05-07-2018, 10:18 AM
(05-06-2018, 10:52 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(05-06-2018, 10:10 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: I too have been encouraged by the number of people cycling this year, but I think there is still a far greater untapped potential group of people who are going to need better infrastructure before they are going to get out of their vehicles. My neighbourhood at Queen and Highland is a great example. We are <2km from the market, central KPL, and school, but need to either risk our lives on the road or ride illegally on the sidewalk to do daily errands as a family by bike.
Queen St S is quite narrow from Charles onward, until then it doesn't seem like a major life-risk (though I have no fatality data). But cycling to the market should not be so difficult, along Mill, Peter and Eby St.
And both are just a 20-minute walk away: walking counts as active transportation, too.
I'm not sure on collision data either, but I can definitely understand why Queen would be unfriendly to cycling, especially between Highland and Courtland (there are bike lanes after Courtland). The lanes are narrow, and there is in many places a centre median making it difficult for drivers to pass safely. Worse, there is a striped edge line about 0.6-0.9 meters away from the curb, giving a space that some drivers will expect cyclists to use, but is clearly insufficient space to safely pass a cyclist in.
The net result is you can either bike in the gutter, and risk being hit by drivers passing too closely...which isn't comfortable, or you can take the lane, and deal with angry drivers breathing down your neck who believe you should not be in their way, which is also not comfortable.
Either way, it's an uncomfortable ride, regardless of actual safety.
The road has pretty low speeds on it during rush hour. Between Highland and Courtland, I will average only a few km/h less on my bike than I would in a car meaning the frustration from drivers is entirely pointless. I will say that many drivers do seem to understand this, and don't act aggressively when I take the lane--but it's still something that's hard for many people, including me, to do. The road is one of the biggest mistakes the region has made in road reconstruction in recent memory.
Walking is of course an option, but you're going to convince many fewer people to convert a 5 minute car ride into a 20 minute walk, than you would convince to turn the same car ride into a 5 minute bike ride.
I have often felt that the connections through to Mike Wagner Green could be improved and some real routes built to bypass much of this problem, and I think Peter is not bad, but now you have some topological challenges, the hill is a big challenge to bike up, even walking up it leaves me breathing hard.
Mill is another frustration, but this time from Kitchener, it was rebuilt with zero bike infrastructure shortly after the bike plan designated it a bike route, at the same time, the plan designated Courtland Ave. not a bike route, which means when it was rebuilt, no bike infra there either.
I really have no good ideas about how to fix that area sadly, and it is an area I've brainstormed on.
On the plus side, I will say there were a TON of cyclists out this morning. On my bike to work I passed at least 30 or 40. The most I ever remember seeing.