Pittsburgh directs more money to bicycling infrastructure

Pittsburgh’s capital budget includes $1.65 million for expanding bicycling infrastructure throughout the city.

Last year, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto toured Copenhagen – a city with some of the best bicycling infrastructure out there – as part of PeopleForBikes’ Green Lane Project. The Project takes chosen cities’ leaders to biking paradises like Copenhagen so they can see what a city with robust bike infrastructure looks like, and then provides assistance for leaders’ efforts to bolster their own town’s offerings.      

This year, bicycle riders in Pittsburgh will be happy to hear that the capital budget includes $1.65 million for expanding bicycle infrastructure throughout the city. That’s more than the past five years combined, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and will cover everything from bike racks to signage and road markings.

We reported previously that Pittsburgh has about 65 miles of road with some sort of bike lanes on them, many of those routes developed recently. The new bump in funding is one part of Peduto’s ten-year plan to build a network of connected bike lanes in the city.

Just over two percent of people in Pittsburgh commute by bike, but that number is growing. Since the 1990s it has jumped over 400-percent. And Peduto expects that trend to continue as the city adds more miles of safer bike routes.

What else do bike enthusiasts have to look forward to when the snow melts?

The city is expecting its first bike share program to go online this spring.