Trails

[Canard]

Laurel Trail from Columbia to the R&T Park ion station got brand new asphalt today! It's beautiful!

[danbrotherston]

Laurel Trail from Columbia to the R&T Park ion station got brand new asphalt today! It's beautiful!

Oooh shiny.

The section of the Laurel trail from Bearinger up to Northfield (on the west side, not near the Ion line) was also repaved, which surprised me.  Does anyone know:

a) What criteria is used to select which trails to repave.  The pavement on that section was in decent shape (although it was in need of a patch or two, which Waterloo seems like they don't do on trails), as compared with the mostly unpaved section to the south, and the very degraded pavement to the north.

b) If this counts against the 10,000 meters over the next five years of trails the city talked about approving in the latest budget.  If so, its quite disappointing to see that 10,000 meters spent on a trail that was already reasonably well paved, and exists.  I took the 10,000 meters to be new trails.

Additionally, it seems as though many trail boulevard aprons are being rebuilt.  Does anyone know if there were designs on this, if the designs will better accommodate cyclists with either crossrides or elimination of curbs?  Or is this just for ADA pads.

[nms]

I believe that for this stretch of repaving of the Laurel/TransCanada Trail that it was a "Shovel Ready" project that the City had ready in its back pocket when funding became available. The repaving stretches all the way north to Benjamin Road.

I can imagine that playing the "Shovel Ready" game can be a frustrating exercise of lots of advance leg work with the hope that an upper level government funding priority might match it at some point in the future and well before that piece of infrastructure is critically deteriorated.

[Canard]

Photo of said trail paving:

   

Also, this made me laugh (I think someone's been silly and moved the sign):

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Okay... These detours are getting a bit ridiculous. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrLRT?src=hash">#wrLRT</a> <a href="https://t.co/iEpWaGXhpM">pic.twitter.com/iEpWaGXhpM</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/755847709555294208">July 20, 2016</a></blockquote>

[tvot]

Cool about that chunk of Laurel Trail. It's probably one of my most frequently used trails. On my morning ride I could see that they were preparing to do something, they had a thin black spray down on the trail, but I didn't expect the full repaving this soon.

I guess there will be less heavy trucks on this chunk of trail from now on.

[Canard]

Trucks? If you mean ion construction vehicles, I've never seen any driving down the Laurel Trail.. The only thing I do see driving with 4 wheels on it is the occasional golf cart from the university.

[Pheidippides]

Some vegetation was ripped out at the end of York where it meets the Iron Horse, perhaps to make the transition easily, safer, and more visible?
   

Also, it appears that all the vegetation on the east side of the fence between Glasgow and the tracks along the Iron Horse is being removed as part of the work on that new Catalyst137 hardware technology hub; probably to make space for parking.

Finally, I've never stopped to read the sign at York and the IHT, but I think the distance to Waterloo is a bit off:
   

[Canard]

York doesn't cross the IHT? Isn't it John and Park in that area?

I was through there about 2pm yesterday, but didn't notice anything at all - I must have just missed the start of the work.

[Pheidippides]

York doesn't cross the IHT, but it terminates right near it. This is about halfway between Union and John. The work was there in the morning when I rode past.

[jwilliamson]

Pheidippides, that is the distance to the St Jacobs Market.

[Canard]

   

[ijmorlan]

There is a separate piece of York St. south of the trail as well, which dead ends at the trail.

[Pheidippides]

I didn't notice that it was to St Jacobs, but even that distance is off. Even with all the detours I would guess that it is barely 7.5km to the market.

Canard, this is where York terminates at the IHT:
   

[danbrotherston]

I didn't notice that it was to St Jacobs, but even that distance is off. Even with all the detours I would guess that it is barely 7.5km to the market.

Canard, this is where York terminates at the IHT:

https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/43.456645...121577!3e1

That is because you're looking at the shortest route, not the route "following" the trail all the way to the Market, which allows you to ride almost entirely off road.

[MidTowner]

Trucks? If you mean ion construction vehicles, I've never seen any driving down the Laurel Trail.. The only thing I do see driving with 4 wheels on it is the occasional golf cart from the university.

At least on weekdays, it's been pretty common to see construction vehicles driving down Laurel Trail, between Columbia and Wes Graham (and less often but not uncommon, south of Columbia). Including trucks, but also private vehicles owned by the workers.