further questions. I chose not to go inside, fearing too many more people would find the sudden appearance of a strange white guy on a strange bicycle with a strange story (what's coffeeneuring, anyway? heck, I had trouble explaining a bicycle) perhaps a bit too strange. So, back down the hill -- where a woman in a car at a traffic light also inquired about the bike. The concept of rental bikes has not made it to Duquesne, apparently. Actually, I don't think I saw a single other bicycle in the entire town in the 20 or so minutes I was there. That's rather sad, actually. Duquesne seemed rather sad, actually. The buildings and the people all seemed broken. I guess this is part of what coffeeneuring is about: Get out and experience the areas near where you live, so you know about them first-hand.

Farther out I went, the three or so miles to McKeesport. I had only been out here a couple times, ever, on a bike, and not that many more times in a car, either. It was also approaching sunset, so I further knew the entire trip back downtown would be in the dark. I saw one familiar face on the trail, Yale Cohen, going the other way. I'm sure my appearance on a bike that far out of the city that direction was a total surprise to him. Once I got to the last bridge over the river, I took this photo. As I said in my tweet, I suspect these rental bikes are a rare sight in McKeesport.

Now, where to eat? That late on a Saturday, my choices of eateries was shrinking as fast as dealers at a coin show in late afternoon. But then I spied good ol' local chain restaurant, Eat'n Park, which featured a couple of very nice bike racks right in front of the store. I quickly ordered dinner and coffee, keeping it as simple as possible. I further had not had a proper meal all day, so everything looked good.

It was almost 8:30 by the time I got back on the road. Knowing it was close to 20 miles, I only hoped to get back by 10. As it turns out, I got moving pretty quickly on that bike. Duquesne in 15 minutes, six minutes later hearing the screams from one of Kennywood's roller coasters (I thought they closed eight weeks ago?), passing the eagle nest near Hays in about a half hour, and the Hot Metal Bridge before 9:30. I parked the bike in the same rack I pulled it out of at 9:46, only 15 minutes ahead of my expectation. Despite a 20-minute phone call, I was home by about 10:30. The whole travel day was accomplished in eight hours.
Numbers: 34 miles on the bike (map:
Link), about 40 on the motorcycle. One cup of coffee. Twenty Buffalo nickels acquired, one given as an additional tip for the waitress with a nice, explanatory note.

I'd call that a good day.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

2016 Coffeeneuring #3, between the rivers

I had to play my ace early in this game, as it turned out. Last Tuesday, I was hit by a car on my bike while riding home, and while neither I nor the bike were too badly banged up, it was in the shop and I was still pretty sore. What little riding I was capable of, I did mainly with one hand doing anything useful. Squeezing a brake with my left hand is not yet something I can do well.

Friday afternoon was the one-year memorial for Susan Hicks, who lost her life riding home on a bike. I was able to get out of work a bit early and borrow one of the rental bikes to make the three mile ride out to Oakland, and the site of her ghost bike on Forbes Ave across from the dinosaur where so many bike rides begin. Just like last year's memorial, we had a steady rain, but also like last year, we had dozens of people there.



Just prior to this, though, I stopped in at the little coffee nook at Carnegie Library's main branch, right across the street. Like last week's coffeeneuring trip #2, this too was a Crazy Mocha, and for that matter, this was the second CM I'd been in that afternoon. But I wasn't about to be picky. I only had 40 minutes, and knew this was my only chance to make the ride this week. And I love this place. The goat on the wall is wearing librarians' glasses.



My big purchase was a pumpkin flavored coffee and a cookie. Just as I got this to my table, the bike shop called to discuss details of the repair estimate, then I also ran into Scott and Eric from Bike-Pgh. Net effect, I barely had time to gulp it all down before I ran across to the memorial service getting underway. 

But, all is well with the world. Several people had heard about my incident, and were both truly concerned with my condition, and glad to see me getting around, apparently intact. 

Still, three for three. I have yet to do south flat, north hilly, west, and outer east. Next week, I hope, I will be better able to go any distance.

2016 Coffeeneuring #2, north level

A good friend I had not seen in a long time just took a job at the Federal-North Crazy Mocha, and as it happened, I would be in that part of town the day I knew she would be working. I only needed to take care of a couple earlier activities in time to get there before the place closed.

The morning got off to a confusing start, with various family members and I not quite on the same page of who had to go where when. I ended up getting a ride from home to Northview Heights, on the city's North Side, then got the rest of the way to Heinz Field under my own power. This itself was fraught with some irritation, as I got a horn from an ignorant motorist on a 25 mph city street, when I was likely going at least 20. She apparently did not accept that cyclists were allowed to use city streets at all. I chose not to further engage.

The main activity was to assist with the fourth annual 3-2-1 Ride, a charity bike ride to raise funds for pancreatic cancer research. I've helped on this ride each of the four years, and had this on the calendar, in ink, months ago. I wasn't sure where I'd be helping, but it's notable that on a single hour, the arranging of getting me there and in place involved four Sarahs: my wife (Sarah Strickland), the volunteer organizer Sarah Pearman, and two I've worked with on past rides, Sarah Quesen and Sara Walfoort. My life also features about six other Saras or Sarahs on a regular basis, and another half dozen I run into less often. I am awash in Sarahs. Next up, spend an hour or two manning a sticky intersection -- Penn Avenue at Stanwix Street -- where the bike lane ends and riders have to merge into regular traffic. That ended up being a fairly easy problem to manage. I did get asked a dozen or more times which way to go, by those on the ride, and directions in general by random passersby. It felt good, just standing there on a beautifully warm autumn day.



Eventually the cleanup crew came through, so I took off with them to the ride's end, and the promise of some food. I hung out with friends I hadn't seen in a while, nibbled bagels and orange segments, then headed to the next task: work.

Getting downtown was simple enough, with that minor risk of managing not to ride into the river as I biked toward and past PNC Park. As I got to my building, I noticed that Grant Street was shut down entirely for a celebration called Pittsburgh Food Day, an effort of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council. Various booths and small exhibits were set up to explain various aspects of recovering and not wasting food, sustainable community gardens, vegan diets, and other aspects of food production in the city.





I spent about an hour at work, tracking down a couple of problems, and packing up a few more things to take home in preparation for the company's move next week. I returned to the food thing, and got in line for the quick little meal they were serving people. I met a young lady, whom I know only as Kat, who lives in Millvale and knows a lot of the same people I do, since I pass through Millvale almost daily myself.

Next up, bike to the North Side, to run into Amanda at Crazy Mocha, and catch up on things. For living in the same city, I hadn't seen her in years. Got a brownie and a "monkey mocha", a banana-chocolate coffee concoction. Yum!



Lastly, I caught a bus most of the rest of the way home. I had a bagful of junk from my cubicle, it didn't tie to the bike at all, and didn't feel like riding eight miles with a bag in one hand. Sometimes, it's best to take the bus, even on a nice day.



Soon enough, I was home, showered, and got on with the rest of a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Coffeeneuring Week #2 is in the bag!

Sunday, October 9, 2016

2016 Coffeeneuring trip #1: Hilly south

I stated in a couple of the main coffeeneuring blogs a suggestion for those pursuing the prize in Pittsburgh this year, and intend to put my muscle where my mouth is: In seven weeks, get to seven disparate destinations in the metro area:
* South of the Monongahela River, near the river, where it's flat
* South of the river, either up a big hill or in the suburbs
* North of the Allegheny River, near the river, where it's flat
* North of the river, either up a big hill or in the suburbs
* West End or western suburbs, which are all challenging to get to
* Between the rivers, but inside the Blue Belt, roughly the city line
* East of the Blue Belt, or a distant diagonal from downtown

For this first trip, I opted for south-up-a-hill. It's easy to toodle over to the South Side Flats, but something else again to surmount the big ridge. It's a 470-foot vertical climb to Arlington and South 18th. More on that later.

My trip started at Forbes at Grant, downtown. I had to travel in to work earlier, and did so by motorcycle. But with that done by about 11, and not having had breakfast to speak of, and with nobody having designs on my time for the next six hours, I thought it a fine time to work in the more distant of my seven planned ventures. A HealthyRide bike station, Pittsburgh's bike rental system, was just outside my building, so I punched the buttons on my phone, brought up the app, got the beep unlocking the bike, adjusted the seat, and was off!

The first couple of miles were easy, just out the Jail Trail and over the Hot Metal Bridge, where I paused briefly to take in that great view of the skyline that only cyclists and peds get to see.

I originally planned to double back to South 18th Street to climb that, but found myself looking at South 26th instead, and remembered that that was another way to surmount the ridge. What actually jogged my memory was seeing a 48 Arlington bus turn onto 26th, and figured it had to get up the hill somehow.

South 26th doesn't go very far, only under the tracks, then a T intersection with Josephine St. I started up that, pausing to take a photo of an enormous hole in the street, half covered with a piece of thin plywood. I tweeted this photo to the city 311 service for reporting problems such as that. A car encountering that would be immobilized to the point of needing a tow truck to get out.

I got a few close passes. Again, people's understanding of the four-foot passing law leaves much to be desired, as does their knowing it's OK to cross the center line to pass a bike. Maybe they don't see bikes here that often.

Another pause to photograph a pair of drain grates whose large slots line up perfectly with the direction of travel on a turn. Every new place I go, I find more of these. Coffeeneuring causes me to do more of that exploring, and so contributes to finding them.

A woman in a USPS truck very nicely passed me with plenty of space, then pulled over a few yards up to deliver a package, but then walked in front of her truck directly into my path. Even slogging uphill, I had to take evasive action not to hit her. I suspect she didn't have the same experience riding school buses that I did growing up. You always always always look around the front of the bus, even if the driver waves you across. You alone are responsible for keeping yourself alive. Two kids in my grade did not learn that lesson. But enough about then.

The HealthyRide bikes are OK on hills, but I would not have minded a bit lower gearing. In fact, quite a bit lower. If we want to expand the system into the southern part of the city, the average rider is going to have trouble climbing hills. I had no trouble, but I climb Federal Street on my own bike, bottom to top, without pausing, so my opinion may not count for much. OTOH, there were times I wish I'd had a taller gear at the top end, once I got into flat or downhill sections. If these bikes had a seven-speed setup with a wider spread at the top end but one or even two gears below the current lowest, that would make the hills a bit more surmountable.

Once I got to the top, I think it's Devlin Street, I was disappointed how desolate it is. I think 10 or 20 years ago there was a housing project up here, but the last time I was up there was 2008, and it hasn't changed. Just acres of fenced off field. That could at least be windmills or solar panels if it's just going to be vacant land.

From there, I explored little side streets, even a few dead ends. Jonquil Way was one that came and went a couple times. Wow, the people back here must be part mountain goat. I wonder how many use that 48 bus at the top of that ridge. It's not that far a walk, but everything requires an elevation change.

A few wiggles later, I found myself in Mount Oliver, a village that's not part of the city but entirely surrounded by it. Realizing I was now on Brownsville Rd, the continuation of South 18th I'd originally planned to climb, I figured it was time to start looking for coffee and lunch. I kept on riding south. I'd been out here only a few times in recent years, on bike or anything else. Like any good Pittsburgher, I only know well the quadrant of town I live in, and south ain't my specialty. But hey, I'm on a bike, I'll see something good sooner or later. I set an absolute limit of Saw Mill Run Blvd, and hoped I would find something suitable before that.

I passed up a Dunkin Donuts and a few other chains and fast food. I wanted something local, not a chain, and preferably serving real food. Eventually I was deep into Carrick, and found a couple of possibilities past the split for Churchview Ave. My choice was Family Restaurant -- that's its name, no additional name components necessary. A little Mom-and-Pop place with printed menus and a seating area.

Just one thing: Noplace to tie up a bike. That part of town, no bike racks, anywhere. I opted to use a street sign.

Just one other thing: No bikes, either. I wish I'd run video to be sure, but I do not recall seeing a single other person on a bicycle between Josephine Street and arriving at Family Restaurant, easily three urban miles and most of an hour in motion.

I was seated, and quickly chose a spinach & lentil soup, a slice of baklava, and tea. Only Mom was in the place, no Pop, no other staff. She was counter, kitchen and cleanup. Nice woman, decent English though clearly ESL, maybe 50 and change (like me). It took her a few minutes to put it together but all was well and warm enough, and tasty, too. Total, about $10.

One customer strolled in, a man about 60, and ordered a hoagie. Like for me, it took her about 10 minutes to put it together. During that wait, he grumbled at everything, just loud enough for me to hear. He said nothing as he looked me over, which was about the moment I was taking this picture.

Someone's car was loud. He grumbled about that. He grumbled about how long it was taking. He grumbled about some of the art on the wall. Then when she arrived with the food, he asked why she was using a calculator to add up the bill instead of using the cash register. As if it mattered. Then he asked if she paid her taxes. Of course she did, she said, every three months like you're supposed to. I think he thought that because she was not of WASP descent, that somehow meant she was a freeloader of some sort. Whatever, he shut up, paid the bill, and left. I bet I know who he's voting for.

It was close to 2 p.m. by the time I was done, and my phone's battery was getting dangerously low. It was at 62% when I left the office, but was now in the low teens, dropping fast, and I was almost 15 miles from home. I made sure I had the unlock code for the bike, because I'd be seriously stuck if I couldn't unlock it and couldn't call for help. Note to self: Next time, write the unlock code on my hand. (It bottomed out at 6% by the time I plugged it in next, and it's been known to shut down at 5%.)

The trip back was fun enough. I did encounter one cyclist, some guy salmoning his way along the wrong side of Brownsville, and another who dodged around some pedestrians on the sidewalk. That's telling, too. What few cyclists who dare to ride at all in that part of town either don't know the rules or choose to ignore them. Maybe I should suggest to the bike count folks that they should set up counts through the southern and western parts of town a bit more. Brownsville and Nobles Lane, and the Amanda St mess, to name two. It isn't difficult to do ride according to the rules, but again, I don't find McKnight Road that difficult.

After crossing Arlington, Brownsville becomes South 18th, and is a mile and a half of downhill. Wheeeee!!!

Taking it easy, I rode along the South Side Trail, stopping to answer a text as a train went by. (Don't all little boys stop to watch trains go by?) Yale and Paul caught me here, so we rode into downtown together. It was fun to have a bit of companionship to finish the ride.

I returned the bike to the exact slot where I took it out. A job well done, on a bike which proved worthy to the task at hand. Soon I was on my Suzuki 250 and headed home for real.

One coffeeneuring trip down, six to go!

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Dear Sirs,
I am sure you are aware of the 30 August death of a cyclist on West Carson Street, only nine days after PennDOT opened the road after a complete reconstruction. In the 33 months the road was restricted to single-lane, 25 mph operation, there were few wrecks and no fatalities.

My beef with PennDOT requires your attention because it is supposed to be responsive to its superiors, namely state government leaders, the citizenry's elected representatives -- you. To do your jobs effectively, you need to be informed what the citizenry needs.

In that part of town -- McKees Rocks, the Bottoms, Esplen, Presston, Sheraden, Elliott, Stowe -- car ownership is far less than in other parts of the city and inner suburban areas. Able-bodied people are dependent on the bus system, and I need not elaborate upon the many service cutbacks in recent years. Using a bike to commute from the area served by West Carson, though, which would be a great way to get back and forth, essentially cannot be done using this road design. Even experienced cyclists like myself do not consider it safe to ride -- and I regularly ride on McKnight Road.

I need you to understand that people regularly commute by bike, some by choice, others by necessity. They need PennDOT to design roads to allow them to use the road system safely -- even if it means less capacity and lower speed limits, which they are adamantly opposed to.

That last point is critical: Roads like West Carson need to be posted 25, not 35, so that non-drivers can use it safely. We do not care if that is not popular, and we don't want you to care, and we don't want PennDOT to care. Safety is more important than capacity. We want to use the roads without fear of losing our lives.

Never mind bicycles. Simply put, would you change a left flat tire on West Carson?

PennDOT needs to think differently. YOU need to think differently, if you are not already fully on board with getting PennDOT to change.

I thank you in advance for your concern.

Sincerely yours,
Stuart Strickland

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Dear Sirs,
I am sure you are aware of the 30 August death of a cyclist on West Carson Street, only nine days after PennDOT opened the road after a complete reconstruction. In the 33 months the road was restricted to single-lane, 25 mph operation, there were few wrecks and no fatalities.

My beef with PennDOT requires your attention because it is supposed to be responsive to its superiors, namely state government leaders, the citizenry's elected representatives -- you. To do your jobs effectively, you need to be informed what the citizenry needs.

In that part of town -- McKees Rocks, the Bottoms, Esplen, Presston, Sheraden, Elliott, Stowe -- car ownership is far less than in other parts of the city and inner suburban areas. Able-bodied people are dependent on the bus system, and I need not elaborate upon the many service cutbacks in recent years. Using a bike to commute from the area served by West Carson, though, which would be a great way to get back and forth, essentially cannot be done using this road design. Even experienced cyclists like myself do not consider it safe to ride -- and I regularly ride on McKnight Road.

I need you to understand that people regularly commute by bike, some by choice, others by necessity. They need PennDOT to design roads to allow them to use the road system safely -- even if it means less capacity and lower speed limits, which they are adamantly opposed to.

That last point is critical: Roads like West Carson need to be posted 25, not 35, so that non-drivers can use it safely. We do not care if that is not popular, and we don't want you to care, and we don't want PennDOT to care. Safety is more important than capacity. We want to use the roads without fear of losing our lives.

Never mind bicycles. Simply put, would you change a left flat tire on West Carson?

PennDOT needs to think differently. YOU need to think differently, if you are not already fully on board with getting PennDOT to change.

I thank you in advance for your concern.

Sincerely yours,
Stuart Strickland

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Dear Sirs, I am sure you are aware of the 30 August death of a cyclist on West Carson Street, only nine days after PennDOT opened the road after a complete reconstruction. In the 33 months the road was restricted to single-lane, 25 mph operation, there were few wrecks and no fatalities.

My beef with PennDOT requires your attention because it is supposed to be responsive to its superiors, namely state government leaders, the citizenry's elected representatives -- you. To do your jobs effectively, you need to be informed what the citizenry needs.

In that part of town -- McKees Rocks, the Bottoms, Esplen, Presston, Sheraden, Elliott, Stowe -- car ownership is far less than in other parts of the city and inner suburban areas. Able-bodied people are dependent on the bus system, and I need not elaborate upon the many service cutbacks in recent years. Using a bike to commute from the area served by West Carson, though, which would be a great way to get back and forth, essentially cannot be done using this road design. Even experienced cyclists like myself do not consider it safe to ride -- and I regularly ride on McKnight Road.

I need you to understand that people regularly commute by bike, some by choice, others by necessity. They need PennDOT to design roads to allow them to use the road system safely -- even if it means less capacity and lower speed limits, which they are adamantly opposed to.

That last point is critical: Roads like West Carson need to be posted 25, not 35, so that non-drivers can use it safely. We do not care if that is not popular, and we don't want you to care, and we don't want PennDOT to care. Safety is more important than capacity. We want to use the roads without fear of losing our lives.

Never mind bicycles. Simply put, would you change a left flat tire on West Carson?

PennDOT needs to think differently. YOU need to think differently, if you are not already fully on board with getting PennDOT to change.

I thank you in advance for your concern.

Sincerely yours,
Stuart Strickland

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Turzai and Vulakovich letter, first draft

Dear Sirs, I am sure you are aware of the 30 August death of a cyclist on West Carson Street, only nine days after PennDOT opened the road after a complete reconstruction. In the 33 months the road was restricted to single-lane, 25 mph operation, there were few wrecks and no fatalities.

My beef with PennDOT requires your attention because it is supposed to be responsive to its superiors, namely state government leaders, the citizenry's elected representatives -- you. To do your jobs effectively, you need to be informed what the citizenry needs.

In that part of town -- McKees Rocks, the Bottoms, Esplen, Presston, Sheraden, Elliott, Stowe -- car ownership is far less than in other parts of the city and inner suburban areas. Able-bodied people are dependent on the bus system, and I need not elaborate upon the many service cutbacks in recent years. Using a bike to commute from the area served by West Carson, though, which would be a great way to get back and forth, essentially cannot be done using this road design. Even experienced cyclists like myself do not consider it safe to ride -- and I regularly ride on McKnight Road.

I need you to understand that people regularly commute by bike, some by choice, others by necessity. They need PennDOT to design roads to allow them to use the road system safely -- even if it means less capacity and lower speed limits, which they are adamantly opposed to.

That last point is critical: Roads like West Carson need to be posted 25, not 35, so that non-drivers can use it safely. We do not care if that is not popular, and we don't want you to care, and we don't want PennDOT to care. Safety is more important than capacity. We want to use the roads without fear of losing our lives.

Never mind bicycles. Simply put, would you change a left flat tire on West Carson?

PennDOT needs to think differently. YOU need to think differently, if you are not already fully on board with getting PennDOT to change.

I thank you in advance for your concern.

Sincerely yours, Stuart Strickland

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Safety should be a pre-condition, not a goal

Pre-Script: I wrote the following as a comment on a Bike-Pgh message board thread on 30 August 2013, three years to the day before Dennis Flanagan was killed. Fresh in mind was PennDOT's mis-handling of the West Carson Street project. It is almost the same message I started to say at the Oakland Forbes Ave meeting last night. My, how little has changed.
Original thread: 
http://www.bikepgh.org/message-board/topic/do-you-have-bike-safety-concerns/
*
I guess I better get my pen busy.

Safety should not be a goal of any road project or transportation maintenance plan, but rather a pre-condition. The distinction is critical. To have safety as a mere goal means it’s a thing you strive for, instead of something that’s flat-out-assured before you push a pencil, a lever or a shovelful of dirt.
The other side of it, and I’d better give this a good solid scouring before I say anything to them, but I’ll air it here, is that I am sure they are all about maintaining congestion free roads, disrupting traffic as little as possible, getting cars and trucks to and from efficiently.
I dispute this approach. I think we really want the opposite, to make it slower, make it harder to get around *by car* *so that* safety is assured when getting around by any other means, like crossing a street getting off a bus, like bicycling. 
* Road diets
* “Twenty Is Plenty” campaigns in residential areas
* Dropping every speed limit on every non-superhighway by 5 mph
* Getting rid of multiple lanes
* Stricter conditions for getting and keeping a driver’s license
In short, pretty much everything they wanted to do in 1972, do the exact opposite. My guess is that all these white-haired senior managers all got their driver’s licenses in or about 1972 (I got mine in 1976 and I’m 54), so their entire mindset, their whole philosophy of life, their entire careers, is built on how things worked back then. I use the year 1972 because it was just before the 1973 Arab oil boycott, the first time in over a generation (WW2 rationing) anyone had to think about gasoline.
And that’s what we’re up against.
*
In a later comment, I added this:
I think the short version of my message is, if you’re within the Blue Belt, and are in a car, you’re doing it wrong. For PennDOT, plan your capacity accordingly.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Can we please not build the MFSoB?

Again there is a big push to spend billions of dollars to build another piece of the Mon-Fayette/Southern Beltway project, or MFSoB, for short. [Insert a long string of deleted profanities here in which I offer my opinion on the project. But that's not the point of this post.] I want to talk about why nobody is offering a viable alternative. I have to go back 25 years to explain myself.

From 1990 to 1994, I reverse-commuted to Monroeville from Robinson and later McCandless, almost every day, by bus. This is why and when I developed an interest in promoting public transit.

During this period, I had plenty of opportunity to compare travel times between downtown and Monroeville, going both directions, at all different times of day and days of the week. I would compare the difference in travel times between driving there and busing there. I would also compare relative comfort of travel between car and bus.

Physically, nothing is different between an August 1990 trip and an almost-August 2016 trip via the two modes. Same roads, same bus routes, same travel times and conditions, same brick streets in Wilkinsburg. True, there are a couple more miles of East Busway now vs then, but that extension is not used by the Monroeville express bus.

I mention all this because the primary difficulty in getting people to use transit instead of driving is the level of difficulty and lack of comfort in traveling between the Parkway East and the East Busway. Inbound morning riders still have to sit on a bus stuck on the Parkway East tunnel traffic from the Penn Hills exit to the Wilkinsburg off-ramp, then get tossed about for almost 15 minutes on brick or unevenly paved Wilkinsburg back streets, when you’re moving at all. Yes they bypass the rest of the tunnel backup, but it isn’t much faster. Outbound, much the same — the Busway bypasses the daily tunnel backup, but it takes almost 15 minutes to get from the Busway ramp to the outbound Parkway, and it isn’t pretty.

All in all, when including the time necessary to transfer downtown and wait for the Holiday Park bus to show up, travel by car is still 20 minutes faster than by bus, even with the tunnel backup. That’s a doorknob-to-desk comparison — my house to my desk at the Westinghouse Energy Center (or whatever it is now). Absent all other reasons, the only figure that matters to anyone is elapsed travel time. Nobody ever asked me how much it cost me to travel from A to B — about one-fourth what the car was — or that I could get plenty of work-work done on the way home, or pleasure reading done on the way in. Irrelevant. No, the only thing that mattered was 45 minutes by car, 85 by bus, each way.

BUT THE FIX IS WITH TRANSIT, NOT HIGHWAYS. The solution to the problem is not to spend one or two or five billion for a new major expressway, tolled or not, but to improve the means of transfer from Busway to Parkway. Look at the connection from the West Busway to the Parkway West. That’s a direct hookup which takes only a minute or so. That is what’s needed east of town. One minute, not 15; a short, smooth ramp, not two miles of warbly brick streets.

THE PROBLEM IS EDGEWOOD. Edgewood Boro has always been a pain in the ass about transit. The whole East Busway could have been built to McKeesport and Murrysville in 1982 if Edgewood had played nicely. They didn’t then, so the Busway ended at Wilkinsburg until 2003. They didn’t again in 1997 when the extension to Rankin was being laid out. The extension got built despite Edgewood’s stupidity — which, by the way, was based almost exclusively on racism and fear. But no station, no park & ride, no linear park like exists along the entire rest of that extension.

THE SOLUTION IS TO BULLDOZE A PIECE OF THE TOWN. And nobody wants to do that. Somewhat justifiably. To make a connection, they’d have to either take a large chunk out of the back of Edgewood Towne Center, or eliminate a street bridge, Elm/Chestnut Street, cutting a neighborhood in half.

So, the boo-fucking-hoo part of this is that in order to fix a transit problem, they’d have to cut a wealthy, lily-white boro in half RATHER THAN a down-and-out, black/brown/mixed bit of the county — Duquesne, Rankin, Braddock. Again, flat-out racism.

Fix THAT.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Think of the children

As a 9-year-old, I discovered the word "unconstitutional". Knowing me, I probably read it in a newspaper. Little 4th or 5th grade me found it neat that I could say, and spell, a six-syllable, 16-letter word. I didn't quite know what it meant, but neither did I have to use it very often, so it didn't matter. I could continue being a kid.

As I grew up, I started to understand more about how government works, how laws are made, and how all that related to not just the U.S. Constitution, but various state constitutions. The concept of being able to pass constitutional muster was a bit tougher to wrap my mind around than spelling big words in elementary school. Now, it mattered.

Well into adulthood, I can clearly see how bad rules are made, and why they are bad -- or to be clearer, that they are unconstitutional. As Anne Feeney sings, "Laws are made by people, and people can be wrong." Later in the same song, she sings, "A rotten law stays on the books till folks like us defy it." We'll get to that later.

Which brings us to the matter of a bare-chested woman in a park. The PA Constitution says the sexes are to be treated equally. The indecent exposure law says genitalia must be covered. All well and good, so far, and we have established that a bare-chested woman can toss a frisbee in a city park. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police legal department agrees with this and told us so in writing.

However, Point State Park is not a city park but a state park, and state parks have their own set of rules. Among these rules is the explicit wording that a female may not bare any part of a breast below the top of the areola. To me, this is clearly unconstitutional. It is a rule that only applies to females. The areola and lower half of a man's breast area are perfectly OK to show. Note that a good many men have mammary tissue the same size or larger than an A-cup woman. Doesn't matter. Men OK, women not OK.

One of the first and fiercest objections to a woman bare-chested is "Think of the children!" OK, let's ask that question. A child does not need to be able to spell 16-letter words to be able to understand fairness. Even a five-year-old understands fairness. Having laws means that everyone plays by the same rules. Having a constitution means that all the laws themselves have to play by the same rules. It would not be fair if one law said you can do something but another law said you cannot.

Well, guess what? Here we have two parks, directly across the river from one another. You can see one from the other. Riverfront Park is a city park, which adheres to state law, which adheres to the PA Constitution. Point State Park has its own rules which overrule state law, but do not adhere to the Constitution. In the space of five minutes, a woman riding her bike with a man, neither wearing a shirt, can cross the Fort Duquesne Bridge southbound, and go from law abiding to law breaking, because of an unconstitutional state park rule. The man is not breaking the law in either place.

So think of the children, indeed. Try explaining to your kids how that's fair.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Miles Per Dollar

I tweeted this a few days ago:
"Gas for motorcycle: 2.855 gal, 245.9/gal, $7.02, 230.4 miles."

I later tweeted:
"Crunching the numbers, that's 80.7 mpg on the motorcycle, or 32.8 miles per dollar. How many mp$ does your car get?"

We don't think about miles per dollar much, though I'm sure any car owner can proudly recite their vehicle's miles per gallon statistic. But that contains a level of indirection that makes the number less comprehensible. Who cares about mpg? Nor does it matter that prior to May 16, my last motorcycle fill-up was April 23.

What really matters is how much it actually costs to drive the car. You don't spend gallons, you spend dollars. Even saying it only cost me 60¢ to drive downtown and back, as I tweeted back in April, is lost on most people, as they have no basis for comparison. Let's instead make that figure more explicit: Miles per dollar.

As a real-life figure, let me go back to February 28, the last day I myself filled the car's tank.
"Gas for the car: 10.53 gal, 189.9, 87 octane, $20.00, did not fill but came close."

I did not tweet the miles traveled on that tankful, but do have the information, as I know we get 20 miles per gallon with that car. So, do the math. 10.53 gallons times 20 mpg equals 210.6 miles, divided by 20 dollars, conveniently becomes 10.53 miles per dollar.

That then becomes a number you can wrap your mind around. Every 10 or so miles I drive the car costs me a dollar, at least in the figures from February 28.

Of course, every situation is different. Every car is different, and the price of gas changes daily. Today, for example, gas is 249.9¢/gallon. Same car, same amount of gas purchased, but this time that purchase is $26.31. Do the numbers this time, 210.6 miles divided by $26.31, we get 7.98 miles per dollar. Now, every eight miles costs me a dollar. A four-mile drive to the store costs a buck in gasoline.

Think about this in terms of a daily commute. If I drove to work, 12 miles each way, hardly unusual for anyone in my neighborhood who works in the city, that's a 24-mile round trip, or $4 in fuel. $20 a week. About $90/month, ad infinitum, if you did nothing differently. It's also pretty close the the current cost of a monthly zone 1 bus pass.

Think also what a return to the $4 gas we were paying just a couple short years ago. 10.53 gallons would cost about $42; 210 miles of that works out to five miles per dollar.

All of this becomes irrelevant when you stop driving voluntarily. Figure out how to get around without consuming gasoline.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Ride of Injustice to Cyclists

This Wednesday is the international Ride of Silence, in memory of those cyclists killed by motorists. I think we also need another ride, to honor the cyclists who have gotten screwed over by our police and justice systems. These would include:
  • being ticketed or arrested for traffic infractions where they were innocent
  • for having a judgment decided against them when they were in the right
  • for allowing motorists clearly at fault in such incidents to face trivial to non-existent penalties
  • for having a police report filed in an incident not corroborated by the facts.
  • police reports of crashes and other incidents worded to assume the cyclist was in the wrong.
  • for losing hundreds or thousands of dollars in legal fees, fines, and lost work time, while fighting cases in which they were innocent.
  • for spending time behind bars because the system decided they were guilty even where the facts of the case said they were not.

This is not an exhaustive list of such situations, merely general categories.

I began a mental list of people just in my own network, and rapidly ran out of fingers to count on. With a little digging, I'm pretty sure I'd run out of toes, too. The point is, this is rampant. Whether or not blood and bone are involved, and all too often it is, cyclists are getting screwed by the police and justice systems. It does not matter if they have video evidence to support their side of the story. They still lose.

This is wrong and it needs to stop.

I thought about having a bike ride to protest the injustice that cyclists must face. Certainly it should not be part of the Ride of Silence, whose solemnity must be respected. But what to do instead?

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

This is probably what 1891 looked like

It's fascinating to see Smithfield Street from Fourth to Forbes to Fifth Avenues in downtown Pittsburgh right now. A major street reconstruction project has it partially shut down except for bus traffic, with only a piece of it open to car traffic with a forced right turn onto Forbes to access a nearby parking garage. The bus lane itself is narrowed considerably. What motorized traffic exists is moving very slowly.

The net effect of this is greatly increased jaywalking, and indeed pedestrians walking lengthwise in the travel lanes. Bus traffic is continuous but sporadic, with minutes between trips at mid-day service levels, and long sight lines so that you have a full minute, maybe more, to see a bus coming. You can walk nearly a block in the bus lane before having to step out of the way. Of course, bikes are everywhere, headed both directions, even in the one-way section that only buses can use. Similarly, people cross Smithfield on long diagonals, whatever suits their need.

Back in the 1890s, this was normal. This is what streets did. It was easy enough to pause for the occasional passing horse and wagon, or a trolley car if the street was so equipped, but in general, whatever way you wanted to walk, or bike, you did. Bikes and pedestrians co-existing in the street got along just fine. We did not get cars in any number until the late 1910s, and jaywalking rules only emerged in the 1920s.

I captured a couple of photos, but to appreciate this properly, you have to stand on a sidewalk along this section and watch the movement of people for a few minutes. It would be even better if someone could capture video, then speed it up by 2x or 3x.

Shutting down auto traffic brings 1891 back so quickly!

Sunday, May 1, 2016

When two meetings don't conflict but they may as well

The evening of Thursday, May 26, I have two evening activities that don't conflict, but are far enough apart that getting to both will be difficult. The first runs until 8:30 in Ross Township, while the second starts at 9:00 in Lawrenceville and requires a bicycle. How to do both? I can't bicycle from the first to the second in time, and if I travel from one to the other by motorcycle, I would not have the bicycle to ride. The car is not an option, and neither is the bus system.

It can be done, but it takes some planning. This blog post is that planning.

The day before, I will bike to work, then bike to Lawrenceville afterward, tying up somewhere near the 40th Street Bridge. I then walk to Millvale, a distance of about a mile and a half, and catch the 2 Mt Royal bus to within walking distance of the house.

Thursday morning, I motorcycle to work, then m/c to Ross for the meeting after work. Once the meeting is done (and I may duck out a few minutes early), I motorcycle to where the bicycle is parked. Legally park the motorcycle, as it may be there overnight, hop on the bicycle, and pedal off to the 9:00 function. Getting there early would be wise, late inexcusable.

After that, I may bicycle home, or bike back to the m/c and ride that home. Probably depends on weather and how I am feeling. The next morning, I will walk to the 2 Mt Royal stop, ride that bus to Millvale, walk back across the 40th St Bridge, hop on whichever two-wheeled vehicle I left there overnight, and continue the rest of the way to work. At day's end, I ride that home.

This, folks, is how you make it through life without a car. At no point do I need to use a car, or beg a ride off anyone. The only real unknown is where I would leave the motorcycle legally. It does not need to be in the exact spot as the bicycle, though they should be close, as I won't have much transfer time between 8:30 and 9. I have a couple weeks to figure that out, though.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Bare-chestedness

In Sweden in late 2007, a group of women decided to challenge authority, and won the ability to go for a swim in a community swimming pool, minus their bikini tops. A video of the event shows about 10 women and about half as many men taking turns diving off the board, and throwing a polo ball around, all innocently having a good time. The story included a reference to a blog called T.E.R.A., the Topfree Equal Rights Association, based in Canada.

This, I thought, was the start of true equality for women. Sure, women got the vote 90-some years ago, they can now own property, they can sign their own name to things (instead of Mrs. [insert husband's name]), they can wear pants to work (only 30 to 40 years ago), all that stuff. But while men got the ability to remove their tops in public -- and only relatively recently, in the mid-1930s -- women still could not. I regularly began checking the tera.ca website for updates, and looked for people near and far who thought this was a good idea. There were not many. In seven years of honest looking, only a couple of related stories made the news, and all of those were negative.

Here in Pittsburgh, virtually 100% of women think it is illegal to walk around without a top on, and would be arrested for indecent exposure if they tried. Actually, the first part is false. No, it is not illegal to go around bare from the waist up. Nor is it in a lot of other places. New York's indecent exposure law was overturned in 1992. Washington, D.C., cleared the way in 1986. Ontario, Canada, similarly overturned its law over 20 years ago when one woman defied the law, got arrested, then fought it successfully in a series of court decisions. There are actually too many places to list where it is legal, though few women are willing to try it.

But there is another way to do it, the way that has been started in Pittsburgh, and earlier, Philadelphia. Pennsylvania state law, which applies in both places, defines indecent exposure as exposing genitalia.

18§3127. Indecent exposure. (a) Offense defined.-- A person commits indecent exposure if that person exposes his or her genitals in any public place or in any place where there are present other persons under circumstances in which he or she knows or should know that this conduct is likely to offend, affront or alarm.

Breasts are not genitalia.

This goes hand in hand with the state Constitution guaranteeing equal treatment of the sexes.

§28.  Prohibition against denial or abridgment of equality of rights because of sex.
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because of the sex of the individual.

And there you have it. Men, for decades, have been able to go around shirtless, and nobody has said boo about it. Sure, put a shirt on to go into a store, ride a bus, whatever. Plenty of reasons to wear a shirt, and few men contest that they have to do so. All that women are asking for is equal treatment. If a man can ride a bike shirtless, so should a woman. If a man can lie on a blanket in the grass in a public park, or throw a frisbee around, without a shirt on, so should a woman.

Under the law, equal means equal, all the time, without exception. If it's already OK for a man to go shirtless someplace, exactly the same freedom will be provided without regard to gender. It is not even a matter of "women can, too", it is more a "does not matter what the gender of the person is" situation. Please understand, it is not that first men got to, then women got to do it, too, it's that women and men are recognized as equals under the law, then we go from there, whatever it is.

Of course, what the law says does not equate to what is socially acceptable. That is the matter at hand here, and since virtually 100% of people think the law means something else, it is at the level of the police that the first chink in the armor must be made. In order not to be arrested for supposed indecent exposure, you have to start with the police, and you do not start with the street-level cop. You start at the top. You get as high up in the organization as you can, ideally the chief of police, and get agreement what the law is, and have them agree that females' bare chests are not genitalia, and thus exempt from discussion of indecent exposure.

Then you indicate you will be at a certain place and time, and you go there, and you act in a peaceful manner, with the women in attendance bare-chested. Invariably, someone will call the police, and the police will make an appearance, because they have to when called. But a couple of quick phone calls -- preceded by discussion with their superiors -- and the females are free to go on their way, whether walking down the street or continuing their frisbee game or sunning themselves on their blanket.

That is the method. Once we have the police no longer harassing women for something that is legal, we can establish women's ability to practice that. Once that is done in enough places, enough times, it will seem to become normal. You can only be shocked by something unusual once. Eventually, it does become normal, just as interracial couples did a couple decades ago, just as same-gender couples are doing now. In short, educating the general public. But back to Pittsburgh, here and now.

We started this process in Pittsburgh in a very real way on Saturday, March 26, 2016.

Back in December, the woman behind the blog Breasts Are Healthy (http://breastsarehealthy.wordpress.com), who calls herself Ginger Bread (she's a natural redhead) contacted upper-level police in Pittsburgh, and met with them face to face. All she asked for was agreement that a bare-chested female was not in violation of 18§3127. It took them over three months to get back to her, but eventually they did, and agreed that that was so.

And that's where I came in. We had been in contact several times, but this time, direct action was going to happen. She and her fiancé made a trip to Pittsburgh, and stayed with another woman I know through bike circles. I had, in fact, put the two in touch with one another after friending the one on Facebook following a bike ride.

They made arrangements for another visit. (Ginger Bread lives along the ocean coast of Maryland, about a seven-hour drive from Pittsburgh.) In the interim, we tossed around a few ideas of where to make an appearance, and took into account that while it would be sunny and no wind, it would be a bit chilly, 55-60F/12-15C. To do this on a day when it would be any colder would send a message of protest more than comfort, and she did not want to arouse too much scrutiny. That it would be on a religious holiday weekend (Easter) further increased our feeling of the need to be careful.

We chose a quiet spot in Frick Park, along a trail, away from crowds. Fully clothed, the four of us biked through a busy play area, and locked the bikes near the tennis courts, then hiked to the trail in a valley. Some other people were already bouncing a volleyball over a net in a level green spot, so we went well off to the side. There was foot traffic, a constant stream of walkers and joggers, the occasional bike rider. Lots of dogs. We had an ideal balance of busy but secluded.

We set up a couple of video cameras to capture any activity, and set out a blanket for the women to stretch out on. The first few minutes, they still were fully clothed, and as expected, nobody paid any attention to us, while the two men tossed around a frisbee. But 10 minutes in, off came the shirts.

Guess what: Nobody paid any attention to us, still. I think half the people walking by didn't even notice the women's attire. The other half, as Ginger Bread often points out, were either neutral or positive. Even after the women stood up to join the frisbee game, still hardly anybody paid much attention. One couple stopped to talk, and were rather surprised when we could quote the relevant statute, chapter and verse, and explain its meaning.

Someone, though, called the cops. We knew they would arrive sometime, as she had actually spoken face to face at the Zone 4 station beforehand. What we (at least I) did not expect is that the cops did not even talk to us. One cruiser rolled past slowly, not stopping, and a couple minutes later, two on foot came up the path. They paused maybe 100 feet away, and we could see them talking on their phones. We could lip-read, and almost hear the conversation. "Really? That's OK? All right then." And they turned around and walked away. The look on their faces was precious.

And that, folks, is how you effect social change. One chink in the armor.

Of course, there is much, much work to be done yet. This is just one shift at one zone command. There are several hundred police, and many levels of authority. Official training will be necessary for the entire force. And that's just the city; we have dozens of suburban police departments, too, as well as squads on college campuses and other jurisdictions. Someone at some point is likely to back-pedal. Eventually the media will pick up on it, and then, of course, the proverbial brown stuff will hit the spinny thing. All that is yet to come.

In short, it's probably not a good idea yet for women to take to the streets en masse, sans shirts. Not, anyway, without proper understanding of Ginger Bread's approach, and knowing how to talk to cops. (Please read her blog!) It's still early, still a delicate subject. As I said, almost 100% of people don't know what the law actually means, and we haven't even gotten close to matters of misogyny and willful ignorance.

We have, however, made history. The police were called, showed up, looked at us, and walked away without incident. And that's all we're asking.

Edit, Monday, 28 March: Here are two videos showing the first half hour of our outing. In the first, the two women are quietly sunning themselves on a blanket. In the second, they get up to join the frisbee game with the men. Note that hardly anyone pays attention to us. In all of her other videos, this is pretty much standard fare.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Decide now about 2050 road work

Returning from a day trip to Ohio last night, driving through Pittsburgh at 4 a.m., I blew through the Fort Pitt Tunnel at 60 mph (itself a strange thing), and once again experienced "The Pittsburgh Effect" [of seeing ALL of downtown, kablamallatonce in front of you, coming out of the tunnel]. Then, of course, to get home, I proceeded up I-279.

To get from the Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne Bridges to the I-279 Parkway North mainline, you traverse about a mile of elevated bridges and pass under about 10 other elevated bridge decks. We've probably sunk most of a billion dollars into all those ramps and streets and bridges over the last 40, 50 years, and in 40, 50 years they are all going to have to undergo major rehab, again at the cost of today's most of a billion dollars.  It all got built between about 1970 and 1995, and is already 20 to 40 years old. Keeping roads and bridges in good repair costs money. Big money.

So what if we don't. How about, in about 2045, we just tear down the whole damned thing, and not rebuild a single bit of it? The whole of the 28-279-65 fustercluck, just level it. Make it damn near impossible to get a car through there at all. You want to get downtown, leave your car two miles away and use whatever transit system we've put in place. I understand you need your car to get out of your neighborhood, but we don't want it downtown, or anywhere near downtown. Cities are for people, not your cars.

Sure, we'll need to drop another two billion into expanding a subway various directions from where it goes now, but fine, say we do that. Money isn't important; we're going to drop billions into maintenance, repair, and rebuilding something anyway. But decide in 2016 that by 2050, the whole damned thing is doomed and we aren't going to replace it *then*. I'm not talking about dropping a bomb on it now. Time and salt and 20 billion wheels crossing them will accomplish the same thing while we stand there defending and cheering for the process.

Yeah but how will we get to the airport? You take the subway we extended up through Bellevue and Sewickley in 2025, that's how. Yeah but how will we get to the stadiums? Same way you get downtown. Park two miles away and transit or walk or bike. For something a tad short of $100 million over the next 25 years, we can probably make cycling easier to do.

This is exactly what's happening in Buffalo, Rochester (NY), Syracuse, Cleveland, and a bunch of other Rust Belt cities. Huge projects built in the 1950s and 1960s are falling apart, and instead of fixing them, they're tearing them down. Pittsburgh just got a late start on this and only finished them in the 1990s. Apply the same timeline, though -- 60 and change years, maybe 75, 80 -- and we'll have to make some decisions. 

All I'm saying is, right now, decide not to replace all that stuff then, and spend the next couple of decades figuring out how to live without it when that time comes.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Icycle Bicycle 2016

Friday 1 January 2016

Every New Year's Day, the Western Pennsylvania Wheelmen organizes a bike ride around the city. No matter what the weather, be it pouring rain or snow so deep we have to get off and push the bikes, we ride. Today we lucked out. It was cold enough to snow but only a couple rare flakes were seen. Easily 100 of us left from REI in South Side Works to head down East Carson Street. No unicycles, but at least two tandems and two recumbents.

My ride there was pleasant enough, though I had not been on the bike at all for 10 days, due to a combination of a troublesome series of flats, the Christmas holidays, and working from home. But you never forget how to ride a bike, right? Not that 10 days is much of a lapse. But back to the trip. My route was Perry Highway to Perrysville Avenue to Federal Street, across the Allegheny River on the 7th Street Bridge, 6th Avenue, Grant Street, and out the Jail Trail. I made the trip in just over an hour, which I thought was making pretty good time, but just as I arrived, someone asked "Did I just see you on Perry Highway?" We crossed paths at Rochester Road, but she went via Rochester, Babcock, and through Millvale. So that can't be any slower. The only stop I made was to rescue a broken bus stop sign from the middle of the street and lean it against a tree.

To me, the main point of riding Icycle Bicycle this time is to make sure I am ready for winter. Winter has not really arrived in Pittsburgh yet this year; more it's an extended autumn, with temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Until today, that is.  29 and a stiff breeze out of the west. I donned the longjohns and double gloves and socks, which served me well. One pesky finger turned white, but otherwise my body core and extremities were fine. If anything, I got too warm.

After signing in and looking for a few familiar faces to trade stories of how we were faring so far this year, all 11 hours of it to that point, we lined up in the street, a gaggle of lycra and jackets and wheels. Someone counted down from 10, we yelled Happy New Year! and we were off. By South 10th Street, the strong, fast cyclists had sped out ahead. I was at the rear of this front section, but opted to drift back after the Smithfield Street Bridge. Sarah Quesen was riding her recumbent trike without a flag, so was hard to see. I rode behind her, taking the lane assertively. Normally I ride at about the "40 line", 40% of the way between the left and right lane lines, or where a line would be if they'd painted one. I was a bit more aggressive here, riding at about the 25 line. Any more to the left and I would be getting too close to passing cars in the adjacent lane, but by being here, that gave her some wiggle room. Her slower pace on the hill under the Fort Pitt Bridge also allowed the next group of cyclists to catch up and pass. I controlled traffic coming off the bridge so she could get by. There was none, but I was ready to run interference if there was. This continued onto the West End Bridge, a very busy, high speed highway bridge. Once off the bridge, she could get up to cruising speed, but as she explained, since she cannot stand out of the seat to gain an advantage in torque, the only oomph she has is what's in her legs, and in that she is limited by both vehicle weight and her own, once in a low gear.

I made a restroom stop at the Carnegie Science Center, only to find myself in the middle of its annual Mess Fest: dozens of 7 to 15 year-olds decorated in chocolate pudding (and other flavors). So it wasn't enough to walk through a crowded room, I had to do so with half the people present coated in goop from nose to knees -- not totally, but common.

Once back on the road, I rode with another group back to REI, mainly friends from the cycling community.

As on many rides, I took notice of race, gender, and age distribution. Nobody teenage; everyone appeared to be an adult. Maybe 1 in 5 female, 1 in 15 non-white. At least half over 40. Why is cycling so Caucasian? Or do black riders simply not join group rides? And why so few women? This was not a difficult ride, and the weather was not a major factor -- a tad chilly and breezy, but not distressingly so. If there was going to be a ride for newbies, this was it. I don't know how to get more people to bike all year. It can't be that only middle-aged white guys are stupid enough to bike all through the winter, but that's sure what it looked like.

Post-ride, I retired to a coffee shop where I penned the first draft of this, plus scratched down a few other ideas of what I'd like to do this year. That accomplished, I biked the rest of the way home, too. All told, it was about 30 miles. Not bad for the first day.