(08-13-2020, 11:21 AM)Coke6pk Wrote: I am constantly reading comments (not here) about how the bike lanes are empty, and they are a waste of space.
I've also noticed as I drive around some side streets with no one driving on them. There are many sidewalks that I see are empty as I drive past. Be careful this vocal minority doesn't notice these, or all infrastructure is at risk.
Coke
OK....here is what I think about the Westmount bike lanes -- I am not expecting to make friends over this, but I don't care.
First, Jeff Lorentz was exaggerating. Big.
But, he had a couple good points. For example, it's not without risk. Secondly, it's not being well used. While it's far from the 2000 cars to 1 bike that he claims, it's not being used even as much as I expected.
What I have observed. The few times I have used Westmount I have observed maybe 50 - 60 cyclists. It's not like I use Westmount a lot, but this is what I have noticed. As I said, Lorentz exaggerated. Another thing I noticed, of those, we'll say 60 cyclist, only 5 actually were using the bike lanes. Every other cyclist was on the sidewalk. It's not this bad on Queens Blvd, where only 6 out of 10 still use the sidewalk, but for 1 in 10 cyclists using this bike lanes, it's a colossal waste of taxpayers money, and is only going to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many. A conspiracy theorist might claim that this was intentional, so as to justify the gov't not spending the money on real bike lanes.
My daughters one doctor is in uptown Waterloo. Now perhaps it's the time of the day that I used Westmount, but normally this is a 7-9 minute ride, depending on how many lights we hit (Gage St can screw up our time). With the bike lanes, it was 25 minutes to get there. The reason was because of people turning left onto streets and driveways (be it residential or business), plus the day we went, the right lanes were cut off too. I took a different route home to avoid Westmount. o
I do realize if we had real bike lanes, we'd at least have a centre turn lane, like Queens Blvd, or at least section to pass left turning cars. plus we'd have proper right turn lanes. But what they did here with Westmount didn't seem to have much thought put into it.
Now if the majority of cyclists were actually using the bike lanes, I may have not posted here. Or if I did, I would have said they really should have given this more thought on traffic management. Whether or not Westmount Rd could properly handle traffic properly with a proper set-up, I have no idea.
Now, I don't want to be a hypocrite, but personally I avoid using temporary or permanent bike lanes. I don't like them. I am the 9 out of 10 still using sidewalks to bike if out on Westmount. MUT's are still a much better way to go, like what we have on Homer Watson. This is biking paradise.