Cycling in Waterloo Region

[dtkvictim]

I think the idea is to join the separated lanes on Joseph with Church, essentially making the two one continuous route for bicycles. It’s not primarily about that little bit of Queen, although eventually presumably it will link up with future improvements on that street as well.

This is correct, and I think it's actually more important than it might at first appear. Having clear continuity in infra is important, even when it's a short segment, this makes it very clear where you are supposed to go to follow the route and to be safe (the route of course being Joseph to Queen to Church).

I don't think many cyclists are using Church, but the intention is to have more cyclists use it. It is intended to be a high quality piece of infrastructure. I think it is a pretty quiet road and is probably acceptable, if it was made part of a clear route, it may get that increase in usage. That being said, I think the main obstacle with Church is the hill. I would have been better to route cyclists around the hill, but that means Charles or King and it seems that wasn't in the cards (Courtland is flat enough as well, but getting around the hill takes you really far south).

I'm not opposed to it, but I'm concerned about the amount value gained for the political capital being spent. At least from my perspective (happy to be wrong) this is the most visible section of the grid to suburban motorists, but also likely to be one of the least used sections. I think the hill is an obstacle, but I think crossing Benton is a bigger one.

I also think Queen St (especially south of King) should have proper cycling infrastructure in the future, and see this setup as a potential obstacle to it unless they manage a 2-way cycle track the entire way down.

---

Regarding my other questions, I think I need to illustrate my confusion.

1) The stop bar for bikes heading to Joseph. I assume this stop bar is used for both directions on Queen, and not just the one ijmorlan was referring to ("stop line south (left, on the plans) of Joseph"). There is a triangle shape immediately left of this stop bar in the construction drawings, but I can't imagine this is a concrete curb. First, it would blocking the existing retirement home driveway, and second the elephant feet on the drawings wouldn't be needed if it was a curb. This means cyclists waiting there are floating directly in the path of Queen St traffic who fail to follow the shifting lane:



2) Are these lines I've drawn the intended paths, and use of the turning box?



I fear some of the expected maneuvers across the grid are confusing to cyclists (who then don't "comply"), and incomprehensible from the motorist perspective who don't see the same paint and signage. Separate signal phases would help a ton, but I imagine that isn't happening.