Cycling in Waterloo Region

[timc]

The lane on Northfield cost money and it cost opportunity. And yet it provides zero value, people who would cycle there before, will still, and nobody new will cycle because of that lane. So we've spent money, and achieved nothing. Even worse, people (often bad faith people, but sometimes just really stupid people) will point to that lane and complain "see we spend all this money on bike lanes and nobody cycles here".

I would never ride on Northfield before the lane was there, and now I do. So, not nobody. But I guess it's possible that there is only one net new user of Northfield due to the painted lanes. :-)

[Bytor]

Did the cycling grid plan for St. George Church at Queen get changed, or is that just unfinished?

Right now there's a mountable curb in the middle, two sharrows furthe rbakc, and a sign on oine side to saying "do not enter bicycles only", but the plans from EngageWR.ca show a bi-di bike lane and one car lane, much like Joseph.

[danbrotherston]

Did the cycling grid plan for St. George at Queen get changed, or is that just unfinished?

Right now there's a mountable curb in the middle, two sharrows furthe rbakc, and a sign on oine side to saying "do not enter bicycles only", but the plans from EngageWR.ca show a bi-di bike lane and one car lane, much like Joseph.

At St. George St.?

I didn't think that St. George was involved at all in the protected bike lane pilot. I don't think the bike lanes there are changing...

[Bytor]

Sorry, not St. George, but Church. (After 6 years living here I still get the two confused.)

[danbrotherston]

Sorry, not St. George, but Church. (After 6 years living here I still get the two confused.)

Ahh...no worries

IIRC Church was to get a "bikeway treatment" sharrows were actually painted the year before. I'm not sure what the transition will look like at Queen St., it did seem kinda weird in the plans, with the bikeway starting on Church just before the intersection, but I always thought that might lead to some conflicts.

Of course, then I moved here, and of course, there is a good design example:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1713226,...384!8i8192

It's not exactly the same, in this case we are going on a road with we'd call "advisory" bike lanes (the central space is too narrow for two way traffic, drivers must use the bike lanes to pass....but this section of road has very little traffic...like Church), you can see the bike lanes merge into a bikeway, while the roadway continues to the left...

It's actually a bit of an odd intersection but it has about 1000 times as many cyclists as drivers (it's the primary cycle route to my suburb, another suburb, a railway station, and a massive office park from the city centre) but only the drivers who live in one of the two buildings there would ever drive there because it isn't a through route for cars.

It is the kind of route unravelling that makes shared spaces work....

[bravado]

Forgive me, this was totally discussed before - but I made an exotic visit to downtown Kitchener on my e-bike yesterday and found the new cycle path running behind the UW pharmacy school. It connects to the northern end of Joseph St and just stops... Is it supposed to connect to something else? I felt very confused on my short 100m trip down a pristine cycle track.

[jwilliamson]

Forgive me, this was totally discussed before - but I made an exotic visit to downtown Kitchener on my e-bike yesterday and found the new cycle path running behind the UW pharmacy school. It connects to the northern end of Joseph St and just stops... Is it supposed to connect to something else? I felt very confused on my short 100m trip down a pristine cycle track.

It's supposed to continue down Stewart to Park, and then you can go through Cherry and Raddatz parks to get to the Iron Horse Trail.

[Acitta]

Forgive me, this was totally discussed before - but I made an exotic visit to downtown Kitchener on my e-bike yesterday and found the new cycle path running behind the UW pharmacy school. It connects to the northern end of Joseph St and just stops... Is it supposed to connect to something else? I felt very confused on my short 100m trip down a pristine cycle track.

It's supposed to continue down Stewart to Park, and then you can go through Cherry and Raddatz parks to get to the Iron Horse Trail.

They are waiting for the Google parking garage to be finished so that they can do the rest of it.

[dtkvictim]

It's supposed to continue down Stewart to Park, and then you can go through Cherry and Raddatz parks to get to the Iron Horse Trail.

They are waiting for the Google parking garage to be finished so that they can do the rest of it.

Just for the section next to the parking garage though, I think. Stewart St itself is a separate reconstruction project and is already under construction. So hopefully that last gap will be quick to close, but we'll be waiting for it regardless.

[cherrypark]

Forgive me, this was totally discussed before - but I made an exotic visit to downtown Kitchener on my e-bike yesterday and found the new cycle path running behind the UW pharmacy school. It connects to the northern end of Joseph St and just stops... Is it supposed to connect to something else? I felt very confused on my short 100m trip down a pristine cycle track.

https://www.engagewr.ca/josephandstewart

Details here - in active construction (Stewart is currently a collection of piles of dirt).

[Acitta]

Forgive me, this was totally discussed before - but I made an exotic visit to downtown Kitchener on my e-bike yesterday and found the new cycle path running behind the UW pharmacy school. It connects to the northern end of Joseph St and just stops... Is it supposed to connect to something else? I felt very confused on my short 100m trip down a pristine cycle track.

https://www.engagewr.ca/josephandstewart

Details here - in active construction (Stewart is currently a collection of piles of dirt).

The last time I looked at Stewart St., nothing was happening, but that was a couple of months ago.

[jwilliamson]

https://www.engagewr.ca/josephandstewart

Details here - in active construction (Stewart is currently a collection of piles of dirt).

The last time I looked at Stewart St., nothing was happening, but that was a couple of months ago.

It was a huge pit on the weekend. I was at the Home Hardware with my son, and he was disappointed we couldn't cut across Stewart to see the GO trains.

[Acitta]

‘Why am I driving when I can bike it?’ Ditching the car is doable, especially as cycling infrastructure improves
Better infrastructure attracts riders but convincing them to sell their cars is another matter

[Bob_McBob]

There was some sort of collision between a bike and a WRPS cruiser at University and Weber where the bike ended up underneath the cruiser. WRPS is being pretty cagey with details, simply stating that the cyclist struck the "fully-marked" cruiser.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/cyclist-tra...-1.6040599

[cherrypark]

Interesting take on physics by the WRPS. That is, unless said cyclist has perfected the bike slide tackle and chose to do so on a cop car just happening to straddle a sidewalk?

And yet they'll complain about lose the respect of the community for their work...