Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

Wait Duke is reduced seriously? I lived in Duke and was very hyped for the bike lanes. I even went to virtual meeting to endorse it. This is so disappointing...

Yeah, it is a big disappointment.  The region, ultimately, owns Duke St. and they feel that they are unable to move transit operations off the street. They seem excessively greedy on this given that they refuse to give up space on Weber or Duke and thus are essentially holding the entire North/East side hostage.

That being said, city staff seem very confident that the region will eventually come to an arrangement. I don't know why they are confident in this, I certainly see no reason for it, but city staff ultimately would know better than me. I do recall they had at one point speculated about running buses in the LRT ION right of way. Which I think frankly, would be cool and a good use of resources, but I can also believe that Keolis would just say no to that without even considering it. So, who knows, we'll just have to wait and see.

Even if they do come around and allow transit on that section, there will still be an unfortunate outcome, which is the section they are building north of Water instead of being built in the roadway, (taking one lane and making it one way), is being built in the boulevard where there is space (there is no boulevard space south of Water) which means all the trees will be removed.