Cycling in Waterloo Region

[dtkmelissa]

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.

I think your comment is reasonable, and I think it deserves a fair response. Nothing about friendship, but a reasonable discussion is worth having.

I'll leave Jeff Lorentz's points aside, if he was willing to make reasonable points and have a reasonable discussion instead of hyperbolically invoking democracy before going full hypocrate in the next meeting his points might actually be worth discussing (I'll point out that the very loss of discussion that has resulted in is probably a bigger threat to democracy than an emergency measure enacted with "only" 3000 points of public engagement).

In terms of actual usage, in the meeting staff gave (very preliminary) numbers of usage (the report is not published, you would have to read the meeting minutes for a source). If I recall, it ranges from 200-400 bikes per day depending on the section, I don't recall off hand if they cited what increase this was, but the Zeitspace article [1] cites a 50% increase.  While 200-400 bikes sounds low, I suspect it performs well compared with long established painted bike lanes on major roads, and a 50% increase is very substantial especially in the face of reduced traffic (of which cyclists are a part of--the university being closed is especially important here). These numbers are gathered by traffic counting devices (cameras I believe) and are far more valid than you or I sitting and watching cyclists go by for 30 seconds at a traffic light.

As for sidewalk riding, I've noticed some to be sure...but in my personal experience, it's closer to 1 of 10 than 9 of 10...for sure, the majority (albeit not all) of cyclists I have seen have been in the new bike lanes, I realize my experience is no more valid than yours, but you may consider it another data point. I do hope staff are collecting actual data on this to give actual numbers to this...I believe their counting equipment is capable of doing so. It's also worth noting that if we split the difference and say that 50% of people were riding on the sidewalk, this could still be a substantial improvement over the previous situation, where I suspect the 9 of 10 number would have been much closer...I certainly would be on the sidewalk in the before situation were I ever to find myself on Westmount before these lanes. And that isn't even unreasonable...it takes time for people to change their habits.

In terms of congestion, I have ridden the bike lanes during the former morning rush hour, I have seen zero congestion--even I have been surprised by this. It is possible there is congestion at other times that I am not seeing. But regardless, I'm not sure how it would be possible to take 25 minutes to drive up Westmount, it doesn't take me 25 minutes to bike up Westmount--and if it indeed took that long, other routes take less time, traffic will naturally shift, as you did. That being said, this is the point of a temporary project, to test out different solutions...I think a permanent implementation would have a centre turn lane in sections with driveway access.

But I don't think it's fair to say they didn't put much thought into the bike lanes. It's a temporary project implemented quickly, but that has limitations. How would you suggest they implement a centre turn lanes using pylons. And they could not have used other materials, even moving a breakneck speeds the region was unable to implement a pilot project on University Ave for less than 500k per km and 18 months engineering/design time. The point is also to be responsive to conditions and test out different ideas, they have already responded to issues that have arisen. If you have other suggestions you should send them to staff.

I am not sure of your opposition to actually using them? Although they are temporary, if they are there when you are riding, I'm not sure why you wouldn't ride them, if you feel unsafe, I'd ask yourself why. The fact is, a sidewalk provides little to no actual protection from an out of control car (as can be seen from the multiple fatalities of pedestrians on sidewalks), just as plastic pylons do, but the plastic pylons do seem to slow down traffic, which is a good thing in my books, and absolutely does improve safety. I must ask, have you tried riding in them? What parts do you find to be a problem? For me, I still have issues with intersections which are wide and high speed, but this is a problem with all regional infrastructure right now.

While I have also ridden the Homer-Watson infrastructure, I do not find it to be all sunshine and rainbows as you do. I am not sure of the bike you are riding, but I am riding a road bike...it's a little harsh, and the curb cuts on Homer-Watson are so incredibly aggressive (more so that the curbs separating traffic from the sidewalk on Queen) that I get neck pain after riding on Homer-Watson for a while. I also find the blind corners with driveways and illegal intersections (yes, it is illegal to cycle through the intersections on Homer-Watson) to be poor to the point of dangerous, and occasionally mixed with obstructions. I'm not saying it's terrible, it's certainly vastly better than the before situation, and many of the deficiencies *COULD* be improved, but at the end of the day, different pieces of infrastructure make sense in different contexts, and until the regional engineers do a better job of building MUTs I'm not really going to like them in all but the most suburan highway of context (like Homer-Watson is, of course--I do support them there, despite my disatisfaction with their implementation).

Which brings me to another key matter on Westmount.  While regional engineers will think of this road as an arterial road with no other purpose than to carry the maximum volume of motor vehicle traffic as quickly as possible, and find any other use an inconvenience they must work around, that isn't the whole story. The road also functions as a residential street in a neighbourhood. Some people live along it, some merely have to cross it to get to school, church, or the store, or just a friends house. While regional engineers are unwilling to consider that context, that's a mistake on their part, and the road should be designed to account for all it's uses. This temporary project have given folks in this neighbourhood an idea of what a slower more inclusive road would look like in their neighbourhood.

[1] https://www.zeitspace.com/blog/more-cycl...bike-lanes

As someone also interested in housing, especially more affordable housing, I have been thinking about this a lot. Many/most mid-rise (and higher density) projects are built along busier corridors. I have spoken at numerous council meetings where folks oppose certain new developments, and they'll always say that if it has to be built, at the very least put it away from the 'residential' side of the lot towards the corridor. Perhaps that makes sense sometimes, but I'm not convinced it should be the default. Then, when we talk about these corridors, we speak of 'car sewers', highways, etc and not as residential neighbourhoods where people live, work, walk, etc (and often a lot of people due to the higher density I just spoke of). To me, it feels like one more way we treat those who rent and/or live in apartments as not as important as 'homeowners'.