Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

Plan to repurpose driving lanes on Benton and Frederick for a cyclists.
I believe this was something that Dan advocated for years ago.
https://www.engagewr.ca/benton-and-frederick-cycling

Yes, I did, quite some years ago: https://betterbenton.netlify.app/

I'm glad to see that someone is finally coming around to looking at it, although I guess we'll have to wait till closer to the August date for actual details on the plan, although given they are scoping the plan to the areas outside the central core where the LRT runs, I doubt they've actually absorbed the point I was getting to in the proposal.

Specifically, since the LRT section is recently rebuilt, and has an LRT, that area won't be rebuilt for many many years (probably 50 or more) so any design must work with the existing roadway there, which is difficult because one part is not four lanes wide.

So I proposed a a two way cycle track that could be fit on the north side (which has only one through lane) and keeping two way car traffic on the south side.

Given they have not included the central section in the project, I suspect they will simply painted cycle lanes on each side of the road of the rest of it, which frankly, is so simple and obvious that it should have happened 3 years ago when I proposed it. (And I'm sure they'll promise that just as soon as the central section needs reconstruction, the two halves will be connected up...sometime in 2060 or so).

Provided virtual meetings are still happening I guess I get to decide if I still want to stay up late enough to attend the meeting and give my 2c.

I guess I should wait till the actual design is proposed to pass judgment, but my hunch is still that it's the kind of thing that will remind me how mediocre the region is--and not necessarily that it's going to be bad, just that they are going for the easy design, that doesn't actually solve the hard problems and just uses free extra space, and yet even so it somehow still took years and years to propose and do.