Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

Many of the no parking signs are standard permanent signs.

Bylaw gives me this same bullshit about "wrong signs" too.

[clasher]

Come to Waterloo.and ride some convulted bike infrastructure!

[Canard]

Kind of seems insane that in Florida they enforce these things more strictly.

https://youtu.be/OnFXQwTsTtQ

(I want to know how the Runions survived Christmas.)

[ijmorlan]

Kind of seems insane that in Florida they enforce these things more strictly.

https://youtu.be/OnFXQwTsTtQ

(I want to know how the Runions survived Christmas.)

The story said they were planning to use their grass for parking.

One thing odd about that location: there was a bunch of yellow-striped pavement on the left side. It seems like the traffic lane could have been put over to the left and had some space for cars to park, although not clear if all the lanes would really be as wide as preferred.

Also I’d want to know more about the planning process here. Since they changed the road to remove parking, shouldn’t that have gone through a process which gave people a chance to comment and ensured everybody knew about the change? Of course I say this as somebody who believes bike lanes should be enforced.

Of course here in Uptown there is tons of parking, just not everywhere that it formerly was. The problem is really that Bylaw isn’t taking seriously its job. They’re spending more effort coming up with excuses not to enforce than they would to actually enforce the rules.

[danbrotherston]

I totally believe there was a process which was ignored. People say the same thing here.

It's so frustrating.

[Canard]

Puke.

https://twitter.com/citywaterloo/status/...32544?s=21

[Canard]

(Thanks for replying, Jamincan! They need to hear from more than just me that this is ridiculous.)

[tomh009]

Puke.

Since the twitter links are broken, can you tell us what this is all about?

[clasher]

Can we just post the twitter links as plain text so they can actually be followed?

[timc]

Kind of seems insane that in Florida they enforce these things more strictly.

https://youtu.be/OnFXQwTsTtQ

(I want to know how the Runions survived Christmas.)

The story said they were planning to use their grass for parking.

Which is also illegal in Waterloo. :-)

[bpoland]

https://twitter.com/citywaterloo/status/...32544?s=21

[ijmorlan]

[Viewfromthe42]

As is mentioned in the thread, the more interesting (and easier?) question is who plows King St. in winter. They plowed the southbound cycle lanes to be used as parallel parking. If the city plows did the work, then someone at the city explicitly requested that we have cars park on bike lanes. If it wasn't the city, then perhaps the BIA, with the city's tacit approval. Either way, the plowing leads to the city approving use of lanes not built to be supporting weight of vehicles to be used (and thus damaged by, at extra city buget costs) as car parking.

[Canard]

Re: the twitter plug in, yes, it’s broken, but anyone can click on the link, even if you don’t have a twitter account.

(Thank you Dan, and everyone else, who has chimed in on this! We need them to know how we feel about this.)

[robdrimmie]

I asked Melissa Durrell (thread starts: https://mobile.twitter.com/RobDrimmie/st...1483823104) when enforcement of the lanes will begin, and she responded: "Awareness has started. Bylaw officers are placing postcards on car windshields... letting them know they are parked on a cycle lane. Construction should begin in the next couple of weeks. From that time forward cars will be ticketed. The Bike lanes will be open for cyclists."

I strongly suspect it was a concession to the BIA, and I appreciate that there's a period of education happening. As a cyclist I think it's absurd that the lanes were given over to parking at all, but I can appreciate the pressure from business owners and the public that would have resulted from a whole swath of area just going unused. The unpaved portions wouldn't have been usable by cyclists through much of the winter either.

Even if the city had finished construction and the bike lanes were treated as such through the winter, there would be cars parking in them. There will be cars parked in them once construction is complete. There are going to be delivery vehicles parked in them on a regular basis, and the city will probably do nothing to enforce that, either.

None of that makes it right. That burden of safety on cyclists (and pedestrians) is one I resent. I'm actually hopeful in this case that the round of construction to finish off the bike lanes will have a positive impact. It has the potential to create a clear delineation. Construction will be done for a year or two to appease the BIA and habits will form. I agree that it would have been better to be enforcing from day one, but this at least is a better indication of change than just some Monday morning what was parking on Sunday becomes a bike lane.