Monday, July 17: Find out about the plans and schedule for Forbes Ave bike lanes connecting Pitt and CMU

For years, BikePGH and safe streets advocates have been pushing for traffic calming measures and bike lanes along the dangerous Fifth/Forbes Corridor in Oakland. Oakland, the City’s University district and second largest employment center, should be easy to get around by bicycle. However, the car-oriented Fifth and Forbes Avenues create an atmosphere of speeding and aggressive driving.

These conditions led to a terrible tragedy in 2015, when University of Pittsburgh employee, Susan Hicks, was killed on Forbes Avenue while riding her bicycle home from work, culminating in the Action for a Safe Fifth/Forbes campaign. While a redesign of Forbes near CMU had been in the works since at least 2011, nothing moved forward until last August, when a proposal including bike lanes from Craig St to Margaret Morrison, was introduced to the public. After a period of significant public feedback, Councilman Gilman then followed up during October’s Susan Hicks memorial and announced that the City will extend the bike lane project to Bigelow Blvd.

This partnership, between PennDOT (who owns and controls Forbes Ave), the City of Pittsburgh, OTMA, CMU, and Pitt, are now ready to unveil their plans for a complete streets approach to Forbes Ave, between Bigelow Blvd and Margaret Morrison St, an approximately one-mile stretch of road connecting Pitt and CMU.

The project will connect to bike lanes on Forbes Ave, east of Margaret Morrison, as well as to the bike lanes on Bigelow Blvd that connect onward to Schenely Dr toward the south, and Bayard St toward the north. The rest of the Fifth/Forbes corridor west of Bigelow Blvd will presumably be redesigned and rebuilt along with the Bus Rapid Transit project currently in the works, spearheaded by the Port Authority, the URA, Allegheny County, and the City of Pittsburgh.

Public Meeting Monday, July 17 2017

The partnership will be presenting their plans and schedule for the redesigned Forbes Ave, between Bigelow Blvd and Margaret Morrison St. Based off of feedback after the last meeting, the team will present a design that includes bike lanes along the full mile-long stretch of Forbes. West of Bellefield (where Forbes is one-way), they are proposing a short contra-flow bike lane to connect to Bigelow Blvd and Schenley Dr.

The redesign is a significant and positive change from the existing conditions, so it’s important that bicyclists show up and are included in the process. BikePGH has been advocating for a complete streets design of Forbes Ave for a long time, and it appears that it will finally become a reality.

Date: Monday July 17, 2017

Time: 5pm-7pm

Location: Jared L. Cohon University Center, Rangos 2, 2nd Fl

5032 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

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