Biking for recreation and transportation is common in Shadyside and a safe bikeway connecting Neville Street in Oakland to the neighborhoods of Shadyside and East Liberty was recommended for further study and included in the City’s 2020 Bike (+) Plan. The Shadyside Connector Project started in 2018 and evaluated options to identify, plan, and construct a safe bikeway through Shadyside. Since then, increased use of the corridor and a recent severe crash on Ellsworth Ave is spurring a fresh planning process to look at design and routing options connecting Oakland to East Liberty neighborhoods.

The Shadyside neighborhood streets are used by many people, from residents accessing their points of interest to those biking to connect between Oakland and destinations further east. The corridor is part of the overall Shadyside-Squirrel Hill Network of projects.

Bicycle access, in particular, through the Shadyside neighborhood is important for connecting Oakland, home to many major employers and universities, with the neighborhood of East Liberty and the residential neighborhoods to the north and east and the neighborhood provides an important link in the city’s MoveForwardPGH’s initiative of creating an “All Ages and Abilities” bicycle network. For this reason, a safe bicycle connection through Shadyside is an integral component to the overall Shadyside-Squirrel Hill bicycle network.

Ellsworth Avenue is the most direct route connecting Oakland and East Liberty and has experienced some of the city’s highest bicycle volumes observed during annual bicycle counts and through third-party GPS services such as Strava. While the most direct and intuitive route, Ellsworth Avenue is narrow and the inconsistent parking utilization causes people riding bikes to merge in and out of moving vehicle traffic. This situation contributes to a higher risk of crashes and a chaotic, unpredictable environment for all users of the roadway.

Originally identified as a “high need” improvement in the 1999 Bike Plan, the City’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) has been looking at this corridor for decades to see how to make it safer and accommodate more people. Through the MoveForwardPGH program, City staff worked with the community and smaller working groups to evaluate seven bike route alternatives based on directness, safety, traffic impacts, parking, transit operations, and feasibility. The current proposal includes reducing speeds on Ellsworth through traffic calming treatments.