08-18-2020, 02:59 PM
(08-18-2020, 01:59 PM)jamincan Wrote: The cities have been supportive of building bike infrastructure (albeit mostly when and where it's convenient). As people have noted, though, there are gaps that effectively neutralize the benefits of this investment. Targeted and effective investment could produce something usable for a lot of people that would actually let us see a shift to greater bike usage, but without any work to identify what those key pieces, we'll continue to be plagued by these gaps.
It doesn't even always have to come at the expense of drivers. Speaking to investment that would affect me personally, separated lanes on River, Frederick (where it's four lanes now) and Krug could be had without affecting car traffic. This would provide an excellent N-S connector in east Kitchener and two good highway crossings.
Yes, because drivers have never been upset at the loss of unnecessary driving lanes before. /sarcasm
Sorry...I just thought that was funny...there's zero question there is a ton of space that could be redistributed, but I don't actually think that's any easier than taking away space from drivers that is being used (see King St. narrowing in Uptown).
The realization that I am coming too is that the most important thing--maybe the only important thing when selecting which cycling projects to push is how big an impact they will have on cycling. If you create new supporters, the project will be successful. Creating useless lanes, disconnected lanes, or lanes that might be useful only in the future will only serve to provide arguments against building more infrastructure, and provide no supporters to argue the other side...but building impactful infrastructure--even if doing so upsets more people--is by far the better value both politically and for society.
That being said, not arguing with any of those projects...I in fact, will have a proposal for Frederick soon, and River is an obvious one...Krug too...but the point is not any individual project, it is how it affects the connectedness of the grid that reveals how impactful the project will be.