Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

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.

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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.

I mean, value is always a big question. FWIW...I believe projects like the Downtown Grid have much better value in terms of political capital than the garbage bike lanes we've been building for decades. It has a couple of key features.

Connectivity: A network is only valuable if it's connected, it was conceptualized and developed as a complete network, therefore, it should have much greater value as built as a unit (unfortunately now over 3 years).

Focus: The grid is focused downtown where there is the greatest opportunity for increasing cycling. This is something that hasn't been done before where infra is usually built in the periphery where there is no competition for space with cars.

These two things, in my opinion are well worth the cost. The other area that this makes sense is the university district, but obviously that's in the Region's and Waterloo's hands.

That being said, the biggest threats I see to the network is the continual attacks on it by the region and even city. With the Ontario segment killed, and the Duke segment killed, I think it will be a failure. I hope that pols who have invested their reputation in this project recognize that and try to force those segments back into the grid.

As for the usage of the network, it's hard to know till it's built. In the Netherlands, the infra is very intuitive. Even if you've never been here, you more or less can follow the routes (connectivity) and know how to get through the infra. I think the connectivity with the grid is good, the infra is an open question.

In some ways, the culture in the Netherlands plays some part. Drivers are aware of the concept of not being allowed some places. People on bikes are expecting the infra to work for them.
 
Where as where we live, many drivers cannot comprehend not being allowed to drive somewhere, so they drive in the bike lane, and cyclists are used to being at war with the engineer, so they expect to be forced to forge their own path (and get hated on by drivers for it).

That being said, this is something that can be learned, well designed infra will make that learning process very quick. We will have to wait and see if our infra ends up being well designed, UX is a hard problem to solve. In some parts though, Canadian infra is required to be worse than Dutch infra. The best example I can find is the traffic signals. In the Netherlands all traffic signals are on the near side of intersections only. In Ontario they are legally required to be on the far side.

Why the difference? In Ontario they are on the far side so that a driver who makes an error and stops past the stop bar can still see the signal. This is the theory. The practice is that drivers rarely if ever stop behind the stop bar and frequently block crossings. In the Netherlands the concept is different, drivers rarely overrun the stop bar, and I have not seen one block a crossing yet. The reason is nearside signals. If a driver is past the stop bar, they continue through the intersection (which is true in Canada as well). It isn't considered an error (or at least, is a less important error than blocking a crossing).

It also means that signals are much more obvious who they are for, they are directly above or directly beside the user who they apply to.

I'm sure there are probably other design cues like this as well, but this one was the most obvious one to me.

As for the design you question you have, it looks like it could be a concrete curb. Just to the left of the crossing is an outline that looks like it is the type of outline they use for concrete. There is no reason this couldn't be concrete, all it would require is a drop curb. This is in fact the current state of the crossing, where there is a sidewalk and a drop curb. So I suspect there will be.

FWIW...I think the current situation (and probably the future one as well) is terrible. Having a sidewalk that doesn't have the right of way is incredibly confusing and means that the design cues don't align with the intended use. This is another example of our bad design, but ahh...a topic for another episode???

As for continuing on Queen...I'd like to see that as well, but given Queen has been completely rebuilt over the past few years west of Duke, I don't see it happening any time soon. I think it would be less of a big deal if Frederick is well done.