06-12-2019, 12:16 PM
(06-12-2019, 12:01 PM)Section ThirtyOne Wrote:(06-12-2019, 11:51 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: https://www.therecord.com/news-story/943...ce=twitter&source=wr_record&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=&utm_campaign_id=&utm_content=
Pilot will involve 5 km of bike lanes separated from traffic using flex posts and small rubber curbs. Since this uses materials there are some limitations, buses will still use the bike lane to access bus stops, and intersections are not planned to be protected, but this is still a huge investment from the city, probably the biggest I've ever seen.
Queens Blvd. and Belmont Ave. will be going from 4 lanes to 3, which is a much safer configuration, which should also hopefully slow traffic to a reasonable speed.
While i'm definitely in favour of additional bike lanes, I can't help but wonder if there wasn't a better choice than Belmont Avenue for the pilot. It runs literally adjacent to the IHT after all...
There are numerous reasons why Belmont was a good choice.
It doesn't actually run parallel to Belmont Ave., it runs diagonally away from it. There would be no way to connect the Belmont Pilot to the IHT, and thus DTK and Uptown without including Belmont, as Queen St. is only 2 narrow lanes east of Highland where the IHT can be found. Without this, a connected network would not be formed which is the cornerstone of making this work.
Second, the IHT is planned to be closed this summer and fall for water main work, and as a result will be unavailable. Belmont being a safe biking corridor provides a detour route for the thousands of trail users who will be displaced (one that should have existed last year mind you but better late than never).
Third, the choice of roads is opportunistic, Belmont is a huge wide and empty road, it has the space to easily and relatively uncontroversially convert it into a bike route, and at the same time massively improve safety by improving the road design.
This was a discussion we had at council, and while yes, if you look at the two blocks of Belmont between Glasgow and Victoria you may question the need, but it definitely was the right decision in my opinion.