(07-27-2022, 10:45 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Still not even an attempt at explaining what is wrong with putting the bicycle path between the LRT tracks.
It’s OK, apparently, to sandwich the active transportation between the edge of the bridge and motor vehicle traffic driven every random idiot in the city, separated by nothing more than 10cm of paint, and with freeway ramps crossing. How is riding next to a low-traffic (one vehicle every 10 minutes) LRT track with no crossing of other routes any worse? Slagging it as “in the middle of active train lines” is just meaningless word-painting that will give an incorrect impression in the minds of people who are unfamiliar with the situation of what is actually being proposed and what it would be like.
I’ll agree that a separate bridge for bicyclists and pedestrians would be awesome, but if you’re going to call the centre-lane idea silly I think you should justify doing so.
Of course you won’t because it’s actually a pretty good idea and there is no actual reason for calling it silly. Prove me wrong, I’m listening, unlike (apparently) you.
You've answered your own question.
Quote:It’s OK, apparently, to sandwich the active transportation between the edge of the bridge and motor vehicle traffic driven every random idiot in the city, separated by nothing more than 10cm of paint, and with freeway ramps crossing.
You would consider this not ideal, right? It's unsafe, it's ugly, it causes rider anxiety and tension to be so close to fast moving traffic. I'm sure you would agree that having a clearly defined and ideally separated right of way for bikes is preferable. I.e. the sort of thing we've done with the grid, MUTs that are often far away from traffic and so on.
Quote:Still not even an attempt at explaining what is wrong with putting the bicycle path between the LRT tracks.
See the above point. Riding with traffic is bad for many reasons. Now riding between train tracks with a train speeding by on each side every 10 minutes - fence or not - would be even worse than this. Who would want to bike there? I'll try to elaborate, I guess.
Primarily, my point is that we settle for extreme mediocrity in this region. We accept the bare minimum the regional and city planners offer us in terms of solutions. We don't bother them enough for serious improvements. We don't have enough people suggesting good alternatives...and I mean good, not: hey what if we put the path between the trains". There's a reason whoever said that is not an infrastructure planner.
Refer to my point https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/showthread.php?tid=186&pid=103689#pid103689. Check out the thesis and skim the entire thing if you'd like, it's important. It explores solutions in Toronto but also shows some great examples of human centric bike infrastructure around the world. Things that have stuff like well coloured lanes (including fast/slow lanes), fully separated trails, elevated or underground trails, incredibly wayfinding, connections to important things, facilities (tools, water fountains, benches, secure bike locking etc), pulic art, lots of trees for shade and so on.
This is just one of many theses on infrastructure out there that has many great ideas that go beyond what our region does: that is - if you don't include the cycle grid - consists of bike gutters with at best floppy bollards to prevent people from driving in them. And there are so many examples in other cities out there that do it right and make cycling a nice, safe experience. You don't get that riding between train tracks or beside fast moving cars.
Anyway, I think you and many others are missing the point. It shouldn't be an issue of improving this shitty part of our bike infrastructure. There is no fixing it unless you want to ride with trains lol. Fixing it could consist of a new bridge that bypasses all of this and that way nobody will get hurt and we can have a nice looking bike bridge.