• NACTO’s “Cities for Cycling” Roadshow Rocks Chicago from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
• In case you haven’t heard, PA Senators voted 45-5 in favor of the “Safe Passing Law.” It is now off to Governor Corbet’s desk for his signature
• A 65 year old Reading, Pa man was attacked while riding a bicycle on a trail, shoots his 3 attackers killing one, injuring another. DA says shooting was justified.
• Bicycling Magazine explores why the “I didn’t see” the cyclist excuse holds no legal ground
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield partner with BikeWalkKC to bring Bike Share to Kansas City
• The parts of the country where people drive more are not surprisingly the most obese
• Paul Nosa, the sewing artist that you may remember from the BikeFest Kickoff Party, is trying to go on tour and is looking for supporters

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership

Don’t let your Representative cut Biking and Walking

Take Action!

The fight for Federal Funds goes on…

House Transportation Committee votes on biking and walking funding next week!

On Thursday, February 2, it is expected that the House Transportation Committee will vote on the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, a bill that eliminates crucial funds for biking and walking.

The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, the long awaited multi-year Transportation bill, eliminates the two largest programs that fund biking and walking infrastructure—Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School. Without these programs, communities all over the country will lose resources to build the sidewalks, crosswalks, and bikeways that make biking and walking safe and accessible in your community.

We can’t let that happen.

The beloved Hot Metal Bridge is an example of Federal Transportation Enhancements funds at work

That’s why advocates, like the League of American Bicyclists, are working to introduce an amendment that will preserve funding for biking and walking.

During Thursday’s vote, your representative could be the key to making sure that this amendment passes in the Transportation Committee.

This is especially important if you live in Rep. Jason Altmire’s Congressional District 4 (click on the image to the right to enlarge), north of the City. Mr. Altmire is on the House Transportation Committee who is directly responsible for advancing the bill and is in a key position to save dedicated funding for biking and walking.

Please contact your Representative today and ask them to vote to preserve biking and walking.

We’ve made it easy for you - Simply click here and you will be directed to the League of American Bicyclists Action Alert.  It only takes seconds, and will make a difference.

Tell them:

• Biking and walking make up 12 percent of all trips, but only 1.5 percent of federal funding.
• Two out of three pedestrian deaths take place on roads built with federal funding. Ensuring funds for sidewalks, crosswalks, and bikeways help end preventable deaths and make roads safer for everyone.
• When town centers are biking and walking friendly, business and economic development improves.
• Thank you for all that you do to keep bicycling and walking safe and accessible.

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership

CMU Master Plan goes to the Planning Commission for approval – bike lane proposal moved from main body of the Plan to the appendix

CMU is about to submit their Master Plan to the Planning Commission. For over a year, we’ve been getting residents, students, and bike advocates to show up en masse to CMU’s Master Planning public meetings where there has been a proposal on the table to change the configuration of Forbes Ave through the heart of the campus.  The proposal is to reduce the four lanes of travel to two, matching the current lanes at the bookends of the project, and to extend the existing bike lanes from Squirrel Hill.

A new development has emerged in the Plan that they submitted to the Commission for approval.  CMU removed the bike lane plan from the main body of the text, but included it in the appendix as a recommendation to the Master Plan.  In plain language, they decided that, since they don’t own the road, their Master Plan isn’t an appropriate place to plan someone else’s (PennDOT) road. Since it’s going in front of the Planning Commission, they did not want to potentially derail the adoption of the new Plan as the current one is set to expire in May 2012. The bike lanes are not off the table or scrapped, as has been reported.

From CMU:

The Pittsburgh Department of City Planning has scheduled the first public hearing regarding Carnegie Mellon’s 2012 Institutional Master Plan.  The hearing before the Planning Commission is scheduled for 2PM on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 200 Ross St.  The public hearing before the Planning Commission is the next step in the Zoning Code-required approval process for the University’s master plan; the current 2002 Campus Plan will expire in May 2012.  As required, the Department posted placards on Tuesday, January 17th and began mailing notices to adjoining property owners on the same day.

The University has conducted dozens of public meetings to garner input on the plan and, as a result of this input, the plan has evolved for the better.  Since the original submission of the plan in September 2011, the plan has continued to evolve and it is important that our community, business and institutional partners understand changes that are now part of the master plan being considered by the Planning Commission.

[R]eferences to any proposed lane configuration changes, including the bike lane scenario, to Forbes Ave (as part of the PCTI planning process) are removed from the main body of the master plan text.  Understanding that while Forbes Ave is embedded in the Carnegie Mellon campus, it is a state-owned road, and thus any safety enhancement changes proposed would need to be designed, reviewed and implemented under PennDOT jurisdiction.  Instead, the PCTI report, which was completed in 2011 and included State, City and Community input, is being included for reference only in the Master Plan appendices.  Carnegie Mellon still has serious concerns for pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular safety on Forbes Ave and other City streets within the campus, and so the master plan does include recommendations to assess conditions, and, in working with residents, businesses and institutions, to develop plans to work to improve safety for all means of travel in the Forbes corridor.  The University looks forward to working with our partners in the near future to create an environment that serves all sectors while still being safe for residents, students and all others.

The revised Carnegie Mellon 2012 Institutional Master Plan is now available on the University’s website at www.cmu.edu/cdfd ; if you have any questions or comments please contact either Bob Reppe at breppe@andrew.cmu.edu or John Hannon at jfhannon@andrew.cmu.edu.

The Planning Commission Meeting:

• Tuesday, Feb 7, 2012
• 2pm
• 200 Ross St, Pittsburgh

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership

A once in a lifetime opportunity to shape the future of transportation in Pittsburgh

The City of Pittsburgh has been embarking on the first Comprehensive Plan in City history, PlanPGH (facebook page here – please “like” it). The Comprehensive Plan covers everything from open space and recreation to development and transportation.

Under Pennsylvania law, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are exempt from having to produce a comp plan, however several attempts have been made over the years to create one. According to Planning Director Noor Ismail, since the City is not required to produce one, they are “able to be creative in [their] use of limited public and philanthropic resources” creating, what she says is “the most ambitious, inclusive, innovative, and wide-ranging planning effort undertaken in the City of Pittsburgh in its 252-year history.”

City Planning is about to launch into the transportation part of the plan, called MovePGH, which will take about one year of public input to create (click the poster to the right to enlarge). Planners are also creating a “Street Design Manual” – a document that will help standardize what bike lanes, crosswalks, and other infrastructure will look like. MovePGH will guide transportation decisions for the next 25 years.

This is an amazing opportunity for biking and walking advocates to get actively involved in shaping the future of the City of Pittsburgh. You can be assured that BikePGH is committing resources to this planning effort, but it is extremely critical that anyone with a bicycle, like yourself, show up to the public meetings to express support.

This is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity to influence the future of your City.

Calling all City residents with a bicycle!

That’s probably about 300,000 of you. Please attend the kick-off meeting, to be held on CMU’s campus.

Public Kick-Off for the MOVEPGH Multimodal Transportation Plan

• February 2, 2012
• Carnegie Mellon campus from 6-8 PM
• Porter Hall (Building #3B) just off of Frew St (adjacent to Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park)

The Public Kick-Off will offer the opportunity to begin public input on this most vital project to the City and Region. According to planners, there will be an opportunity to discuss the progression of the plan effort in more detail, as well as spotlight numerous public engagement events throughout 2012.

If you are on Facebook, here is the event page.

Questions about MovePGH can be directed to Patrick D. Roberts: patrick.roberts@pittsburghpa.gov

A timeline for the MovePGH planning process. Click to enlarge.

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership

My parents used to have a blue-tick Beagle called Cubbie, after the Chicago Cubs, and also Al Qaeda, due to the destruction he wrought upon the household. This animal was entirely driven by his nose. Every day, Cubbie prowled across the lawn, nostrils scanning the earth like a metal detector, until he invariably discovered that something living had passed his way. Then he would turn his bandit-masked face to the sky and bay like the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Such a sense of smell is beyond my comprehension. I’ve heard the beagle’s sense of smell described as a radio, the canine able to tune in to one of the hundreds of chemical “wavelengths” left for his discovery. A herd of deer crossed the yard about 4 hours ago; find out more at 103.7! Tune into 88.5 to find out about what happened to the groundhog from last Tuesday! Learn about changes to the neighbor dog’s diet at 101.3!

Cubbie "Al Qaeda" Roeper (2001 – 2011), intent on exacting revenge against his t-shirt

This ability to parse out an individual scent or flavor impresses me to no end, and I’m not the only one. When I read Molly Wizenberg’s lovely cookbook-cum-memoir A Homemade Life a few years ago, a passage that stuck in my head was her description of the relative palettes of Molly and her husband.

I may be the more orderly of our couple, but next to his palate, mine is a proverbial bull in a china shop, rubbing clumsily against a rabble of spices. I chew and swallow, but he concentrates, teasing apart layers of flavor.

- read more at Orangette

This does a great job of describing Stephen and I. In addition to the palate, Stephen also has a nose like Cubbie. (Thankfully, unlike the erstwhile beagle, Scheidt is disgusted rather than fascinated by nasty smells.) He enjoys figuring out unexpected flavors in restaurant dishes and deciding which seasoning tweaks would best improve a dish at home.

The excerpt above was from an introduction to a chana masala recipe, and I’m pleased to report that the dish is as spot-on as the husband description. It’s good for a tired weeknight, if you cook it at the minimum times below, or for a lazy Sunday afternoon, when you can let it stew on the stove for hours. It requires almost no chopping. It’s delicious served with easy basmati rice and store-bought naan. And it pleases all palates: ones that want to dissect every taste, and ones that just bask in the warm, spicy glow on a dreary winter evening.

Before adding the yogurt

Chana Masala
Adapted from A Homemade Life

I’ve doubled the recipe here as it makes for a fantastic and filling lunch. I’ve also considerably upped the spiciness of the original, which you can undo by halving or even omitting the cayenne pepper. I also found I didn’t need quite as much oil to get things going.

For the spice blend
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon hot curry powder (optional)
6 cardamom pods, crushed with a knife
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper, or to taste
4 garlic cloves, minced

For the rest
2 tablespoons grapeseed or vegetable oil
2 medium onions or 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 28-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
4 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup plain full-fat or 2% Greek yogurt

Combine the spices in a small bowl and set aside. Warm the oil in a large Dutch oven set over medium-low heat. Add the onions, cover the pot partially and reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are brown and beginning to char in spots, 15-30 minutes. (The longer, the better!)

Fill a measuring cup with 1 cup water and set it near the stove. Add the spice blend and cook 30 seconds, stirring well, until the garlic and spices are fragrant and coat the onions evenly. Add about half the water, scraping the bottom of the pan to release any browned bits of onion. Season with salt. Cook until the water is gone.

Raise the heat to medium and add the tomatoes and all of their juices to the pot. Crush the tomatoes with a potato masher until they are loose chunks (uniformity is not an issue) and bring the pot to a low boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken. Return the heat to low and add the chickpeas and 3/4 of the cilantro. Simmer for 5 minutes, until the mixture begins to thicken again, then add about 1/4 more water. Repeat this process again, adding the rest of the water and simmering afterwards for as long as you like, at least 5 minutes but up to 30. Season to taste with salt.

Just before serving, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the yogurt. It may curdle a bit from the acidity of the tomatoes, but fear not, it will be delicious. Top portions with any remaining cilantro and serve with basmati rice.

Dishes you might also like:

• Another fragrantly spiced vegetarian main dish: Moroccan-Spiced Butternut Couscous
• Curry and vegetables, part 1: Curry-Roasted Cauliflower
• Curry with vegetables, part 2: Curry Carrot Soup

Mostly delicious close up, too

Share this

Calling all people who love riding bicycles in Pittsburgh: Send us your best Pgh biking pic for display at the Carnegie Library Gallery!

Bike Pittsburgh is partnering with the Carnegie Library in Oakland to present a “Bicycling in Pittsburgh” exhibit in the gallery this March and we’d like YOU to be a part of it! The theme is based off a publication from Sevilla, Spain in which people take pictures of their bike, with or without themselves in the photo, while out in the city and answer a few questions about themselves and riding bicycles.

It’s easy!

• Snap a picture of you with your bike, riding your bike, or celebrating cycling in Pittsburgh.
• Take a couple of minutes to fill out this short submission form.
• Upload the picture directly to the form.

If you don’t have a picture you’d like to put on display but would still like to participate, we can organize one to be taken of you by one of our great cycling photographers. Simply submit the form and put “need photo” in the additional notes box below and we will contact you.

* Please submit your photo by Feb. 22 to allow time for hanging.

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership

By Bill Vidonic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, January 23, 2012

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today!

Uncle Cycling Sam is looking for Pedal Pittsburgh participants and non-participants alike. Please take 2.20 minutes to give us your feedback from your experience at Pedal Pittsburgh. Also, if you’ve NOT yet ridden in the event, we still want to hear from you. They’re both quick and easy surveys and you’ll feel better just for helping out.

Click here if you’ve participated in Pedal Pittsburgh.

Click here if you’ve NEVER participated in Pedal Pittsburgh.

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership

BikePGH and SPC host a workshop for local transportation administrators and decision makers

BikePGH and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) partnered with the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking & Walking, both DC based organizations, to bring the Action 2020 Workshop to the region. The workshops were designed to provide the knowledge, skills and resources to access untapped or under-utilized federal funding sources at the state, regional and local level to build bicycling and walking infrastructure and programs. Pittsburgh was chosen as one of only five cities throughout the nation to host an Action 2020 Workshop.

In a day-long session that was kicked off by County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. Advocates, government agency staff and local elected officials heard him talk of the County’s commitment to the Active Allegheny plan which aims to improve bicycling and walking in Allegheny County.

The bulk of the workshop was facilitated by Peter Lagerwey, the Regional Office Director for Toole Design Group in the Northwest. Peter has over 26 years managing high profile pedestrian and bicycle projects and programs with the City of Seattle and as a private consultant. He is a nationally known expert having worked on non-motorized projects and made presentations in over 200 states, counties and cities. He was also the project manager for developing and implementing the widely acclaimed Seattle Bicycle Master Plan; and co-author of the FHWA manual and training course on “How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan (PSAP).

The event garnered some media attention.

Both KDKA and WTAE produced a segment for the evening news that you can watch.

Essential Public Radio also got in on the action with a segment that interviewed Mavis Rainey, the Executive Director of the Oakland Transportation Management Association, about the future of getting around the University area. According to the article, she says there has been a rise in interest from the Universities and businesses in Oakland who are in a constant battle for parking space, adding that it’s time to take transportation focus off of cars only.

“For years and years the region, as well as the state of Pennsylvania, has been focusing on the automobile as the primary mode of transportation,” Rainey said. “So when you start to see a lot of funding that will require biking amenities, that’s a really positive step for the region.”

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership

• If you are shopping for a loved one, purchase food you know they like, but purchase it in smaller quantities.  Their tastes and appetites may change from day to day.  If your loved one is on a restricted diet, keep a copy of the dietary restrictions with you when you prepare the grocery list.  
• Meats can be hard to chew, swallow, and digest.  Compensate with other sources of protein like milk, cheese, fish, eggs and peanut butter.
• Steer clear of canned soups and vegetables, pickled or brined foods, and lunchmeats – all filled with salt. 
• If your loved one’s favorites aren’t healthy choices, experiment with some healthy substitutions, like:
• Fruits and veggies, if chewing is not an issue.
• Peanut butter on toast, crackers, or sliced apples
• Cottage cheese and fruit, cheese and fruit or crackers, 
• Since you can’t be there every moment, be sure to buy user-friendly foods.  So many packages, cartons, and containers are tough to open.  Whenever possible, open containers ahead of time.
• If you are bringing meals into the home, prepare just enough for one meal.  Make small servings that can be frozen and easily defrosted and prepared.  Label and date them clearly.  It may be easier and more convenient to plan ahead for the entire week.
• Meals on Wheels is another option.  This service is reasonably priced and delivered Monday through Friday in many communities.  Most offer one or two meals a day (one hot/one cold).  An extra benefit is that the food delivery person makes contact with the individual at time of delivery — another safety check.
• If you are worried that your loved one or patient is not eating the food you deliver, stop in at meal time to assess the situation. You can also check the refrigerator during your visit to see what is being eaten, what is needed, and if something is no longer edible.
• To increase the caloric content and improve the taste of dietary supplements like Ensure and Boost, add a scoop of ice cream and some fresh fruit is blended in.
• How can you tell if someone is losing weight, especially if they refused to be weighed?  Some of the most apparent signs are loose-fitting clothes, ill-fitting dentures, and facial changes (like sunken cheeks).  You can often detect a change simply by giving your loved one a hug.
• Treat yourself and your loved one to a meal out after a doctor’s appointment.  It may take additional effort, but a change of scenery can make food more appealing and make the doctor’s appointment more tolerable.  Time shared together on simple outings like this is irreplaceable.

…