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+--- Thread: Cycling in Waterloo Region (/showthread.php?tid=186)
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RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - Canard - 07-07-2015
Cars, pedestrians, cyclists - in the scale of the universe, they're practically one and the same. We should all just forget about the rules of the road, and do whatever the hell we want! Woo-hoo!
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - mpd618 - 07-07-2015
(07-07-2015, 10:01 PM)Canard Wrote: Cars, pedestrians, cyclists - in the scale of the universe, they're practically one and the same. We should all just forget about the rules of the road, and do whatever the hell we want! Woo-hoo!
We live in relative scale to each other, and to the various elements of our world. In the terms of physics, an average person on a bike has a potential impact force much closer to that of a person on foot than to a person in a car. I don't see what is mathematically challenging about this fact, though I can certainly see that the policy implications might be.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - notmyfriends - 07-08-2015
(07-07-2015, 01:21 PM)plam Wrote:(07-07-2015, 01:15 PM)ookpik Wrote: That's hardly a good reason to go soft on cyclists who blow through STOP signs. It's either legal or it's not. If it should be legal but isn't then change the legislation as has been discussed already above.
A bit of a digression but I've seen cars blow through STOP signs in the Uptown West part of old Waterloo on several occasions. The reason why it happens is because intersection are inconsistent. Some are 4-way STOPs, others are 2-way STOPs and others still have no STOP signs at all. As a result it's easy for inattentive drivers to miss a STOP sign. A better solution IMO would be to get rid of most of these STOP signs altogether. That would encourage everyone to slow down and to look in all directions before crossing any of these intersections.
Which BTW brings up another difference between car drivers and cyclists at STOP signs. The former almost always blow through them due to inattention while the latter almost always do it deliberately.
I think the law should be changed: if everyone really isn't respecting the law, it's a bad law. However, it's difficult to change laws.
It's easier to remove bad signs. Yes, there are probably too many STOP signs. Yield signs are rare and should be more common. There is actually one on Elgin Crescent and Brighton. It looks weird because it has very few friends.
Iroquois and Longfellow has the only yield sign I ever notice.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - rangersfan - 07-08-2015
As a cyclist I think some of the illegal movements made by cyclists (including myself) comes from inconsistent or incomplete infrastructure.
Two examples:
The Iron horse trail at West / Victoria heading south bound. This is very confusing as the trail disapears and everyone seems to handle the intersection differently.
Where Parkside Dr hits Northfield. The bike lane ends at an incredibly busy road, and if you work in the Kumpf/ Randall industrial area you either need to take your chance and bike down Northfield and signal to get in the left hand lane, which brings you right into the heart of one of the busiest highway interchanges in the region or cross the street and use the sidewalk.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - rangersfan - 07-08-2015
I also hear people complain about cyclists creeping up at intersections while cars are stopped.
Take an example like Queen st from the Iron Horse Trail heading towards Highland, you have a bike lane until it abruptly ends now you have a single lane rd, that grows to 1 left lane, 1 straight, 1 right at the intersection. If the cyclist continues the path they were on when the bike lane ends, they are now technically creeping up. It is the same for roads that don't bike lanes.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - MidTowner - 07-08-2015
(07-07-2015, 09:56 PM)Smore Wrote: ....so, how often do pedestrians "blow through" a four-way stop with out coming to a full and complete stop if it is perceived to be safe for them to do so??
People on foot are not required to stop at stop signs, of course. They have right-of-way at a two- or four-way stop. Someone walking is generally traveling six kilometres per hour or less, making it pretty easy to see oncoming traffic. When you increase this to thirty or fourty kilometres per hour or more, and add a few dozen pounds in the case of a bicycle or potentially thousands of pounds in the case of a motor vehicle, the risk of a collision increases and the potential impact of a collision dramatically increases.
For those "the law's the law" types here, consider that there is a finite amount of resources to do anything, including enforce laws. Those resources have to be allocated somehow, so look into what actually causes serious collisions, and decide whether you think enforcement time and money should be spent on cracking down on cyclists failing to stop at stop signs. People driving motor vehicles cause many more costly collisions than people riding bicycles.
I agree with the notion that cyclists should be permitted to treat 'Stop' signs as 'Yield' signs, but to say that all laws must be enforced all of the time is unrealistic. Of course focus should be placed on particularly dangerous infractions.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - chutten - 07-08-2015
(07-08-2015, 06:13 AM)rangersfan Wrote: I also hear people complain about cyclists creeping up at intersections while cars are stopped.
Yet, on the bare handful of intersections where there are 'bike boxes' (city website) this behaviour is encouraged and expected.
Yeesh.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - kaiserdiver - 07-08-2015
(07-08-2015, 06:05 AM)rangersfan Wrote: The Iron horse trail at West / Victoria heading south bound. This is very confusing as the trail disapears and everyone seems to handle the intersection differently.
This is an awful intersection for cyclists using the trail. If I'm heading northbound, I generally merge into traffic on West, then turn on to the trail after turning at the intersection. If I'm heading southbound, however, it makes a lot more sense to just use the sidewalk at Victoria to get to the intersection, then cross like a pedestrian - otherwise you have to cross traffic heading both ways on Victoria to merge properly with traffic. During rush hour, you sometimes can do this because it gets so backed up that people will leave a space for you, but it's always touch and go. I don't want to be on the sidewalk, but it seems like the most reasonable option.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - ookpik - 07-08-2015
(07-08-2015, 08:32 AM)MidTowner Wrote: For those "the law's the law" types here, consider that there is a finite amount of resources to do anything, including enforce laws.
My issue is that lax enforcement of existing traffic laws engenders disrespect for those laws and for other traffic laws in general. Further, selective enforcement as practiced by most police forces engenders disrespect for the police. ("Why are you picking on me when everyone else does it too?") If a law can't be enforced consistently with some vigor then we should re-examine why it's on the books in the first place.
One example of this is the requirement for vehicles (cars and bikes) to come to a full stop at STOP signs. Why do police enforce this based on whether you came to a complete stop or rolled through the intersection slowly, looking in all directions? ISTM the latter is just as safe providing the operator slows down to a crawl and looks in all directions. Presumably the law was put on the books to make people slow down enough to see other traffic and be able to stop in time. Full stop was easier to enforce (and prove in court) than some loosy-goosy verbiage about slowing down and looking.
Another example are speeding laws. The 100km/hr limit on controlled access highways has been in effect for decades while road and automobile technology has improved dramatically. These days the typical speed on these highways is 120, not the legal 100. If the police were to enforce the 100 there would be rioting. (Remember what happened when Mike Harris introduced photo radar and the trigger was set "too low" at 110 or 115.) Yet lawmakers are loath to increase the legal limit to 120 because they're afraid that the typical speed will rise to 130 or 140. Because of this we've painted ourselves into a corner; the present situation is hypocritical yet we can't fix it by raising the speed limit to what people are doing now without inviting them to go even faster.
These are the sorts of situations that result from lax or selective enforcement creates. If we can't enforce a law sufficiently that violators face a good chance of being caught then we need to rethink that law. What is that law intended to accomplish? How could we accomplish the same result in other ways?
One suggestion to the current issue has been to let cyclists cross intersections without coming to a full stop. Fine. Then make your case and lobby to change/amend the law to allow this. Same with riding bikes on sidewalks.
Quote:Those resources have to be allocated somehow, so look into what actually causes serious collisions, and decide whether you think enforcement time and money should be spent on cracking down on cyclists failing to stop at stop signs.
Then change the law to allow this. Perhaps even change most STOP signs to YIELD signs in slow speed residential areas so they apply to all vehicles. And further, the people who "blow through" those intersections at full speed should be charged with careless or dangerous driving. We certainly don't need to pay cops to hide behind bushes waiting for someone to fail to come to a "full" stop even when they slowed down to a crawl and looked in all directions.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - zanate - 07-08-2015
(07-08-2015, 06:13 AM)rangersfan Wrote: I also hear people complain about cyclists creeping up at intersections while cars are stopped.
Take an example like Queen st from the Iron Horse Trail heading towards Highland, you have a bike lane until it abruptly ends now you have a single lane rd, that grows to 1 left lane, 1 straight, 1 right at the intersection. If the cyclist continues the path they were on when the bike lane ends, they are now technically creeping up. It is the same for roads that don't bike lanes.
Once again, infrastructure fails us.
The arrangement you describe is a major problem from the point of view of a person on a bike. What are you expected to do when your bike lane ends? Queue up with traffic? It could be bumper to bumper 500m behind you (this is not a hypothetical example either.) Traffic may not even be queued, but just dense and gradually rolling forward. If it closes up and you can't merge in anymore, do you just hold position alongside the car next to you? You still end up "creeping up" the left turn lane. So why make things worse by blocking the left turn lane any longer than necessary?
We got an effective fix to this problem at southbound Bridge St. N at Lexington (before and after). This was my non-hypothetical example, where traffic can accordion itself way back. In this case, the dedicated turn lane was replaced with a dotted-line bike lane. It's legal (and in fact expected) for right-turning traffic to bear right into this space before making their turn... if it's clear. A person riding a bike down Bridge is no longer forced into a Hobson's choice of creeping, trying to beg their way into a queue, or sidling up to a car in a dangerously tight lane.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, people do what they have to.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - panamaniac - 07-08-2015
This thread is educational. I did not realize that "creeping" was anything other than normal (where space permits), if I understand correctly what is implied by that term. I have been doing it since I was a kid.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - mpd618 - 07-08-2015
I sometimes do that on King Street in downtown Kitchener, where a line of cars behind a left-turning car at Frederick can extend past the next light. The primary reason for the delay is the physical space the cars take up. Going "single file" doesn't make any particular moral or geometric sense - and it means even fewer cars fit in the space between lights. If I squeeze past the queue on the right, I can make it through on a green light and no one else is affected.
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - BuildingScout - 07-08-2015
(07-07-2015, 09:56 PM)Smore Wrote: Cyclists are generally more akin to pedestrians than to cars, what with the lack of thousands of pounds of metal and thrust and all....so, how often do pedestrians "blow through" a four-way stop with out coming to a full and complete stop if it is perceived to be safe for them to do so??
We have John Forester to thank for the vehicular cycling (VC) principle: "Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles."
There is no evidence for this principle, which was conjured out of thin air by Mr. Forester. The law as it is already has special rules for wide vehicles and for long/heavy vehicles (semis) but according to Mr. Forester there is no difference between a thousand pounds of steel requiring 75ft breaking distance and 30 pounds of aluminum with 15ft breaking distance.
Examples where different rules must apply are: bicycles should be allowed to drive on paved shoulders at all times. Not so cars. Bicycles can be parked on the sidewalk, not so cars. A bicycle at low speed has more in common with a scooter or electric wheelchair than with a car, but according to the Vehicular principle said bicycle is safest on the road with trucks overtaking it at 80km/h than on the sidewalk.
The threshold should be 10km/h which is jogging speed. If you are cycling faster than that, you belong on the road/cycling lane.
A bicycle moving at jogging speed is a pedestrian and should not yield to a stop sign any more than a pedestrian does, which is to say none at all. At speeds below 20km/h a rolling stop should be allowed, just like it is often done in practice by cars as well (the so called California stop).
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - Smore - 07-08-2015
(07-08-2015, 06:13 AM)rangersfan Wrote: I also hear people complain about cyclists creeping up at intersections while cars are stopped.
When I'm riding, I often wonder when it switches from cars creeping on me to me creeping on cars? So, as I approach an intersection at some distance determined by me, should I be veering into the middle of the lane to take my place in the queue for the stop, instead of letting cars pass me to only hit the brakes within a short distance?
RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - zanate - 07-09-2015
(07-08-2015, 09:24 PM)Smore Wrote: When I'm riding, I often wonder when it switches from cars creeping on me to me creeping on cars? So, as I approach an intersection at some distance determined by me, should I be veering into the middle of the lane to take my place in the queue for the stop, instead of letting cars pass me to only hit the brakes within a short distance?
On an unimproved street, I usually do (when I can). It depends on a few things like whether I have the space to do so, and how wide the lane is. But at a place like Moore approaching Union, where traffic is usually light, I'll take a dominant lane position.
Here's the problem: most of our traffic system and traffic rules haven't really caught up with multimodal travel. Especially when it comes to accommodating bicycles. While I respect the viewpoint of "rules are rules, no exceptions", I think that is oversimplifying and dismissive of a lot of complex problems people have to face every day. I wrote about this a couple of years ago.
An inconvenient truth about cycling by the rules.
TL;DR version: Follow the rules, as far as you can. After that, be smart and be careful, but do what you have to.