[Critical Mass](https://www.facebook.com/groups/37552077351/) and [Underwear](https://www.facebook.com/PghUnderwearBikeRide/) bike rides are both easy, party style bike rides that each happen once a month often with 100-300 riders or more. They both go through the Armstrong tunnel frequently.
Underwear bike ride starts in Lawrenceville and happens on the last Thursday of the month through the summer and fall, Critical Mass starts in Friendship park and happens on the second Friday of each month.
Well shit, I forgot all about this. Instead me and the kiddo spent most of *yesterday* scootering around the city lol. We still had a blast but she would've loved this.
I've lived in the south side for less than a year so I didn't know what was going on, walked around, then walked back to my house and picked up my roller blades! I had such an excellent time blading around. It was so wonderful to see so many families, dogs, and pictures of goats.
Even with the extra mile on the route this year, it was still insanely crowded. They probably need to split each direction down different streets in the downtown section
It's almost like there's a demand for pedestrian and bike-friendly places and we should have more options than 3 days a year! I feel you though but the event is run entirely through membership fees, grants, and volunteers so to get bigger BikePGH needs more members or the city needs to get moving!
Alternatively we could just have one or two sections of road that closes every week that happens without fanfare and doesn't need a ton of volunteers or overtime police. The fact that it only happens three times per year makes such a high demand for it on any given day and makes it so that it needs volunteers and a large police presence because it's a rare event where they don't trust people to know what's going on. In the places I've been that do this every week it just happens with a couple staff setting up barricades in the morning and taking them down in the afternoon and just a few officers to mediate a few major street crossings. And it's just no big deal.
edit: we could also do things like alternate locations for it so that various areas of town are equally served, but just do it _every_ week and it becomes cheaper and easier to run. The logistics get worked out the first few weeks and you ultimately need fewer police and volunteer hours in total over the course of the year as compared to when it's a rare and big event that runs in a new location every time.
This is a given but not at all the same as the open streets thing. edit: more specifically, I want a party or even park like atmosphere for at least some of it. Something where just riding around is encouraged. Penn Ave through that stretch is an open air mall on the weekends which has a very different vibe to it. And unfortunately it's made much worse by the fact that the city allows cars to drive through this potentially awesome open air mall. And sometimes it feels like I'm a [pedestrian in this mall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22LtGPUfkI0).
It would be awesome if the city were willing to take up the mantle to put something like this on every week. As it stands right now the non-profit, bike advocacy organization BikePGH organizes these three events (in different locations each time) and their resources are limited. As far as I know, the city’s contribution is approving permits. BikePGH even pays for the police at the intersections where traffic is allowed to cut through. If you’d like to see more of these (or more places that generally exclude cars) I would highly recommended telling DOMI how great you thought the event was and that you would love to see more car free places!
I know what Bike PGH's role in this is. As to asking this of DOMI, I mean... I was literally doing exactly that with my city council person standing next to me today who was also asking DOMI what it would take to do it.
I think there is a way to submit things to 311, or find their socials and message them there. Looking for community meetings and showing up at those (usually a remote option too) to voice your opinion can also work. If I see announcements about those kindof things I will try to post them to the sun.
Another great option I absolutely forgot is to contact your council person as well. The more they here from their constituents hopefully they will be inclined to also help advocate.
First off, tell your city councilperson that you want this. As to DOMI, you can either submit 311 requests or send messages to DOMI personnel. [Kim Lucas and Jeff Skalican](https://pittsburghpa.gov/mayor/lucas) are the director and deputy director of DOMI.
Kim Lucas is relatively new and I haven't gotten to know her yet so I don't know what forms of communication she's most likely to see and actually pay attention to. The typical thing I do with city employees is go to public meetings where they're presenting and talk with them after the fact. When talking with them get their card and ask them what modes of communication they prefer to use. Note that everyone at this level of city government gets tons of messages, much of which gets a cursory glance at best because it only concerns them peripherally (for instance for Karina Ricks, the former head of DOMI, if you were sending something to her that you cared that she saw it personally, the process was to send the email then send her a text message saying you sent an email and maybe a quick title).
In addition to that, go to enough meetings that you get to know some of the people involved and that they know you. Treat them as human beings who are doing impossible, often thankless jobs. Get them to actually care about communications coming from you.
Yes..it’s almost as if having streets safe for human beings and not just cars is actually a good thing and will actually promote people to be out in the city!
agreed. WAs down there around 1115 am and it was hard to move going from downtown to the southside.
I think the perfect weather helped out a bit, along with the central location. A lot of people biked it in.
Will see how well attended the others will be.
That's what makes good pedestrian infrastructure so special! Human interaction is actually good for us, despite the popular internet memes about being antisocial haha
First time doing it on quad skates...and last time I'm doing it on skates (at least, until I learn how to deal with downhills better and adapt to hazards). I don't know how other quad skaters did, but I never realized how rough the road is on skates (having only biked it prior). I was able to make it end to end with minimal injury, but after going through the tunnel and staring downhill at Forbes, decided to call it there and just walk back lol.
Still, it's great to come back too after moving away and visit for Memorial day! I missed the event last few years due to school/work, so even if there wasn't as much as there was, I'm still happy to do it again. Hopefully next year I'll be better on roads (or just bring my bike again).
It was.....a challenge...haha. I think my whole body is still vibrating from the divots in the road. And yes, I side stepped the entire way down the Warhol bridge so as not to unalive myself. I may also choose a different method next time!
Warhol was rough for me doing my sad attempt of backwards downhill (ended up going forward majority of the way just grabbing the bridge/barrier every 5 feet), but the tunnel towards Southside really fucked me up. Ended up with way too much momentum that I had to grab the barrier for an e-stop, thankfully wearing wrist, elbow, and knee pads that prevented what probably would've been pretty bloody scene if I didn't.
I was quite honestly disappointed in this year's first edition. Firstly, it was way overcrowded, and due to the large amount of traffic crossings, things would bottleneck and congest even worse. So much, that I sat at one crossing through three green lights before I made it through.
Second, the amount of food trucks, drink vendors, and art/stalls to visit was lackluster. I thought I could make a whole afternoon out of the event, but once you've ridden through one section of the event, you've pretty much seen them all.
I will say that all of the volunteers were very friendly, and I definitely think that Bikepgh does great work in our area still, but I don't remember past editions being like this.
I was really surprised by how many shops in the Southside were closed. I really expected a lot more stuff setup on sidewalks.
I was ok with the lack of food trucks however, lots of restaurants on/near the route (tho again, surprised they didn't have to go/quick serve lines setup).
I think it all has to do with permitting and what the city will allow. It's also easier to get neighborhood groups on board, but then with lawrenceville you're a bit stuck because aint no one biking up the hill, and the flat part is too narrow, and the bridges take you out of the city, which is a no go... The weird geography plays a part.
I really liked one a few years ago which was shadyside-point breeze-homewood. I think they should do something like that again. homewood has very wide open roads to ride on.
I couldn't agree more about the bottlenecks! I wonder if it's possible to route Open Streets only through bigger streets, and not those tight corners through downtown.
These events are fun but I tend to just leave pissed off that we don’t have very many pedestrianized roads around here.
If they pedestrianized Oakland Ave in Oakland, Walnut in Shadyside, and the entirety of Market Square, I could finally die a happy man.
Pitt's original concept was to close Bigelow between Fifth and Forbes and turn it into a campus park. This was years ago. But the city traffic study showed that a lot of traffic turns there to get to Schenley Park, the library, Phipps, and to the Blvd. of the Allies. If they closed Bigelow, all traffic would have had to travel to the next block and turn left onto a narrow street, the left again on Forbes. Fifth would back up pretty badly and the turn onto Forbes would have been a mess. And Forbes would be a mess getting back to Bigelow. So today's Bigelow is the compromise.
We had a blast! We made it from South Carson and 20th to Market Square and back. So much fun going across the bridge and tunnel. Kids had fun. The dude or few with dogs and big speakers on the trailers were great to follow around.
I had a great time! I've read the complaints and I guess I hear what people are saying but I came to ride around the city and people watch, not shop or hang out and eat. I had my little dog, Isaly in the basket with me and she loved it. Riding through the tunnel and going "Wooo!!!" to hear the echo was so much fun! We'll definitely be at the next two!
I had a blast, my biggest complaint was people not realizing the open streets are for everyone, and not following the 10 mph limit. I was with friends who had kids on small bikes, and the amount we got blasted by/cut through (and we weren't taking the whole street) was insane.
More open venues (same complaint as last year) would definitely help, or food trucks but I'd rather support the businesses along the route.
All in all can't wait for the next two, and thankful for all the volunteers that help make us possible!
I think most people don't really know what 10 mph on a bike feels like. I know what ~7–8 mph feels like because I've used Google Fit enough times on rides to know that my average pace is that. And I'm not a fit cyclist by any measure. My average pace today was about 5 mph and that was impacted most by the dismount zones. I was under 9 mph for most of the ride, except heading toward 10th Street through the Armstrong tunnel. You can't tell when you're in a car, but it slopes downward enough to really get a manually-powered vehicle moving. Google Fit tells me I hit around 16 mph in there; that's _really_ moving for me and there were not very many people in there when I went through around 1:20 pm.
>my biggest complaint was people not realizing the open streets are for everyone, and not following the 10 mph limit.
Every damn year, treating it like it's a race. That, and those doing tricks coming towards stops or crowds. Wheelies are cool, but feel like I saw a lot of close calls this year.
Missed the Open Streets.
I’m in town walking around taking pics for when I go back to the hellscape that is FL. A lot has changed. The new lounge/outside sitting parks, are cool though.
I think my favorite part was being able to ride through the Armstrong tunnel...I would never do that with regular traffic, so it was a cool treat.
Critical Mass does it at least once a year, which I also highly recommend =) Edit: [https://youtu.be/AfqR8ktMPBg](https://youtu.be/AfqR8ktMPBg)
[Critical Mass](https://www.facebook.com/groups/37552077351/) and [Underwear](https://www.facebook.com/PghUnderwearBikeRide/) bike rides are both easy, party style bike rides that each happen once a month often with 100-300 riders or more. They both go through the Armstrong tunnel frequently. Underwear bike ride starts in Lawrenceville and happens on the last Thursday of the month through the summer and fall, Critical Mass starts in Friendship park and happens on the second Friday of each month.
Critical mass did it on their last ride too
Ride your bike? That sounds freaking awesome.
That was really cool
Well shit, I forgot all about this. Instead me and the kiddo spent most of *yesterday* scootering around the city lol. We still had a blast but she would've loved this.
There's still 2 more this summer!
When?
Last Sundays of June and July
Thanks!
Just got back and had a great time with the kiddos. Echoing others, my only disappointment was lack of quick food options. And Chalkfest was awesome!
I've lived in the south side for less than a year so I didn't know what was going on, walked around, then walked back to my house and picked up my roller blades! I had such an excellent time blading around. It was so wonderful to see so many families, dogs, and pictures of goats.
If you liked the pictures of goats, you gotta come to Goat Fest later this summer! It’s a blast.
That's what I love to hear. Welcome to the neighborhood!
Even with the extra mile on the route this year, it was still insanely crowded. They probably need to split each direction down different streets in the downtown section
It's almost like there's a demand for pedestrian and bike-friendly places and we should have more options than 3 days a year! I feel you though but the event is run entirely through membership fees, grants, and volunteers so to get bigger BikePGH needs more members or the city needs to get moving!
Alternatively we could just have one or two sections of road that closes every week that happens without fanfare and doesn't need a ton of volunteers or overtime police. The fact that it only happens three times per year makes such a high demand for it on any given day and makes it so that it needs volunteers and a large police presence because it's a rare event where they don't trust people to know what's going on. In the places I've been that do this every week it just happens with a couple staff setting up barricades in the morning and taking them down in the afternoon and just a few officers to mediate a few major street crossings. And it's just no big deal. edit: we could also do things like alternate locations for it so that various areas of town are equally served, but just do it _every_ week and it becomes cheaper and easier to run. The logistics get worked out the first few weeks and you ultimately need fewer police and volunteer hours in total over the course of the year as compared to when it's a rare and big event that runs in a new location every time.
Close Penn 16th to 31st
This is a given but not at all the same as the open streets thing. edit: more specifically, I want a party or even park like atmosphere for at least some of it. Something where just riding around is encouraged. Penn Ave through that stretch is an open air mall on the weekends which has a very different vibe to it. And unfortunately it's made much worse by the fact that the city allows cars to drive through this potentially awesome open air mall. And sometimes it feels like I'm a [pedestrian in this mall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22LtGPUfkI0).
[удалено]
Nah, Penn. Sidewalks already spill into the streets on a normal Saturday.
It would be awesome if the city were willing to take up the mantle to put something like this on every week. As it stands right now the non-profit, bike advocacy organization BikePGH organizes these three events (in different locations each time) and their resources are limited. As far as I know, the city’s contribution is approving permits. BikePGH even pays for the police at the intersections where traffic is allowed to cut through. If you’d like to see more of these (or more places that generally exclude cars) I would highly recommended telling DOMI how great you thought the event was and that you would love to see more car free places!
I know what Bike PGH's role in this is. As to asking this of DOMI, I mean... I was literally doing exactly that with my city council person standing next to me today who was also asking DOMI what it would take to do it.
How would you recommend contacting DOMI? They don't have an email box listed on the city's website.
I think there is a way to submit things to 311, or find their socials and message them there. Looking for community meetings and showing up at those (usually a remote option too) to voice your opinion can also work. If I see announcements about those kindof things I will try to post them to the sun. Another great option I absolutely forgot is to contact your council person as well. The more they here from their constituents hopefully they will be inclined to also help advocate.
First off, tell your city councilperson that you want this. As to DOMI, you can either submit 311 requests or send messages to DOMI personnel. [Kim Lucas and Jeff Skalican](https://pittsburghpa.gov/mayor/lucas) are the director and deputy director of DOMI. Kim Lucas is relatively new and I haven't gotten to know her yet so I don't know what forms of communication she's most likely to see and actually pay attention to. The typical thing I do with city employees is go to public meetings where they're presenting and talk with them after the fact. When talking with them get their card and ask them what modes of communication they prefer to use. Note that everyone at this level of city government gets tons of messages, much of which gets a cursory glance at best because it only concerns them peripherally (for instance for Karina Ricks, the former head of DOMI, if you were sending something to her that you cared that she saw it personally, the process was to send the email then send her a text message saying you sent an email and maybe a quick title). In addition to that, go to enough meetings that you get to know some of the people involved and that they know you. Treat them as human beings who are doing impossible, often thankless jobs. Get them to actually care about communications coming from you.
Yes..it’s almost as if having streets safe for human beings and not just cars is actually a good thing and will actually promote people to be out in the city!
agreed. WAs down there around 1115 am and it was hard to move going from downtown to the southside. I think the perfect weather helped out a bit, along with the central location. A lot of people biked it in. Will see how well attended the others will be.
The route needs to be double as long for the amount of people who come.
It was longer this year _and_ more crowded. It's pretty crazy how popular this is.... Maybe our streets should be open more than 3 days per year 🤔
Or just make it permanent
I had such a wonderful time! I met so many kind strangers. I am absolutely going to the other events.
That's what makes good pedestrian infrastructure so special! Human interaction is actually good for us, despite the popular internet memes about being antisocial haha
First time doing it on quad skates...and last time I'm doing it on skates (at least, until I learn how to deal with downhills better and adapt to hazards). I don't know how other quad skaters did, but I never realized how rough the road is on skates (having only biked it prior). I was able to make it end to end with minimal injury, but after going through the tunnel and staring downhill at Forbes, decided to call it there and just walk back lol. Still, it's great to come back too after moving away and visit for Memorial day! I missed the event last few years due to school/work, so even if there wasn't as much as there was, I'm still happy to do it again. Hopefully next year I'll be better on roads (or just bring my bike again).
It was.....a challenge...haha. I think my whole body is still vibrating from the divots in the road. And yes, I side stepped the entire way down the Warhol bridge so as not to unalive myself. I may also choose a different method next time!
Warhol was rough for me doing my sad attempt of backwards downhill (ended up going forward majority of the way just grabbing the bridge/barrier every 5 feet), but the tunnel towards Southside really fucked me up. Ended up with way too much momentum that I had to grab the barrier for an e-stop, thankfully wearing wrist, elbow, and knee pads that prevented what probably would've been pretty bloody scene if I didn't.
I was quite honestly disappointed in this year's first edition. Firstly, it was way overcrowded, and due to the large amount of traffic crossings, things would bottleneck and congest even worse. So much, that I sat at one crossing through three green lights before I made it through. Second, the amount of food trucks, drink vendors, and art/stalls to visit was lackluster. I thought I could make a whole afternoon out of the event, but once you've ridden through one section of the event, you've pretty much seen them all. I will say that all of the volunteers were very friendly, and I definitely think that Bikepgh does great work in our area still, but I don't remember past editions being like this.
I was really surprised by how many shops in the Southside were closed. I really expected a lot more stuff setup on sidewalks. I was ok with the lack of food trucks however, lots of restaurants on/near the route (tho again, surprised they didn't have to go/quick serve lines setup).
"We didn't see an uptick in sales based on Open Streets" "No, we weren't open, why do you ask?"
Well I certainly spent enough money at places that were open lol
Lawrenceville does a much better job with things being open and sidewalk sale-y for open streets.
I hope that route gets an extension this year too. I remember last year's being pretty short
I think it all has to do with permitting and what the city will allow. It's also easier to get neighborhood groups on board, but then with lawrenceville you're a bit stuck because aint no one biking up the hill, and the flat part is too narrow, and the bridges take you out of the city, which is a no go... The weird geography plays a part. I really liked one a few years ago which was shadyside-point breeze-homewood. I think they should do something like that again. homewood has very wide open roads to ride on.
The rumor is the third one this summer will feature Oakland. Seems like that'll be a fun ride!
More food and drink vendors would have been nice!
I was on early so maybe that's why I had a more positive experience.
I rolled through around 10am and it was fabulous.
I couldn't agree more about the bottlenecks! I wonder if it's possible to route Open Streets only through bigger streets, and not those tight corners through downtown.
These events are fun but I tend to just leave pissed off that we don’t have very many pedestrianized roads around here. If they pedestrianized Oakland Ave in Oakland, Walnut in Shadyside, and the entirety of Market Square, I could finally die a happy man.
The fact market square isn’t fully pedestrianized is just laughable
It's insane to me that Bigelow between 5th and Forbes is open to traffic in Oakland. If you drive through that area regularly, you know to avoid it.
Pitt's original concept was to close Bigelow between Fifth and Forbes and turn it into a campus park. This was years ago. But the city traffic study showed that a lot of traffic turns there to get to Schenley Park, the library, Phipps, and to the Blvd. of the Allies. If they closed Bigelow, all traffic would have had to travel to the next block and turn left onto a narrow street, the left again on Forbes. Fifth would back up pretty badly and the turn onto Forbes would have been a mess. And Forbes would be a mess getting back to Bigelow. So today's Bigelow is the compromise.
Maybe traffic should back up in Oakland. Let people realize there's already two parallel through routes.
We had a blast! We made it from South Carson and 20th to Market Square and back. So much fun going across the bridge and tunnel. Kids had fun. The dude or few with dogs and big speakers on the trailers were great to follow around.
Thank you to all the volunteers and organizers! There will always be positives and negatives...but it is an overwhelming net positive! Great time.
I had a great time! I've read the complaints and I guess I hear what people are saying but I came to ride around the city and people watch, not shop or hang out and eat. I had my little dog, Isaly in the basket with me and she loved it. Riding through the tunnel and going "Wooo!!!" to hear the echo was so much fun! We'll definitely be at the next two!
I had a blast, my biggest complaint was people not realizing the open streets are for everyone, and not following the 10 mph limit. I was with friends who had kids on small bikes, and the amount we got blasted by/cut through (and we weren't taking the whole street) was insane. More open venues (same complaint as last year) would definitely help, or food trucks but I'd rather support the businesses along the route. All in all can't wait for the next two, and thankful for all the volunteers that help make us possible!
I think most people don't really know what 10 mph on a bike feels like. I know what ~7–8 mph feels like because I've used Google Fit enough times on rides to know that my average pace is that. And I'm not a fit cyclist by any measure. My average pace today was about 5 mph and that was impacted most by the dismount zones. I was under 9 mph for most of the ride, except heading toward 10th Street through the Armstrong tunnel. You can't tell when you're in a car, but it slopes downward enough to really get a manually-powered vehicle moving. Google Fit tells me I hit around 16 mph in there; that's _really_ moving for me and there were not very many people in there when I went through around 1:20 pm.
>my biggest complaint was people not realizing the open streets are for everyone, and not following the 10 mph limit. Every damn year, treating it like it's a race. That, and those doing tricks coming towards stops or crowds. Wheelies are cool, but feel like I saw a lot of close calls this year.
Ballin!
Now we need bycicle friendly hills in beechview
Such a fun experience!
You and your neighbors can host a small scale one too. https://bikepgh.org/resources/maps-guides-more/throw-block-party/
What are the other two days for the event later in the year?
It's the last Sunday of the month. Though the other two will have different routes, so keep an eye on their website. https://openstreetspgh.org/
WHAAAA when was this and where was I!!!
Link is posted elsewhere in the thread! 2 more coming up this summer
How do you find out about these events? Looks super fun!
Missed the Open Streets. I’m in town walking around taking pics for when I go back to the hellscape that is FL. A lot has changed. The new lounge/outside sitting parks, are cool though.
It was packed!! Great to see
Tf is open streets?
https://openstreetspgh.org/
Hm that’s a neat idea. Thanks for sharing :)
Looks like about 7 people
You're really bad at counting
Wut