OpenStreetsPGH kicks off its 2025 season of getting Pittsburghers moving outdoors Sunday with a new course of closed streets through the city’s east end.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., BikePGH will coordinate activities for walkers, runners, bikers and any other kind of nonmotorized movement on a path through 3½ miles of Shadyside, East Liberty, Larimer, Homewood and Point Breeze. Along the way, participants will find a variety of coordinated activities like exercise classes, music performances and open stores and restaurants as part of a summer tradition that started in 2014.
“This is a new combination of streets that we haven’t done before,” said Julie Walsh, spokeswoman for BikePGH. “We’ve been in all of these neighborhoods before, but not together in this course.”
The course will start at Highland Avenue and Alder Street in Shadyside and take participants to Broad Street and a long stretch of Frankstown Avenue to North Braddock Avenue, where it ends at Thomas Boulevard. Those streets will be closed to traffic from 3 a.m. to 3 p.m., but a variety of intersections will be open for motorists to go across the course.
Two areas will be set aside for activities, family and children’s activities at Liberty Green Park on Larimer Avenue, a block off Broad Street, and a community wellness hub at Frankstown Avenue and Collier Street.
Liberty Green will feature music, art and other family-friendly activities as well as a “Mystic Side Quest.” Walsh said the quest is an opportunity for bikers to ride on the relatively new protected bike lanes around the former East Liberty Circle, an effort to promote the lanes for riders who aren’t familiar with them.
“We want people to know about them,” Walsh said, and as an encouragement the first 50 to take the side trip will receive tokens for Millie’s ice cream shop.
The wellness hub will feature dance and yoga classes, information about environmental and other advocacy groups, and opportunities to try e-bikes, adaptive bikes and duet wheelchair bikes.
Businesses and restaurants along the course will be open, and many will have sidewalk sales and seating.
For a complete list of activities and other details go to the OpenstreetsPGH website.
The program will have a second day of closed streets July 27 from the Strip District to Lawrenceville.
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.