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Cycling in Waterloo Region
(07-19-2018, 04:13 PM)KevinL Wrote: I take it you're an advocate of the proposed Strasburg-Avalon bridge, then, as that will get you right to the foot of Stirling...

Yeah, absolutely. As long as I work north of where I live, it would provide a significant benefit to my commute. I can empathize with some of the objections, but in general am an advocate of increasing the number of ways to cross the expressway. I think there's a lot of places where a bridge or tunnel would make a big difference. When I was commuting to the eastern side of North Waterloo I had to cross it twice and where to cross was probably the single most important factor in deciding my routing.
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(07-19-2018, 03:41 PM)robdrimmie Wrote:
Quote:And to avoid the Ottawa/H-W intersection one could head over to Westmount and then take the trail through Concordia & Lakeside parks

During construction of the roundabouts I took exactly that detour, though I took it to Stirling not to the Iron Horse. The routes through the parks were wonderful, but Ottawa's asphalt is garbage along that stretch and Westmount is one of the streets I consider far too unsafe to ride on (along with Weber and Homer Watson and most of King). Coming back along that route is especially unpleasant, crossing to the proper side of Westmount at the trail head at 5:30ish is very difficult, and turning left onto Ottawa immediately after increases the complexity. Now that the roundabout construction has settled I feel much safer crossing at Homer Watson and Ottawa and either taking HW up to Stirling, or continuing along Ottawa to Mill. 

I appreciate both suggestions, thank you.

It's one of the few areas I regularly ride on the sidewalks. I also snake through the townhouse on Chandler that has a path to their parking lot to avoid the Westmount/Ottawa intersection. I was riding through there today going up to the sunrise centre and even during midday it is hard to find a gap in traffic to cross Westmount. Shoulders are so wide on Westmount between the expressway and the hydro corridor trails they could just put in a MUP along there so we wouldn't have to sidewalk ride.
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Who was responsible for this design? Would it have been GrandLinq, or the Region, or the City of Waterloo?

   
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(07-21-2018, 01:21 PM)Canard Wrote: Who was responsible for this design?  Would it have been GrandLinq, or the Region, or the City of Waterloo?

Or MTO?

Edit: I googled it and found this document. That document says that this is a Regional design, but MTO, City of Waterloo, and Waterloo Fire Service were consulted. I doubt that Waterloo Fire has much to do with the bike lanes.
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Oh that looks like a great place to ride.

I honestly don't understand how so many bits of bike infrastructure gets it so wrong in this region.all them enginnets need to go out and ride it in rush hour.
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I know it's not a great excuse, but it is about 1000x better than what was there before. I bike there often without drama.

What, specifically, is wrong with it? And how could it be better?
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(07-21-2018, 03:15 PM)timc Wrote: I know it's not a great excuse, but it is about 1000x better than what was there before. I bike there often without drama.

What, specifically, is wrong with it? And how could it be better?

Is it better than what was there before, yes.  I've biked through also without issue, but even as a fairly confident cyclist, it's terrifying.  You have cars coming off the highway or trying to get onto the highway often in excess of 80km/h, on both sides of you, even if you personally are comfortable with that, I think you must understand how most people don't.

As for how it could be better, that's a good question, when it comes too it, this is an interchange designed to make car traffic efficient to the exclusion of all other modes.  The real way to fix it is to balance the needs of different modes, remove slip ramps, etc.

Realistically though, we could have had better designs by providing more separation between cars.  There was one suggestion of eliminating all sidewalks, and putting one big path down the middle of the LRT with crossings on both ends.  Not sure if this would have worked well, it largely depends on if they prioritised short signals at the crossings to minimise wait times, but it would probably have been usable by more people than the current design.
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(07-21-2018, 01:21 PM)Canard Wrote: Who was responsible for this design?  Would it have been GrandLinq, or the Region, or the City of Waterloo?

The crazy thing is this is a standard Book 18 design.  This is state of the art as far as traffic engineers are concerned.
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I ride through it often, and I’d consider myself a “confident rider”, and it is absolutely terrifying, for all the reasons Dan said.

Having vehicles a metre away from you on both sides forming an 80 km/h tunnel is not fun.

The gate for all designs should be “would I ride here with my kids?” If the answer is “no”, revise design.
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(07-21-2018, 05:08 PM)Canard Wrote: I ride through it often, and I’d consider myself a “confident rider”, and it is absolutely terrifying, for all the reasons Dan said.

Having vehicles a metre away from you on both sides forming an 80 km/h tunnel is not fun.

The gate for all designs should be “would I ride here with my kids?” If the answer is “no”, revise design.

I know what you mean. I'm a seasoned and confident rider and any place where I have to pass on/off ramps is scary. University, Lancaster and Wellington are three I pass often on my rides and each time I just hope there is no one trying merge on or off the highway. The speed delta between cars and bikes in these areas are high with lanes ending so you have to cross paths.
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Northfield is absolutely insane.
They should have just deleted the bike lanes, and given the width to the sidewalks on either side, and made them MUTs.
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(07-21-2018, 01:21 PM)Canard Wrote: Who was responsible for this design?  Would it have been GrandLinq, or the Region, or the City of Waterloo?

I'm not an avid cyclist but isn't this the correct design with right lane faster moving or exiting lanes?
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(07-23-2018, 12:18 PM)MacBerry Wrote:
(07-21-2018, 01:21 PM)Canard Wrote: Who was responsible for this design?  Would it have been GrandLinq, or the Region, or the City of Waterloo?

I'm not an avid cyclist but isn't this the correct design with right lane faster moving or exiting lanes?

Define correct?

It meets the standards set out by the province in the MTO's engineering documents for building bike lanes through interchanges.  That doesn't mean that the design is good, only that a relatively large group of engineers has decided to agree on it.

I call it wrong because it I feel it doesn't meet the needs of the vast majority of the users of the road who aren't in cars, but that's only my opinion, and even more, my definition of "correct". Although, my opinion is informed by best practices in places which actually have a lot of people cycling and walking--I don't want to say that I know better than civil engineers, but in this instance, I'm going to.
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(07-23-2018, 12:26 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I call it wrong because it I feel it doesn't meet the needs of the vast majority of the users of the road who aren't in cars, but that's only my opinion, and even more, my definition of "correct".  Although, my opinion is informed by best practices in places which actually have a lot of people cycling and walking--I don't want to say that I know better than civil engineers, but in this instance, I'm going to.

It’s always prudent to be reluctant to believe or especially proclaim that the professional experts are wrong. In this particular case, however (not to mention many others in the planning area), there is ample evidence that they do not know what they are doing. I feel very comfortable agreeing with you that this design does not meet our needs and is a bad design that should not have been implemented. The suggestion given earlier in this thread to just have wider sidewalks that are actually MUTs, or my idea to do that but combine them in the middle between the LRT tracks, would have been much better in pretty much every way. For myself if I ever cross there I will ride on the sidewalk.
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Question, I'm looking to get a new bike for getting to/from work, around town, maybe occasionally on trails that are gravel. Looking for recommendations. Under $1,500, tire and chain fenders/guards against rain/snow, integrated kickstand, integrated or accommodation for a good rear rack, ideally disc brakes, minimum 3 ideally more speeds (happy with internal hubs). Open to the possibility that I should get a particular bike for paved-only commuting, and something separate for any chance of winding up on gravel trails. I've been beating an old 21-speed to death, chipped/worn teeth on all gears, and having bought it as a used bike 10 years ago, I think it might be nice to invest in something that I can maintain myself and enjoy for a lot longer than this one's inherited deficiencies.
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