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Edited on Wed May-25-11 12:20 PM by happyslug
Pittsburgh still has one of the highest rates of Pedestrian travel in the US, do to its compact size AND the mere volume of people. Thus in areas with Good Sidewalks, you see a lot of people walking, and thus makes it dangerous to bike,
The Classic case occurred in the late 1990s, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh is the County Seat of Allegheny County) had put in a bike trail in a County Park known as South Park. State law, at that time, required bicyclist to use a bike trail instead of the road, if a bike trail existed. Thus a high speed bicyclist was on this curvy bike trail used by Pedestrians as well as bicyclists. The result ended in a major accident including the death of a pedestrian. In the Subsequent court case, the Court ruled that it was common for bicyclist to go 25-30 mph and even through the bike trail had NOT been designed for such speeds, the bicyclist had NOT violated any laws and thus no liable for the accident. The County was ruled to be exempt for it was legally part of the State Government and thus exempt under the concept of Sovereign Immunity. Thus the victim had no one to sue.
The biggest problem was the ruling by its nature, would NOT apply to a city or other locally owned bike trail, for such municipalities are NOT viewed as part of the State and Sovereign Immunity does not apply (The restrictions are less then as to the State). This part of the ruling upset local government so that the State Legislature changed the law, dropping the requirement that bicyclist MUST use a bike trail (And for the first time permitted Bikes on sidewalks, except in business districts).
The problem with older cities is the heavily traveled areas have the well maintained sidewalks and do to the number of pedestrians NOT a good place to ride a bike. On the other hand, once away from such business districts, the sidewalks tend NOT to be maintained and thus become hazards not only to Bicyclist but Pedestrians. Many of these sidewalks still have curbs even at intersections (Unlike the business district's sidewalks which tend to have ramps to meet the ADA requirements). Worse, to make room for parked cars, the Sidewalks are narrow, or even worse, have parked cars on them (So the car is not hit by other cars while parked do to the narrowness of the road).
Thus in the older parts of town, I never ride on Sidewalks, there tend to be high volume pedestrian traffic, or sidewalks last maintained when McKinley was president. Under either set of facts, the sidewalks are barely safe for pedestrians let alone bicyclists.
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