Pittsburgh Bike Belt : A Modest Proposal

This has been a big year for bike trails in Pittsburgh, and there is the promise of more to come. Already we've seen the Point-to-24th Street / Strip District Trail opening and the long-awaited Duquesne-to-Munhall Steel-Valley-Coaster-Pipeline Trail opened on Friday. Both of these are tremendous.

This year we also expect to see the SouthSideWorks Trail complete, the PIT Airport connector trail will open, and we may see the Sandcastle connection open.

Which brings us to the matter of Names and Naming Trails. It's great to recognize people and to preserve memories by giving trails effective names like the "Mon-Whorf Trail". Some names are unwieldy, such as the Ruprecht S. and Penelope K. Rutherford Lower Burrel Multi-Use Health and Wellness Trail. If the official world gives an unwieldy name, the real world will assign a more pragmatic one, hence: Jail Trail, Casino Trail, Strip Trail, Southside Trail.

Although each community is justifiably proud of their efforts to bring forth their trails, for outsiders the distinction between the Southside Trail and the Baldwin-Brentwood-Whitehall Trail isn't intuitive. In the same way that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", the nomenclature of our trails restates the condition of our fractured local government.

With all due respect to the Bard, naming is not a trivial issue; on Friday, I had the occasion to call 911 seeking help for an injured rider, and it took a little while to suss out the specific name of the trail I was on. We may need a better system of trail names.

Fortunately, Pittsburgh has previously dealt with the problem of naming and marking routes that run through a variety of municipalities and domains. Let's look at some maps.

The map of today's Pittsburgh bike trail system looks like this:

(click image to embiggen in a new window)

Imagine What The Future Might Hold

Imagine what it would look like if the region is able to:

• fill in the southern gaps of the Montour Trail
• extend the Panhandle Trail on existing abandoned rail lines into West End Circle
• extend the Casino Trail to Neville Island

It might look like a belt system of trails:

(click image to embiggen in a new window)

Through a dozen local successes, we're on the verge of adding a new "belt" to Pittsburgh's infamous Color Belts: the Bike Belt.



I propose that we rename (and re-sign) the various Pittsburgh regional trails (in at least Allegheny and Washington counties) as the Bike Belt. Using the existing, much-loved and parochially functional color-belt framework would connect "new-green-bike" Pittsburgh with "yinzer-mullet-n'at" Pittsburgh.

Naming Hot Metal Bike Bridge Right

The most excellent Chris Briem has a recent blog entry at Null Space (highly recommended) about Hamilton Ontario's view of Buffalo vs. Pittsburgh. The article in the Hamilton Spectator features comments from former Mayor Tom Murphy — which prompts Chris to renew his call to name the Hot Metal Bike Bridge for Mayor Murphy.



I like(d) Murphy, then and now. I think he was a policy wonk willing to get his hands dirty, a choir boy who got business done in a traditional Democratic machine city; a mensch. Not perfect. Not canny. Led with his chin. Ended up in an agreement with the Feds to avoid prosecution. He did a better job than I would have.

He was a primary force behind turning waterfront into trails and usable space. He's now a Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute.

I love naming the Hot Metal (Bike) Bridge after Tom Murphy, in that it recognizes a trail advocate along the trail. I'm not sure that it's the best use of this opportunity.

Naming rights are a big thing. PNC Park? Heinz Field?

What does the trail need? How can we use the opportunity to name the Hot Metal Bike Bridge to meet the trail's needs? What can we obtain by naming the bike bridge?



The trail (by which I mean the regional trail system, including the Pittsburgh to DC corridor) needs to figure out bicycle access through Sandcastle. It's the only remaining gap in the trail without a solution - the other gaps are agreed-upon works in progress.

Sandcastle is private property. Somebody owns it. Somebody paid for it, invested in it, developed it, gambled on it. I don't believe that eminent domain applies (nor should it). The trail organizations, loathe to route around SC because the options are terrible, need to find a way to induce SC to permit cyclists to cross their property.

The negotiated solution will probably include these factors: (1) a release from liability; (2) public investment in highway access to Sandcastle/Kennywood and drainage improvements; (3) some sort of marketing inducement-in-kind.

I think it might serve best to name the bike bridge the SandcastleWaterPark.com Bike Bridge — which would name, incidentally, the bike bridge that people from Pittsburgh would use to ride their bikes to Sandcastle.

It might get business done, and that's something Tom Murphy would appreciate.

We can name the Mon Wharf trail segment for Tom Murphy.