Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

I like your thinking on this. I have been known to stop and pull out my cellphone and look at it. Works pretty well for bicycling and for walking.

It’s still a bit ridiculous but people seem to understand that I have no intention of crossing in the next few seconds so they continue on.

Nono, that's not ridiculous at all, I do that too!  I totally forgot about that, and I actually do that all the time - not often with my phone, but just try to give the impression that "oh, I'm not crossing, carry on".

The one move that I consistently struggle with how to "do right" is crossing to an island, like the trail alongside the LRT tracks at Columbia, or the (small) island on Weber, or University at the Laurel Trail.  Because... if I see a break in traffic for the first stage, I'll quickly bike across to the island and stop rapidly.  BUT!  If cars see me do that in the second stage, sometimes they'll slam on the brakes thinking I haven't seen them and am going to go shooting across in front of them.  (I think that's only happened once, but now I project that it's ALWAYS going to happen)... so I have to gauge my body language and eye contact and everything to try and make it VERY VERYYYYYYYY CLEAR that "YES, I AM STOPPING... YOU do not need to stop on your 60 or 70 km/h road).

Thanks for the feedback guys.

You know, when you pull out your phones, you're going to be the subject of someone's "those stupid cyclists/peds always jumping in front of cars while on their phones" story .

I am definitely experiencing a great waste of time with this.  The most frustrating crossing is Union...where routinely, i.e., often more than once a day, a car will slow down to stop for me, which actually ends up eating up the space I would have been able to cross in, but that crossing I will never cross in, two way traffic is too heavy, and occasionally cars will even move around stopping vehicles.

And yes, cars are often spooked by me stopping on the crossing island on University and especially the Weber one because it is criminally narrow.  Often they slam on brakes, sometimes they lay on their horn.