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Cycling in Waterloo Region
Which bike lanes on King? Uptown?
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(06-14-2017, 11:39 PM)timc Wrote: Which bike lanes on King? Uptown?

Yes
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I don't even regularly ride a bike in the region and the comments on this CTV post terrify me. Victim blaming all round for a driver intentionally striking cyclists with their car.

https://www.facebook.com/ctvkitchener/po...8931930728
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Oh man, this is infuriating. I regularly ride with one of the guys who was in the group. They were in a double pace line (which is legal, fwiw), and the lady decided the best way to voice her objection was to brake check the entire group. I know way too many people who have been struck by vehicles while on the bike, often with long lasting serious consequences. Fortunately this was a minor incident in that regard, but the actions of the driver are astonishing reckless and thoughtless. It makes my blood boil.
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(06-21-2017, 10:03 PM)jamincan Wrote: Oh man, this is infuriating. I regularly ride with one of the guys who was in the group. They were in a double pace line (which is legal, fwiw), and the lady decided the best way to voice her objection was to brake check the entire group. I know way too many people who have been struck by vehicles while on the bike, often with long lasting serious consequences. Fortunately this was a minor incident in that regard, but the actions of the driver are astonishing reckless and thoughtless. It makes my blood boil.

Reading the comment thread is just a miserable experience.
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Reading any comment thread is generally a miserable experience.
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(06-22-2017, 12:34 AM)DHLawrence Wrote: Reading any comment thread is generally a miserable experience.

Except for here on this site!
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In reading the article, the lady was clearly in the wrong for braking so violently and recklessly. However, riding double, for such a long pace and not yielding to faster traffic, however legal, is a poor decision on the part of the echelon. In reading this thread, it is clear that certain people are anti-car or anti-bike, and that certainly will never lend to making the roads safer, without some compromise on both sides. Most bikers also drive, but far less drivers bike. The divide isn't helped by the fact that one group is at a supreme disadvantage, in any type of encounter. Interestingly, I've found that this divide also transfers to trails, with cyclists acting like car drivers and walkers like cyclists. I'm not sure what the solution is, if there is one at all, but the negativity of the divide we have now certainly isn't going to get us there.
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I've had by far and enough victim blaming in the FB thread, so I will instant rage-quit this...I have nothing polite to say.
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Passing a double pace line is easier than passing them all strung out single-file. Easier to pass than a big tractor pulling a hay-wagon or any other farm equipment one often encounters in the country.
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Resuming this conversation from the Ion thread:

(06-12-2017, 12:44 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Yes, Markster's description is helpful, although regional staff have said that they would not paint an edge line under such circumstances....for this reason specifically....but it seems that message hasn't been dispersed so widely yet.

As to the question, it has many answers ranging from nobody to everybody.....*sigh*....it's extra pavement to make the road wider, but then we realized that wider is actually bad in some ways (like safety) so we put paint down to make it appear narrower to try and slow down drivers.

Frankly, if people want to scream about government waste, how about paving a 5 meter wide lane than trying to make it appear narrower by putting down paint.

In practice the cities have concerns about fitting a plow down a 3.5 meter wide lane with curbs on both sides, so minimum widths are set.  I mean, I'd argue we should keep narrower, cheaper, less wasteful, less dangerous lanes and simply buy smaller plows, but apparently not.  C'est la vie.

Can anyone point me to an evidence based study that shows that lanes narrowed using edge lines slows traffic down in a statistical sense? I have searched without luck.

After seeing the King at Allen example I started noticing them in my travels, like this one on Westmount:
   

and seem to be used enough around town that they must still be apart of the local traffic calming toolkit.

Are regional staff actually on record stating that they would not use edge lines to narrow a lane?
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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(07-04-2017, 08:42 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: Resuming this conversation from the Ion thread:

...

Can anyone point me to an evidence based study that shows that lanes narrowed using edge lines slows traffic down in a statistical sense? I have searched without luck.

After seeing the King at Allen example I started noticing them in my travels, like this one on Westmount:


and seem to be used enough around town that they must still be apart of the local traffic calming toolkit.

Are regional staff actually on record stating that they would not use edge lines to narrow a lane?

I have an email from a staff member from another road project indicating that it is current practice:  "When it comes to wide lanes on Regional roads our current practice is to mark an edge line 3.35m from the centre line of the roadway but no closer than one metre to the curb."

I know of no data to back this up, but the same staff member indicated: "The advantages of an edge line include:
 
·         Additional roadway guidance and delineation;
·         Reduces motor vehicle lane widths to encourage slower motor vehicle speeds;
·         Narrows the look and feel of the roadway to encourage slower motor vehicle speeds; and
·         Reduces motor vehicle lane wandering"

(Which ironically is two points given in four bullet points).  I'm not sure if this is backed up by data or not.

I have had another staff member mention to me, he would in future prefer to put such extra space in the median instead of the edge, which might make a slight improvement to cyclist safety.  Although other roads, like Park St. make the strange decision to put in bike lanes of a generous, but not overly so width, and then provide drivers with a generous median, why not make bike lanes buffered?!

In any case, what really frustrates me is why we don't just build narrower roads.  I mean, there are operational issues with a narrow curb to curb distances (which I don't necessarily buy but at least explain it in the case of King St.), but the road I was discussing in this email, as well as the one you provide an image of, has no such constraints, so why we as a city/region/province are paying to pave an extra 1-2 meters of space at the side of roads, which serves no other purpose but to make the road LESS safe boggles my mind.
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(07-04-2017, 09:30 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: In any case, what really frustrates me is why we don't just build narrower roads.  I mean, there are operational issues with a narrow curb to curb distances (which I don't necessarily buy but at least explain it in the case of King St.), but the road I was discussing in this email, as well as the one you provide an image of, has no such constraints, so why we as a city/region/province are paying to pave an extra 1-2 meters of space at the side of roads, which serves no other purpose but to make the road LESS safe boggles my mind.

Thanks for all the background information!

Sounds like a project for Tritag. Identify and calculate the amount of excess/wasted pavement that is built (capital costs) and maintained (operational costs).

An example that has always boggled my mind is where Moore meets Bridgeport and Laurel. Why on earth on we maintaining so much useless pavement? Those lanes must be at least 8m (metres!) wide and one of them literally has no purpose.
   

This could have been a simple intersection, but it is needlessly oversized and dangerous. There must be at least 500m2 of wasted pavement that needs replacing and regular plowing/maintenance.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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Historical reasons. Originally the major road, Bridgeport, continued along what is now Laurel, Moore ended there, and Cedar (now the west leg of Bridgeport) was a smaller road that forked off a little to the east. Later, Bridgeport(–Laurel) and Moore(–Cedar) had the main intersection, with a little bit of Cedar being a smaller corner shortcut. Finally Bridgeport swelled up on its current route, and the old intersection became useless.

       
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That explains one of K-W's quirky intersections, but not the width of that final segment of Moore. It's like they anticipated cars wandering to the right as they did the slight left jag at Laurel. Unless it was needed at one time for truck traffic? That said, not sue I see what's "dangerous" about it.
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