When are Stops Optional?

Went out to lunch in Shadyside with my husband. We were driving up a street behind a cyclist who just cycled through a stop sign on Elsworth. No slowing down. At least it was a 3-way intersection, but still, he chose the Stop to be optional.

Ignorant cyclist: 1

Commuting Through a Crowd

Drove in today, traffic can be heavy going into and through Oakland on Fifth or Forbes Avenues. What I don't understand is that when there is a jam, why do some people honk? It doesn't help anyone. And it certainly is annoying, if that counts towards "hurting someone." In the particular situation this morning, there was nothing the other drivers could do but to WAIT THEIR TURN.

And then tonight, my husband and I walked to Giant Eagle and we walked by a bus stop. A bunch of folks were dropped off. One in particular made a scary attempt to cross cat-a-corner (diagonally). Trying to skirt the street lights? I watched her for a little bit while she would take a step diagonally forward, then back. Then forward, then 2 steps back. Until she crossed one street properly and then got a green list to cross the next street.

Really, was it worth it to try to cross diagonally when it's a regular street-lit intersection?

Ignorant Driver: 1
Ignorant Pedestrian: 1

"The Rules Don't Apply to Me"

Our typical Sunday activities these days keep us in the city. Mostly in Squirrel Hill. My daughter has a weekly music lesson in the SqHill business district, and because her electric bass is so heavy and metered parking is free on Sundays, we drive the mile and a half over.

It amazes me to see cars who will go into a left-turn only lane at an intersection, and then jump the light to be ahead of the collection of cars who sat in the proper lane waiting to go straight. Is it really worth that risk? Really, these rules apply to everyone.

For today, the tally goes:
Ignorant Driver: +1

Hit it with a Hammer!

Drove out from Squirrel Hill to Latrobe today for my daughter's weekly horse riding lesson. That's about 40-50 miles each way. Commute out was uneventful, although there seemed to be a little more traffic on the roads than usual. It was coming back when I learned that there are circumstances when you can use a hammer to try to get your car to run again.

There's a Sheetz gas station/market that we usually stop at after her lesson. It's about 15 minutes from the stables. The car that we parked next to was apparently having problems starting. When we arrived, it was the driver around the car. When we came out with our lunch to eat at a table by the parked cars, another fella came by to help. And he had a hammer!

Okay, I'm now intrigued. And they're looking around under the hood, tapping here. Tapping there. I look at my daughter and she shrugs. And within about 10 min, another fella comes over. He looks and pokes his head. The 2 fellas update him, "The horn is good and we can her it trying to start. So it's not the battery. We think it's the starter." The 3rd fella agrees, picks up the hammer and tries to slide under the car, a compact Chevy. Unfortunately, he doesn't fit and no one apparently has a jack. He puts the hammer back down. Shares his sympathies to the fellas and says they need a jack to get to the starter. They thank him, wave, then turn back to the car. My head tilted when one of them picked up the hammer, and proceeded to find places under the hood, to tap.

Apparently, starters that are going bad can be nudged by hitting it. In this case, the fellas all agreed on the solution, but two of them couldn't find the starter. The 3rd fella seemed to know his starters. Anyway, hope they got it resolved.

Good Samaritan Drivers: 2

College Cyclist Commuters...Sigh

While walking to the bus stop this morning, waiting at a red light at an intersection, I watched a cyclist, sans helmet scoot through. Actually, rather than scooting, he was wobbling because he was trying to get his right foot into his toe straps. Looked like another college student commuting in.

When my light turned green and I had already started to cross, a white Audi A7 was about to do a Pittsburgh-left right into me. I made eye contact with him and tilted my head to the side, "are you really going to Pittsburgh-left into me?" Fortunately, he caught himself and stopped. He smiled sheepishly at me and let his on-coming traffic through while I crossed.

No bunching at the bus stop this week, but there were about 8-9 people at my bus stop. I'm grateful. The tally for today:

Ignorant Cyclist: 1

The driver caught himself and thought better. I'll note that but not sure if it fits into these tallies.

[Edited: 2:27PM]
I may have perhaps spoken too soon. At lunch time, my husband came to pick me up around 11:45am to go out to pick up one of our old cars from the mechanic. The interchange between downtown and the North Side is tricky.  You cross a bridge from 376 or downtown (2 origins) to potentially 3 destinations: North Side, West End Bridge/65, or 279. And you have about 100 feet to negotiate your lane.

As soon as my husband signaled to go right, the car in the right lane blocked us. Forcing us to slow down significantly and go behind the car. Who then slowed down on us.

And then coming back to work for me, again, trying to merge, I was blocked by a Hyundai. I was in the far left lane (in CA we call that lane 1) and I wanted to go to the far right lane (we would call that lane 3) but the Hyundai refused to let me into lane 2, then refused me into lane 3 until a car moved in front of it and he was forced to slow down.

So for today's updated tally:
Ignorant Cyclist: 1

Ignorant Drivers: 2

Uneventful Lately

Not much to report lately. Other than a couple of cyclists tonight who were riding in the dark without a helmet and on the sidewalk. They also didn't have any lights, just the default reflectors that come with a typical bike.

Some drivers seem to be rather polite, letting me turn into somewhere. There were 2 spaces on the street today and in the past, when I've had to park along another car in a double space, the other car would take the end space. This one let me take it. I thought that was rather uncommon, but sensible.

So maybe today's tally will be:
Courteous Drivers: 2

Hard to Tally Day

I've had the Uber app and account since December 2015. I don't use it often, but we decided to use it tonight and it was also Michael's first time using Uber. And now, I don't think he'll be getting an account.

We were going to the, "Steel City Big Pour" event. 150 craft beer vendors and a wonderful collection of food vendors from Market District to Harris Grill, VooDoo's own food truck, BRGR, and many more notables. So using Uber made sense.

For our first ride, in the middle of the request, the price changed and we got surged by 1.2X. To start, our driver seemed confused on how to get to where we were for pick up. She eventually made it to pick us up after driving around a block or two. Great! Although her car was clean, it did seem that her car was on the older and somewhat beat up kind of style overall.

Within minutes of arriving, we saw 4-5 other Uber cars leaving. That validated that it was a good idea. :)

Clusters of Uber PickUps

Leaving the event, we tried to leave at least 30 min early to beat the crowd and surge pricing. So with leaving about 30 min early, we got hit with a 1.7x surge price rate. Not wanting to wait and anticipating a storm coming within an hour, we took the higher price and stood on the corner with about 540 other folks waiting for their Uber.

Our driver tried to shortcut the map and then couldn't find our pick up location. 2 waves of Uber riders had already left and we were still waiting for our car. Really not making a good first impression on Michael. Eventually, our driver showed up and it was clear that he didn't know his way around. From Hampton and really depended on his GPS. So closed roads seemed to confuse him. We eventually made it home.

Uber's Prototype Self-Driving Car

I think the neatest thing I saw was the number of people who used Uber for the event. That was really good to see how response a lot of folks are to do this. We didn't hear of anyone getting an auto driving car, that would have been neat. But none of the cars looked like the photo on the right. I took that picture back on July 8, 2016. Driving through Lawrenceville.

The event also offered discounted tickets for designated drivers. With over 150 types of beer offered during this event, there seemed to be a number of responsible drivers who opted out of driving. I don't know how to score this tally for the day.

I drove over 100 imiles for the day because of my daughter's equine lesson. Saw minimal cyclists on the road. And just encountered a couple of tailgaiters on 22. In general, I think I'd score today in favor of responsible drivers.
 

Learned a New Term Today, "Bus Bunching"

Bunching Frequency

Just came across this, a heat map on bus bunching. Bunching is when you got to a bus stop, wait for your bus, and it goes right by you because it's at capacity.

Very insightful snapshot of "bunching"

Spatial Frequency of Bunching

This was developed by a member of a student organization called, SUDS (Students for Urban Data Systems) at CMU.

It's a Non-Line Line, Please!

Another morning to bus in... I arrived at the bus stop and found about 3 people already there in a natural line. They were not lined up, but they were standing on their phones almost in a line. A woman and I arrived and filled in the natural order. Then came another person, who followed the same pattern.

Then here comes one person who broke the pattern, order and personal space and stood ahead of me and within about 18". He paused and looked around, then proceeded to move further ahead of the not-really-a-line.

There he is, the guy in the green shirt. Grr.

Too early for a tally for today, need to follow-up later. Plus I'm testing a mobile post.

Lefts and Blush for the Morning

Some quick incidents to report today...the first one was a driver who was in such a hurry, they cut me off so that they could turn left on a red light. There was a car in front of him that was in the intersection already waiting to turn left. At that point, the light had turned red and then this car decided to go.

 

One block from that, we saw a woman applying blush while driving and the car was in motion! Even my daughter noticed and was surprised.

 

And then about 4 more blocks, I was cut off by a pedestrian who started to cross on a red light. He started!

 

The tally for today:

Ignorant Driver: 2

Ignorant Pedestrian: 1

Motivating Incidents

This morning on my way in to work (an Oakland university) I wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather this morning and walk/bus in.

It took longer than expected because 3 buses past us because they were so full. I was at the bus stop at this intersection. There were 3 incidents that I noticed this morning that has prompted me to start this blog and maintain a tally. We'll see how this works out.

The first incident I noticed was a cyclist, with no helmet, riding on the sidewalk across the street from my left to my right. He then decided to hop onto the street, on the opposite of the the road with oncoming city vehicles. I tried to get my camera app on my phone to snap a pic but he was able to scoot across the street and out of my view by then. He looked like a grad student in his 20s.

The next incident was a white van coming up from the hill across the street taking a very narrow left turn onto the main road, running over the, "Yield to Pedestrians" sign and dragging it about 2 feet.

The 3rd one was a good samaritan who came from the right, stopped his vehicle to fix the pedestrian sign.

The tally for today:
Ignorant Cyclist: 1
Ignorant Driver: 1
Good Samaritan Driver: 1