Cycling in Waterloo Region

[KevinL]

The new King Street bike lanes, lacking any clear signage, have been completely occupied by parked cars...

[Canard]

People are parked solid on the bike lanes the whole way.

https://twitter.com/canardiain/status/93...5774143489

[Pheidippides]

That is ridiculous!

Why didn't they finish off the cycling lanes properly? Too cold? Not enough time? What's with the sand?

[KevinL]

In some fairness to those drivers, there appears to be no 'No Parking' or other signage guiding them away. One of the side effects of reopening a bit earlier than they should have.

[Canard]

I'm contemplating options:

• Print up a bunch of "Hey! Please don't park here" sheets with a picture of what the configuration actually is, and go put them on everyone's windshield.
  
• Stop my bike in the middle of the road and just stand there, and go "Oh, sorry! I saw the cars parked on the bike lane, so I thought I'd just park my bike in the car lane, cool?"
  
• Organize a bunch of us to go ride up and down the middle of King St. at 10 km/h and block traffic for hours, and say "Sorry, you parked in our lane, so we have to ride on the road"
  

I never thought I'd become one of "those cyclists" but I totally get it now, I really do. I was livid!

[Canard]

[Canard]

[Pheidippides]

It's disappointing, but not at all surprising, that the lanes for people who cycle and signage, became such and afterthought in the rush to get it open.

I am glad to see these lanes and son was so excited to try them out this weekend, but I guess we'll wait until it is a little more finished and all road users have time to adjust.

I am bit disappointed that the corners are still so sweeping at Princess and Dupont (you can see at 20sec and 38sec of Canard's first video). There are going to be more than a few people hit while on their bikes because the vehicles can still whip around the corners too fast. At least that could be retrofitted fairly inexpensively.

[Canard]

(in my second video - I just want to point out that I never lane-split like that (go up beside traffic to wait at a light or stop sign) - that's actually the first time I'd ever done that.  I was so furious I just wanted to get off to the side of the road and tweet my rage!)]

[clasher]

Ha! There's gotta be something in the air today. I was crossing with the bicycle crossing signal on Erb@Peppler at the plaza and someone made a right from Erb up onto the bike path, right in front of me. Luckily no one was walking and the driver quickly stopped upon realizing their mistake. Anywhere that looks kind of flat someone will drive a car on to.

In other disappointing infrastructure news, I finally rode through the new Lexington counterflow bikelane thing over the expressway. I'm not a huge fan of the end with the daveport intersection. It seems like a left-hook will happen when someone turning from Columbia doesn't do a shoulder-check and someone just follows the walk signal and rides through because the crossing is painted bike lane. I think the old road diet proposed for this road would have been a good thing, there is plenty of room in the area, the bridge is a bit tight but it would help keep car speeds closer to the posted limits.

[Canard]

Official response from project management:

Sorry for the inconvenience, we are waiting on decorative sign supplies and should be able to complete the installation next week.

[Markster]

Last night, I saw that the northbound cycle track was all clear, since there's official parking on that side. And the southbound cycle track was completely full of cars.

The really ridiculous thing that happened while I was out, was that a car driving north on King St, at the railway tracks, drove completely onto the sidewalk. I think they thought it was parking. There's no paint on the ground that indicates that the road dramatically narrows at that point. The sidewalk is just suddenly 2m wider.

[ijmorlan]

Last night, I saw that the northbound cycle track was all clear, since there's official parking on that side.  And the southbound cycle track was completely full of cars.

The really ridiculous thing that happened while I was out, was that a car driving north on King St, at the railway tracks, drove completely onto the sidewalk. I think they thought it was parking.  There's no paint on the ground that indicates that the road dramatically narrows at that point. The sidewalk is just suddenly 2m wider.

There is a weird discontinuity at the tracks. Immediately north of the tracks, King St. is just two lanes, and not particularly wide ones to my eye. Immediately south, it’s four lanes in width, plus the LRT track swinging out from the mall area. Looks like GrandLinq didn’t bother coordinating their detailed design of King St. with the neighbouring project. There is a significant amount of road space on the southbound side that should be removed and turned into sidewalk. Also northbound they should have the buses stop immediately south of the freight track. As built I believe there turns out to be a big enough space that it could be used as a bus bay. Much closer to the LRT stop than the actual bus bay north of the tracks.

[Canard]

Looks like GrandLinq didn’t bother coordinating their detailed design of King St. with the neighbouring project.

I think you mean, "Looks like the City of Waterloo didn't bother coordinating the detail design of their project with the LRT, which was finished first."

[ijmorlan]

Looks like GrandLinq didn’t bother coordinating their detailed design of King St. with the neighbouring project.

I think you mean, "Looks like the City of Waterloo didn't bother coordinating the detail design of their project with the LRT, which was finished first."

OK, it might have been a two-sided failure.

But the project to change King St. north of the tracks has been in the works for a long time. Just because the actual construction on the LRT part happened first doesn’t mean its designers get a free pass on coordinating with other projects which were actually happening at the same time (not the construction itself, but the design, etc.).

Also the part north of the tracks is correct given the basic choice for King St. to be two lanes only. The part south of the tracks only makes sense if you assume that four lanes will narrow to two right there, which Grandlinq could easily have checked was not the case.