Pittsburgh or Indianapolis? (Washington, Beaver, Denver: buying a home, live, most dangerous)

[pman]

wide roads are actually less safe than narrow ones

[SteelCityRising]

So is the city planning to plow these new protected bike lanes, or will they plow the streets INTO the bike lanes, thereby making it impossible to bike? I have a feeling we're in for another doozy of a winter like the last one with more "Polar Vortexes" on the way!

[tigerphan]

Indy is pretty nice and definitely on the upswing economically. Decent economy, low costs of living, short train ride to Chicago for long weekends, etc. are all nice to have.

On the other hand, Pitt has natural beauty and an improving economy as well.

Both are good athletic towns. Both have relatively stable, moderate politics. I guess it comes down to how much you like hills and mountains.

[grep]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

So is the city planning to plow these new protected bike lanes, or will they plow the streets INTO the bike lanes, thereby making it impossible to bike? I have a feeling we're in for another doozy of a winter like the last one with more "Polar Vortexes" on the way!

I think they will be, but I can't find anything to verify this.... I know that the jail trail gets somewhat plowed during the winter, so it seems reasonable to assume that at least the downtown lanes will get plowed.

[robrobrob]

Years ago when I was running a lot Mayor Murphy plowed the jail trial.

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by Katiana

The hills aren't going anywhere.
Considering that 2.2% of Pittsburghers commute via bike (assuming steindle's statement is correct), that means about .5% were commuting in 2000, FWIW. With a number like that, it's not hard to get huge increases. I'd probably pick Pittsburgh over Indy, however. But the OP might have to give up on this idea of biking 100% of the time. None of the figures above indicate if the commuting is daily, weekly, monthly, or what.

whatever you say

[steindle]

Originally Posted by pman

wide roads are actually less safe than narrow ones

Yeah, I bike-commuted in Nashville -- land of the four-lane city street -- for about a month and got hit by cars twice. People treat the roads like highways there and are so unaccustomed to seeing cyclists that they literally don't look out for them, or have any idea what to do when they do see them. There is a token bike lane on Shelby Street in East Nashville that I would most often see being used as like an HOV lane for compact cars.

I don't think that people who say that Pittsburgh is terrible for biking really have a good grip on what an actual bad biking city looks like.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by steindle

I don't think that people who say that Pittsburgh is terrible for biking really have a good grip on what an actual bad biking city looks like.

The same goes for transit. As many problems as PAT has, it's still pretty good by American standards, especially among our peer cities.

[Goodjules]

Is there a significant difference in the winter weather between the two cities? One of the reasons I chose Pittsburgh was that it had relatively mild weather compared to other rust belt cities. Extreme winters compared to SF where I was from, but milder than say, Buffalo.

[gg]

Originally Posted by steindle

Yeah, I bike-commuted in Nashville -- land of the four-lane city street -- for about a month and got hit by cars twice. People treat the roads like highways there and are so unaccustomed to seeing cyclists that they literally don't look out for them, or have any idea what to do when they do see them. There is a token bike lane on Shelby Street in East Nashville that I would most often see being used as like an HOV lane for compact cars.

I don't think that people who say that Pittsburgh is terrible for biking really have a good grip on what an actual bad biking city looks like.

We generally compare Pittsburgh to other educated blue state cities, not cities in the south. Those areas are not going to want bicycling on roads and are really horrible. Much more of a selfish feel in places like Nashville, Houston, Dallas, Orlando and the like. Really not very livable places down that way with all the redneck kind of stuff and the chest pounding. YEEEHAW! No, we have it great compared to the backwards cities like Nashville.