Cycling in Waterloo Region

[clasher]

I'd rather see them fix the pointlessly wide lanes on Krug to be curb separated bike lanes as well as improved lighting, it's needlessly dark under there. Connects to the downtown grid and opens up the east side too, there's room on River rd for some serious improvements.

[danbrotherston]

I'd rather see them fix the pointlessly wide lanes on Krug to be curb separated bike lanes as well as improved lighting, it's needlessly dark under there. Connects to the downtown grid and opens up the east side too, there's room on River rd for some serious improvements.

I'd like to see Krug improved, but making it a real cycling route would involve heavily restricting traffic on Krug (i.e., breaking the through route for cars). It is impossible to put in bike lanes between East and Lancaster without limiting traffic to one direction (there isn't room for 2 lanes of two way traffic + bike lanes even with all parking removed) unless they also cut down every single mature tree on the street.

The reason Stirling is better is because it costs money instead of political will and money is much cheaper.

It's also the case that Stirling is a better east/west route because it continues past Courtland and also doesn't have a massive hill.

But it's a moot point anyway, Duke St. will never continue south to Stirling, I don't really know how to connect it to the grid there in a fast/efficient manner.

[plam]

On the other hand, I do appreciate King St being narrower north of uptown Waterloo. Also the segregated bike lane on Philip on what was the sidewalk. That wasn't great to ride on before.

[ac3r]

Has anybody ever used bamboo handlebars? I was thinking of getting some for someone for Christmas. I found them in a Terry B (great channel, BTW) video on YouTube and he says they're pretty nice, but doesn't really elaborate.

[clasher]

I'm too poor to spend 300$ on handlebars so no experience using them. They look too wide for my liking on an urban cruiser but seem more at home for a modern mountain bike. They do look nice though.

[Acitta]

‘Someone is going to get killed’
Who allowed such an unsafe route for hundreds of students to travel between their homes and Chicopee Hills Public School in Kitchener, Luisa D’Amato asks

[danbrotherston]

‘Someone is going to get killed’
Who allowed such an unsafe route for hundreds of students to travel between their homes and Chicopee Hills Public School in Kitchener, Luisa D’Amato asks

"Who allowed such an unsafe route?"

"How has this been allowed to happen?"

"But in the end, he wonders why a school was even built there."

Are all these people (council, reporters) playing fucking stupid?

These are all planned...we KNOW why it was built there, because that was the plan. Because cycling and walking was AND IS never a priority. 

Why are we pretending not to know?! FUCKING STOP PRETENDING!

The ONLY reason people are pretending not to know is in order to obfuscate the issue.

[KevinL]

Here's the stretch in question, on Street View. My proposal would be a physical barrier between the outer road lane and the bike lane, even if just at this narrow bit.

[ac3r]

An 11 year old girl was hit by a car while riding her bicycle and rushed to the hospital with non-threatening injuries. Thankfully, the old b****r who probably shouldn't be driving at her age wasn't hurt! :^)

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...hener.html

[bravado]

An 11 year old girl was hit by a car while riding her bicycle and rushed to the hospital with non-threatening injuries. Thankfully, the old b****r who probably shouldn't be driving at her age wasn't hurt! :^)

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...hener.html

This 'article' didn't even mention how much traffic was delayed by this, I'm going to write a letter to the editor!

[Acitta]

Cyclist struck by vehicle at Kitchener roundabout

Ottawa Street South and Homer Watson Boulevard.

I regularly cycle through this roundabout. You have to be very careful because cars exit the roundabout at high speed. Once a driver saw me at the last second and came to a screeching halt, though I had seen him and was prepared to let him pass before crossing. Though there are signs that say stop for pedestrians (nothing about cyclists), one cannot assume that the drivers have seen you and will stop.

[panamaniac]

An 11 year old girl was hit by a car while riding her bicycle and rushed to the hospital with non-threatening injuries. Thankfully, the old b****r who probably shouldn't be driving at her age wasn't hurt! :^)

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...hener.html

Since the driver is only a year older than me, I'm going to have to say "no" to this.

[bravado]

Cyclist struck by vehicle at Kitchener roundabout

Ottawa Street South and Homer Watson Boulevard.

I regularly cycle through this roundabout. You have to be very careful because cars exit the roundabout at high speed. Once a driver saw me at the last second and came to a screeching halt, though I had seen him and was prepared to let him pass before crossing. Though there are signs that say stop for pedestrians (nothing about cyclists), one cannot assume that the drivers have seen you and will stop.

I personally get a lot of “mindfulness” time sitting at this roundabout trying to cross. I counted 17 cars last time before I got my chance.

[westwardloo]

Here's the stretch in question, on Street View. My proposal would be a physical barrier between the outer road lane and the bike lane, even if just at this narrow bit.

This is an unfortunate consequence of over a half century of bad planning in this city/ region focused around the car. We build massive Arterial roads that encourage drivers to drive 70+ km/ hr. Then design our streets and subdivisions in a way that only allows limited access to the arterial roads from neighbourhoods, then build all our critical community infrastructure on the corner of 2 arterial roads. Looking at google maps of that area of town makes me sick. It wasn't build that long ago, but its filled with single family cal-de-sacs and little to no biking infrastructure. There is no access to the school from community to east other then fairway road. This gives them no choices but to either drive their kids to school or have them walk on a sidewalk with no buffer between them and cars driving at killing speeds, or let them ride their bike in the "bike" lane. Its ridiculous that the Region just paints a line in gutter and calls it a bike lane.

[ac3r]

Funnily enough there used to be better biking infrastructure on that stretch of Fairway and connected streets. Except it wasn't really infrastructure, just informal paths that went through the forested areas that could get you all the way to north Waterloo. I remember spending so much time riding a bike around there as a kid before all of the suburb developments were there...it was just empty fields and a couple old farm roads so it always felt like a nice cycling environment. Now it's just a generic suburb.