Cycling in Waterloo Region

[ijmorlan]

That being said, you’re still not making sense.

You’re right that we settle for mediocrity (and worse)

I'm glad you managed to understand this despite me supposedly not making any sense.

No sense re: my bike lane idea. In other areas you almost always at least make sense and often say things that I think are insightful.

[…]

I'd rather we get to a point where we have our cities have bike infrastructure that is safe and pleasing to utilize (wayfinding, trees, places to have breaks, water fountains, built in calm environments so youth or old people aren't overwhelmed). And infrastructure that isn't forced to spend too much time mixing with traffic (it may be inevitable in some areas, but should be minimized as much as possible by taking different routes, building under or overpasses and so on).

I agree with all this. The only part of what you’re saying that just has me flabbergasted is the idea that my idea is somehow worse than what we have.

As for the whole "let's cycle with the trains" thing you lot seem fixated on, I'll just try to think of some reasons off the top of my head why that would be really shitty (and yes, I know, many of these problems overlap with cars - so why would you want even more of that?):

• Noise: trains - while ours are quiet - are still loud enough to minimize situational awareness (Even more so if you have fences on either side of you causing acoustic changes...and because a lot of riders have earphones these days or look at their mounted phones. Bad news.)

Loud enough to be louder than the motor vehicle lane that right now is immediately beside the bike lane?

Cars frequently crash into the trains; most recently a cement truck pushed a train off its tracks

OK, so theoretically a motor vehicle could push an LRT vehicle into my centre bikelane. Unlikely, because at that point everything is travelling parallel across the bridge, but theoretically possible.

Well, the motor vehicles which right now are next to the bike lane don’t need any help getting into the bike lane.

Zero areas to move to if there was an emergency be it personal or external; when in a bike gutter, you often have a sidewalk to move to. Where does one go if you're stuck between not only two fences, but active railroad tracks?

Right now one is stuck between the edge of the bridge and the vehicle lanes, a total width of approximately 3.2m sidewalk+bikelane. My proposed centre path is approximately 6m wide, or as wide as some of our narrower streets.

Right now, if escaping to the sidewalk/bikelane (depending where you started) isn’t enough, your choices are over the edge of the bridge or directly into busy traffic. With my proposal, you’re starting with a much wider area meant for pedestrians/bicycles, and if you need to escape even from that, you hop the fence into the LRT lane, which is way safer than the general traffic lanes (not that I recommend it; but if you’re claiming that the narrow sidewalk can be a refuge from the narrow bikelane, then I can say that half of the very wide path can be a refuge from the other half).

Re: the last point...if you fell and needed help, there is a lesser chance anyone would see you to help. What if a rider had heat stroke? A normal stroke? Cardiac arrest? Nobody would see them but maybe another cyclist

LRT drivers; and vehicle drivers are only one lane further away. Besides, by this argument, the dedicated bridge is a non-starter: there is no other traffic to possibly see a downed rider/walker.

It would be really ugly

Uglier than what is there now? The entire bridge is paved, regardless. And who cares, since it would be way safer?

The heat island effect would make it really damn hot

Hotter than the edge of the bridge?

Maybe.

I’m dubious about this.

Still, paving it with concrete is probably a good idea to help mitigate the problem.

How do you propose these would be cleared of snow?

Or ice?

Uh, the same way as every other bike path in the city?

Seriously, it’s like you’re not even trying. This is just getting embarrassing.

Etc etc. See, with a bit of thought, you realize how stupid of an idea riding between train tracks is. And sure you can say "well we ride with cars" but as I keep saying, that misses the point that we should be building good infrastructure that isn't forced to mix with trains and cars. Everyone loves to see how nice things are in Netherlands and Denmark but if you've actually spent any significant amount of time there, you'd understand just how independent there bike infrastructure is...which is what I'm trying to advocate for. Building good infrastructure that can both exist independently but also be integrated into traditional infrastructure. And we don't get that by settling for mediocrity or suggesting asinine ideas like riding with trains. We need people actually willing to advocate for something better - and more so, people in the right positions to ensure such things get built.

And if we're handing out grades, I'll give you a participation award for your thoughts.

Edit: Randomly found a good video on why it's important to have pleasing infrastructure...nobody wants to wait/use a train or bus in the middle of a freeway - so why would anyone want to ride their bike between multiple lanes of traffic and two sets of train tracks?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vrQHMhZ3k4

Your list has 8 bullet points in it. 7 of those make me wonder if you’re trolling. The other is a potential minor downside that is hardly conclusive and certainly doesn’t merit the vehemence of your views on this matter. Maybe you just need to put a bit more thought into your points? I’m actually astonished that you could come up with so many things to write down and yet not actually hit anything with significant impact.

The rest of what you say is right on. You just haven’t made any progress at all in explaining what is so horrible about my idea.