Trails

[Viewfromthe42]

King Street's was even better: they widened Weber Street in part to accommodate the loss of King Street, both temporarily (as now) as well as partially in future (to LRT lanes)  

LRT has been a pretty good example of this. They gave Erb St. 2-way flow, and the North side of the Shops a temporary building-adjacent travel lane, in order to provide a workaround.

But in any case, every road project generally has an alternative route that's easy to get to, even if it's a bit off course, because our street grid is incredibly dense. Especially when compared to: usable bike infrastructure. There's hardly any in the city, and certainly not any that runs parallel and close to the Iron Horse Trail to offer a detour route.

[Canard]

Yep, and Weber is like what, half a kilometre away?

So why is going around the building at Park/Caroline such a big deal? The trail ended at Caroline. Now it ends 100m earlier. I don't get it. You just bike around. If you want to make it about cars - it takes me far longer to detour around the closed King Grade Sep driving than it does for me to go around the IHT closure at Park on my bike.

[danbrotherston]

@Canard

While some people may not have a problem, some do.  The reason why the detour is a problem is it is on road in traffic.  Some people are not comfortable riding here.  For them, it's basically an impassable void.  If I had kids of a young age, I'm not sure I'd trust them on the detour for example.

This is especially true in winter.  In summer I don't mind riding all over roads, but in winter, I'm very uncomfortable riding on roads because of the risk of slipping in the snow.  Even I find riding down in the snow on Park to detour here unnerving.

The problem with this detour isn't about distance really, but some are, Weber is a half KM away from King, but cars are meant to cover great distances quickly.  A 0.5 km detour in a car is equally inconvenient to a 200 meter detour on a bike, and equally bad to a 50 meter detour on foot---seat of the pants estimates.

[ijmorlan]

Something like this would never have happened with a motor vehicle route.

Apparently we have forgotten about 2 years of LRT construction already.

No, I haven’t forgotten. The roads were closed more or less to the extent they needed to be in order to accomplish the work, and were re-opened reasonably promptly once the relevant work was done.

Here we have a path closed before the long-term replacement is in place, when there is no apparent reason why the replacement couldn’t have been constructed first.

Ignoring that the permanent re-routing probably wouldn’t have been entertained for a motor route in the first place.

We have also seen this with the LRT construction, where, for example, the Laurel Trail next to the Perimeter Institute is still not restored, even though there has not been LRT construction there since the fall. They could easily have made an effort to ensure the trail was restored before winter but did not do so.

[Canard]

What is this replacement we keep talking about?

[timc]

What is this replacement we keep talking about?

On the Iron Horse Trail? The rerouting of the trail alongside the Sun Life parking garage.

[Canard]

Ok. So:

   
Red = Original Trail
Orange = New alignment
Green = Current detours around the construction

The trail ends at Caroline. I'm really sorry, but I ride through here so often and I am really not seeing this as a huge deal or issue at all. The trail closed. They'll build something. Then the trail will re-open. It's just like any other construction.

[taylortbb]

I think the difference I see between the two is public benefit projects vs private development. Closing of a road to build a grade separation is a public benefit project undertaken by the region. Condo development is a private project, and it's held to different standards.

The region would never approve a condo development shutting down a major road for two years just because it makes their development easier. Private projects are expected to minimize their road closures, and pay very steep per day prices to ensure they do.

Here they're closing a major bike route for a year or two, and it's not treated as an issue. I understand some closures may be required, but if the developer paid per-day fees like they do for a road closure, they'd probably find a way to keep the closure to a few days/weeks.

I think such closure fees would be a reasonable compromise, because detours do cause an inconvenience to the public, and it makes sense to minimize them where practical.

[jamincan]

I do kind of agree with Canard here. It's not like the trail is split in two here. It's only the very end of the trail with reasonable detours around the area. It would be nice if facilities for active transportation were given a higher priority, but this seems like a fairly minor disruption at best.

[ijmorlan]

I do kind of agree with Canard here. It's not like the trail is split in two here. It's only the very end of the trail with reasonable detours around the area. It would be nice if facilities for active transportation were given a higher priority, but this seems like a fairly minor disruption at best.

It is not the end of the trail. It continues parallel to Caroline St. right up to Erb & Caroline.

And nobody has addressed my assertion that the new route could have been built already. I agree that roads and trails sometimes need to be closed for construction but I deny that it was needed in this case (just to be clear, old route had to be closed permanently to build current plan; but new route could have been built first, and if a condo development was going to re-route a road, the new route would almost certainly be built before the old one was closed).

[ijmorlan]

I think the difference I see between the two is public benefit projects vs private development. Closing of a road to build a grade separation is a public benefit project undertaken by the region. Condo development is a private project, and it's held to different standards.

The region would never approve a condo development shutting down a major road for two years just because it makes their development easier. Private projects are expected to minimize their road closures, and pay very steep per day prices to ensure they do.

Here they're closing a major bike route for a year or two, and it's not treated as an issue. I understand some closures may be required, but if the developer paid per-day fees like they do for a road closure, they'd probably find a way to keep the closure to a few days/weeks.

I think such closure fees would be a reasonable compromise, because detours do cause an inconvenience to the public, and it makes sense to minimize them where practical.

Thank you. This is essentially what I’m trying to say.

[danbrotherston]

I do kind of agree with Canard here. It's not like the trail is split in two here. It's only the very end of the trail with reasonable detours around the area. It would be nice if facilities for active transportation were given a higher priority, but this seems like a fairly minor disruption at best.

The scope of the disruption is entirely dependent on how comfortable you are riding on the road, and how comfortable you are riding on the road in winter.  For some, it's a bigger deal than for others.

And as others pointed out, this is "splitting in two".  This basically a segment of a trail that goes from Ottawa St. continuously up to Northfield Dr., even Benjamin Dr.

[timc]

If you want to go there, then this is part of the Trans Canada Trail we're talking about. :-)

I don't really have a problem with a short-term closure, and this seems to me like a reasonable short-term detour. But if we are talking about years, then something better needs to be done. Especially since Waterloo considers itself a bike friendly city.

[tomh009]

The region would never approve a condo development shutting down a major road for two years just because it makes their development easier.

A major road?  How many people per day use the IHT at this end of the trail?

And has someone from the city said that the trail will be closed for two years?

[danbrotherston]

The region would never approve a condo development shutting down a major road for two years just because it makes their development easier.

A major road?  How many people per day use the IHT at this end of the trail?

And has someone from the city said that the trail will be closed for two years?

There is a new building where the trail was.  There's a construction trailer where it's going.  It's a logical conclusion that it will be closed for the duration of the construction.  But if you want to be technical about it, nobody from the city has said anything.  But that point seems to support the position of double standard even more.

As for trail usage, I have no idea, there's no trail counter at that location, but other nearby locations gets around 500 people on average in the winter, and around 1500 people on average in the summer I believe.  Someone can look up more specific numbers.

But I don't think the numbers matter as much as the image.  This the main trail through the city.  I cannot imagine anyone arguing this isn't a "major trail", probably even the main active transportation link in this part of the city.  Maybe fewer people use it than would because it's continually closed with little warning and no acceptable detour.