10-22-2017, 04:01 PM
(10-21-2017, 02:02 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: This is actually quite huge for biking, given that safe bikeable crossings to the highway barely exist anywhere (2km east along the highway is the next one at Courtland, and there isn't one to the west, technically), so this is huge.
For bike connectivity, it will connect to the lakeside trails through from Meinzinger park, which has a not too bad connection to a major east-west trail, and then down Chandler Dr. to Ottawa and Strasburg as you say. One of the bigger problems with our bike infra is the lack of knowledge of routes, even when they're pretty reasonably connected (only involving riding down the not completely terrible Chandler Dr.).
I enthusiastically agree with this.
I live near Alpine and Ottawa and commute by bike downtown (was previously commuting to North Waterloo). I'm a big fan of the new roundabouts, but too many people are not yet yielding to pedestrians in the system so in the mornings I ride west-ish along Ottawa to Westmount and double back to Stirling through Concordia park (which is actually very enjoyable addition to my mornings, and I'll continue with it regardless) but in the evenings reversing the route and trying to get onto Westmount from Concordia Park then trying to turn left on Ottawa is deeply unpleasant, and traffic is considerably heavier at 5:20ish than it is at 8:20ish.
Instead, I ride up Courtland, take Hayward and Lennox Lewis to Block Line and ride through the Fallowfield roundabout and walk my bike across Homer Watson through the Block Line one. Happily, where most everyone there is excellent about yielding and it takes no time at all to cross.
I find this evening route rather unpleasant though, as if feels like I'm biking uphill into a headwind from about halfway up Lennox Lewis until somewhere along Kingswood.
All that is to say this overpass will make my evening commute considerably more enjoyable and it will make mornings where I'm running late a little more convenient as well. I'm quite looking forward to it.