The city of Pittsburgh has about 70 miles of bike lanes. Right now, two of these miles are protected lanes where bikes are separated from traffic with a barrier like a concrete curb, but that’s likely to grow. 

“The mayor (Bill Peduto) has said he wants to have 5 miles of protected bike lanes,” says Eric Boerer, advocacy director with Bike Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh’s bike commuting rate of two percent is significantly higher than Cleveland’s rates of .7 percent. Boerer says protected bike lanes are one factor that’s boosting ridership in his city.

“It’s been phenomenal and very useable,” he says of the protected bike lane on Penn Avenue in the Strip District. “On Bike to Work Day, 26 percent of the commuters were on bikes. We see families with children biking. We got a picture sent to us of a dad biking with his daughter with training wheels in the bike lane. We see a lot of new riders; the protected bike lane kind of encourages them to give it a shot.”

Pittsburgh’s new bike share system has only added to its reputation as a bike-friendly city, and that’s one reason why people are moving there.

“We’re getting a huge tech boom here,” says Boerer. “Google is here with 400 employees, Uber is opening up a huge campus. They’re very clear to city decision-makers that they want bike-friendly ways for their employees to get to work.”

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This article appears in Oct 21-27, 2015.

Lee Chilcote is a freelance writer based in Cleveland. He has contributed to other publications such as the Washington Post, Associated Press, Vanity Fair, Next City, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and others. He covers Cleveland neighborhoods, real estate, community development and other topics.

5 replies on “Pittsburgh Beats Cleveland at Biking as Well as Football”

  4. Yeah I’m not sure I agree with this. Just because they have more people commuting doesn’t mean Pittsburgh “beats” Cleveland at biking. The Towpath and Metroparks are pretty unique and you can pretty much bike anywhere in Northeast Ohio because of much flatter terrain. I am from the Pittsburgh area and I think it would be more difficult to commute and do every day travel on a bike in Pittsburgh than Cleveland.

  5. As you bike more and more, you get stronger. Stronger wears down hills, eventually. Stronger never beats cars, however. This is why separate space for riders to bike outside the traffic flow is important, and why protected beats unprotected space.

    [Clarification: None of Pittsburgh’s protected lanes have concrete curbs, though one can always hope–so far, all we’ve got is flex-posts, aka candlesticks, the thin white bollards that fall down when run over and hopefully pop back up again.]

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