Cycling in Waterloo Region

[Bytor]

Literally no traffic? What kind of bollocks is that... plenty of traffic on the downtown streets at rush hour, it's not jammed solid like some places in TO but it's enough that google puts red lines on the map. It's also enough traffic that I've heard people moan and whinge about it.

Different definition of “traffic”. As in “I was stuck in traffic”. There can be lots of cars on the road and yet getting stuck in it isn’t going to happen. The kind of traffic that pretty much doesn’t exist in K-W is the “stuck in” kind. Of course it exists here and there, but in many places in Toronto it exists every day for hours. Here it’s once in a while or very briefly. The road in front of my street typically fills up for about 10 minutes at a certain time in the afternoon. That’s not a reason to do anything about it.

You don't have to get stock at a dead stop to be experiencing congestion, though.

If you trip at 2am with no other cars on the road would 15 minutes, but during rush hour it takes 25 or 30 minutes, even if you are going steady and not getting stuck, you are still experiencing traffic congestion.

[danbrotherston]

I'm sorry, drivers don't complain about traffic? Umm...what universe are you living in, because in this universe, complaining about traffic is a national pastime.

As for drivers who believe everyone should drive, are you being serious right now? How many people oppose bike lanes because "nobody bikes"?

Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo doesn't have traffic. It really literally has no traffic. Ever, except the odd time that there is an accident on the Expressway that jams things up.

Now, if you're in downtown Toronto, that's a different story. If you're driving to downtown Toronto, unless you're staying at a hotel, you're doing it all wrong.

Perhaps I have different contacts/friends/family than you, but I have heard no complaints about bike lanes. I have heard of complaints on the radio/editorial regarding lanes in Toronto, but I don't live there, and neither do you. We're talking this region.

My universe is this region, I work here, I live here, I don't see traffic, and I don't hear of complaints about traffic or bike lanes. Though there was some woman in Waterloo gripping about bike lanes on University Ave, but that was one person.

Or, maybe it's just me. Having spent too much time in Toronto, I know what traffic looks like. And perhaps I tune people out if they bitch about traffic in this region or bitch about bike lanes. Perhaps I keep the AM radio off because of so much bullcrap with peoples ultra strong and unyielding opinions regarding homelessness, vaccines, politics, bike lanes, traffic, etc.

Or perhaps I am just enlightened enough to realize that people should have an option to use whatever method of transportation they want to use, be it walking, biking, scootering, motorcycling/ebike, transit, car, truck, or whatever (though to be honest, not a fan of gas guzzlers). Just as long as everyone does it safely, and have respect for one another, and obey any applicable laws.

I actually agree with the factual claim that WR has little to no congestion (not literally none, but very little). It does not stop people complaining about it. Everyone wants to participate in our national passtime. Heck, I know people from small towns who will tell you about how bad the traffic is when they had to stop 3 cars back from a red light. I hear very frequent complaining about congestion (usually they confuse traffic with congestion). It's strange to claim otherwise.

As for no complaints about bike lanes. Have you read the record? Have you watched CTV? Any news source in the region?

But later in your comment you admit to tuning out people who complain about these things, good on you, it's better for your health, don't I know that. But those people still exist.

I'm glad you have the opinion that everyone should have choices about how to get places and those choices should be supported as safe and feasible. But we aren't talking about your opinion, we are talking about the opinions of people in the city. And you really are out of touch with that if you think everyone agrees with your position (a position, which I again, share). Opposition to bike lanes and complaining about traffic is ever present.

[plam]

In other news, I went for a cross-country ski on the snow day yesterday afternoon along Laurel Creek and Iron Horse. There were some segments that weren't that plowed, but the guy on the bike was generally making better progress than I was on the skis. (Well, I'm slow, the people who were jogging not very fast were making better progress than me). The first segment of Iron Horse in Waterloo is generally quite slow to be plowed. But a lot of it was actually quite bare already.

[KevinT]

Literally no traffic? What kind of bollocks is that... plenty of traffic on the downtown streets at rush hour, it's not jammed solid like some places in TO but it's enough that google puts red lines on the map. It's also enough traffic that I've heard people moan and whinge about it.

Different definition of “traffic”. As in “I was stuck in traffic”. There can be lots of cars on the road and yet getting stuck in it isn’t going to happen. The kind of traffic that pretty much doesn’t exist in K-W is the “stuck in” kind. Of course it exists here and there, but in many places in Toronto it exists every day for hours. Here it’s once in a while or very briefly. The road in front of my street typically fills up for about 10 minutes at a certain time in the afternoon. That’s not a reason to do anything about it.

I live in Doon South and work near Phillip and Albert (the wife works in Milton, 401 access was important to us). Pre-covid when my tech job wasn't work from home, I chose to work 10-6 because 8-4 or 9-5 was just such an incredibly frustrating car commute. Yeah, it ain't Toronto, but it added 10 minutes for me one way. I'm lucky enough that my tech job has flex-time, but most don't get to enjoy that.

Also yes, I did sometimes bike it, or bike + Ion, but until now with the Homer Watson MUT available I would never have even considered doing that ride in the winter.

[KevinT]

Despite Waterloo Region being roughly 30 kilometers by 15 kilometers at its greatest sizes, you can drive across this entire region by car in 30 minutes (using Constoga Mall in north Waterloo to Gatehouse Drive in south Cambridge as an example). Try going 30 kilometers in the GTA by vehicle...it'll take you much, much longer.

Very true, and thank you. It is indeed all relative...

[danbrotherston]

Thank you all for this conversation...I think it proves the point pretty conclusively...congestion is a thing people are concerned about and talk about.

[ac3r]

Yeah, in cities it exists in. Since I don't drive I never experience it, which is great. I take the bus and train everywhere and I can't ever remember my bus getting caught up in traffic for more than a minute or two. A few times I've been a passenger in cars on that bad Highway 8 stretch that runs parallel to Kingsway Drive, though that only seems to be bad during rush hour. We're lucky to have good roads here.

Now, if we could only improve the cycling infrastructure here... While I don't regularly live in Waterloo Region (although own a house here), I am here very often. I never, ever feel safe biking anywhere that I happen to need to go. The only time I get my bike out is to do occasional trips to a store or for some exercise on trails. But to get downtown from my house? Hell naw, it's suicidal. It's great we're improving it in certain places, but I want to see it expanded all over the city. It'd be so easy to do.

[Acitta]

Yeah, in cities it exists in. Since I don't drive I never experience it, which is great. I take the bus and train everywhere and I can't ever remember my bus getting caught up in traffic for more than a minute or two. A few times I've been a passenger in cars on that bad Highway 8 stretch that runs parallel to Kingsway Drive, though that only seems to be bad during rush hour. We're lucky to have good roads here.

Now, if we could only improve the cycling infrastructure here... While I don't regularly live in Waterloo Region (although own a house here), I am here very often. I never, ever feel safe biking anywhere that I happen to need to go. The only time I get my bike out is to do occasional trips to a store or for some exercise on trails. But to get downtown from my house? Hell naw, it's suicidal. It's great we're improving it in certain places, but I want to see it expanded all over the city. It'd be so easy to do.

Where is your house? I have ridden all over the Region for the last 20 years, and there are very few places that I feel unsafe. Having cycled in Montreal in the '70s, Toronto and York Region in the 70s, 80s and 90s, Waterloo Region is the best of all (though Montreal has improved considerably since I lived there).

[ac3r]

Where is your house? I have ridden all over the Region for the last 20 years, and there are very few places that I feel unsafe. Having cycled in Montreal in the '70s, Toronto and York Region in the 70s, 80s and 90s, Waterloo Region is the best of all (though Montreal has improved considerably since I lived there).

Hidden Valley now (yeah, puke, but it is big albeit rather ugly haha). I work downtown Kitchener/uptown Waterloo very often so there is truly no safe way for me to get to those areas from where I stay. Plus, I am often all over the city bouncing between projects, consultations, meetings etc and the roads/rails are just awful. Pick any major arterial road - Westmount, Fischer-Hallman, much of King, Lackner, Dundas, George, Hespeler etc - they're all suicidal to be on. I could ride quieter streets but then you're twisting and turning all around and that wastes a lot of time.

True, compared to Toronto or Montréal we have it good in every regard despite what people think, but those are huge cities and public transit is great which offsets that. They have great subway networks, streetcars (at least in Toronto) and buses where you can bring your bus on to get around. Here...we've got an LRT that you can basically bike faster than it moves for most of it, which is annoying. I can't complain about the buses, they're decent. But as for protected bike lanes, we could improve them much more which I hope we do to connect distant areas of the city. A lot of the improvements we've made have been focused on the core or urban corridor, but there's a lot of other places left unserviced. I know we tried a pilot project on Westmount (the traffic cones which pissed off every driver in the city) but that was so extremely divisive and I can't remember if we approved separated bike lanes to replace them.

[the_conestoga_guy]

Where is your house? I have ridden all over the Region for the last 20 years, and there are very few places that I feel unsafe. Having cycled in Montreal in the '70s, Toronto and York Region in the 70s, 80s and 90s, Waterloo Region is the best of all (though Montreal has improved considerably since I lived there).

Hidden Valley now (yeah, puke, but it is big albeit rather ugly haha). I work downtown Kitchener/uptown Waterloo very often so there is truly no safe way for me to get to those areas from where I stay. Plus, I am often all over the city bouncing between projects, consultations, meetings etc and the roads/rails are just awful. Pick any major arterial road - Westmount, Fischer-Hallman, much of King, Lackner, Dundas, George, Hespeler etc - they're all suicidal to be on. I could ride quieter streets but then you're twisting and turning all around and that wastes a lot of time.

True, compared to Toronto or Montréal we have it good in every regard despite what people think, but those are huge cities and public transit is great which offsets that. They have great subway networks, streetcars (at least in Toronto) and buses where you can bring your bus on to get around. Here...we've got an LRT that you can basically bike faster than it moves for most of it, which is annoying. I can't complain about the buses, they're decent. But as for protected bike lanes, we could improve them much more which I hope we do to connect distant areas of the city. A lot of the improvements we've made have been focused on the core or urban corridor, but there's a lot of other places left unserviced. I know we tried a pilot project on Westmount (the traffic cones which pissed off every driver in the city) but that was so extremely divisive and I can't remember if we approved separated bike lanes to replace them.

This is one of the biggest gaps in our cycling map in mind, between downtown Kitchener, Fairview Mall and Conestoga College's Doon campus - a good route connecting these three locations would probably include Hidden Valley. As it exists now, cyclists need to brave sharing a major road with cars at some points, or take completely inconvenient detours.

Ideally, Wilson Ave from Franklin St S to Homer Watson Park would include some safe facilities. But I worry with the installation of the River Road extension, which includes roundabouts at Wilson, won't include these facilities. If you can't tell from my username, I have an interest in this particular path!

[danbrotherston]

Where is your house? I have ridden all over the Region for the last 20 years, and there are very few places that I feel unsafe. Having cycled in Montreal in the '70s, Toronto and York Region in the 70s, 80s and 90s, Waterloo Region is the best of all (though Montreal has improved considerably since I lived there).

Hidden Valley now (yeah, puke, but it is big albeit rather ugly haha). I work downtown Kitchener/uptown Waterloo very often so there is truly no safe way for me to get to those areas from where I stay. Plus, I am often all over the city bouncing between projects, consultations, meetings etc and the roads/rails are just awful. Pick any major arterial road - Westmount, Fischer-Hallman, much of King, Lackner, Dundas, George, Hespeler etc - they're all suicidal to be on. I could ride quieter streets but then you're twisting and turning all around and that wastes a lot of time.

True, compared to Toronto or Montréal we have it good in every regard despite what people think, but those are huge cities and public transit is great which offsets that. They have great subway networks, streetcars (at least in Toronto) and buses where you can bring your bus on to get around. Here...we've got an LRT that you can basically bike faster than it moves for most of it, which is annoying. I can't complain about the buses, they're decent. But as for protected bike lanes, we could improve them much more which I hope we do to connect distant areas of the city. A lot of the improvements we've made have been focused on the core or urban corridor, but there's a lot of other places left unserviced. I know we tried a pilot project on Westmount (the traffic cones which pissed off every driver in the city) but that was so extremely divisive and I can't remember if we approved separated bike lanes to replace them.

I agree that much of the city is very inaccessible by bike, but Hidden Valley is actually quite accessible to the downtown cores, I've ridden that way several times, going to Wabanaki Dr. through the best buy parking lot to cross Fairway Rd. then through the parking lot and to Wilson (or now the trail parallel to the LRT and up Vanier) and to Wilson Park and then under the expressway at Eckert, then through Rockway Gardens and onto the Iron Horse Trail. It's like, adjacent to one of the most major bike routes in the city.  And obviously you can also pick up the LRT at Fairway. I literally do this ride for recreation (although the part through Fairway and Bestbuy are unpleasant to be sure).

As for our protected bike lanes, the initial grid is downtown because that's where the most opportunity is (along with the university district). Some of our census areas have almost a 10% bike mode share. If you look at the cycling plan for Kitchener, long term, most of these areas are intended to be served, but it will take some time. Sadly, council has already significantly drawn out the timeline. The downtown grid probably should have been done in one year, staff proposed 2 years as a compromise, which council drew out to 3 years. So it's going to be a long time to build out the rest.

Westmount has no planned bike lanes as a result of the COVID lanes. It will get MUTs between Glasgow and Highland, the rest of the road, which is a bike route on the transportation plan, will be a fight, one that won't be won unless there is big turnover in the next election.

[ac3r]

This is one of the biggest gaps in our cycling map in mind, between downtown Kitchener, Fairview Mall and Conestoga College's Doon campus - a good route connecting these three locations would probably include Hidden Valley. As it exists now, cyclists need to brave sharing a major road with cars at some points, or take completely inconvenient detours.

Ideally, Wilson Ave from Franklin St S to Homer Watson Park would include some safe facilities. But I worry with the installation of the River Road extension, which includes roundabouts at Wilson, won't include these facilities. If you can't tell from my username, I have an interest in this particular path!

Yeah, you've got a great point! It would be nice if they could connect the Conestoga College Doon campus better especially because a lot of students don't have cars. There is the Walter Bean Grand River Trail that snakes along the Grand River which is useful, but it ends up dumping you off at the Freeport Bridge and since it follows the river itself, it's very long to ride and doesn't get you to any truly useful destinations. There are also trails going through Homer Watson Park, but again those aren't the greatest (especially in winter - neither trails are maintained AFAIK).

Utilizing bike lanes on Homer Watson would be useful or even Manitou which would allow cyclists to connect to Fairway Station and all the buses/LRT. But unfortunately, Homer Watson is a challenging street to utilize for cyclists because it's 4 lanes wide, has multiple roundabouts and tends to have heavy traffic due to connecting roads like Blockline, Ottawa and the Conestoga Expressway. It could be possible to get a good MUT that runs through the Homer Watson woods, then up to perhaps Wilson to Fairway Station. It would be nice if it could continue on - perhaps using some space near the CP freight yard (though CP would most certainly never want that, they are hard to negotiate with) - then on to Mill Station to Courtland or King and into downtown. There are so many options for improving cycling networks here.

I agree that much of the city is very inaccessible by bike, but Hidden Valley is actually quite accessible to the downtown cores, I've ridden that way several times, going to Wabanaki Dr. through the best buy parking lot to cross Fairway Rd. then through the parking lot and to Wilson (or now the trail parallel to the LRT and up Vanier) and to Wilson Park and then under the expressway at Eckert, then through Rockway Gardens and onto the Iron Horse Trail. It's like, adjacent to one of the most major bike routes in the city.  And obviously you can also pick up the LRT at Fairway. I literally do this ride for recreation (although the part through Fairway and Bestbuy are unpleasant to be sure).

As for our protected bike lanes, the initial grid is downtown because that's where the most opportunity is (along with the university district). Some of our census areas have almost a 10% bike mode share. If you look at the cycling plan for Kitchener, long term, most of these areas are intended to be served, but it will take some time. Sadly, council has already significantly drawn out the timeline. The downtown grid probably should have been done in one year, staff proposed 2 years as a compromise, which council drew out to 3 years. So it's going to be a long time to build out the rest.

Westmount has no planned bike lanes as a result of the COVID lanes. It will get MUTs between Glasgow and Highland, the rest of the road, which is a bike route on the transportation plan, will be a fight, one that won't be won unless there is big turnover in the next election.

It's certainly possible to get from any point A to B to C destination by whatever mode of transport one wishes to use here, but the main problem is that it's rather time consuming. In many cases it's not safe, or certain parts of a route one may use are not maintained in winter. Recreational cycling is one thing, but when someone is wishing to choose it as a mode of transportation to get to work or run errands, time is a consideration.

This is where I think better MUT or separated bike lanes can come into play. Get some good paved trails and separated bike lanes where they are needed - maintain them in the winter - which connect all sorts of different areas of the city...and you can basically start to create MUT "expressways". That is, they have their own rights of way (i.e. trails) or protected lanes (separated bike lanes) that allow people to have more confidence in cycling around the region without having to worry about someone on a cell phone flattening them into a pancake. Adding on to the term "expressway" regarding bikes, it'd also be awesome to consider and use either tunnels or bridges in order to allow users to pass streets without having to stop or risk themselves. This is a very common feature in European cities.

There are so many potentials, I just hope the region/cities are willing to research and invest in them. They'd obviously take years to complete planning processes, engineering, land rights, zoning, contracting crews, construction itself etc but it would be great if our cities and region would be willing to take a progressive, inclusive stance to improving all of this. If they were paved MUTs, wheelchair/walker/scooter users would also benefit so they aren't mingling with traffic. 4 wheel vehicular traffic can still exist and run just as well even with all of this too. There are so many potentials and routes we could easily utilize here, it'd just take some willpower to achieve.

[danbrotherston]

This is one of the biggest gaps in our cycling map in mind, between downtown Kitchener, Fairview Mall and Conestoga College's Doon campus - a good route connecting these three locations would probably include Hidden Valley. As it exists now, cyclists need to brave sharing a major road with cars at some points, or take completely inconvenient detours.

Ideally, Wilson Ave from Franklin St S to Homer Watson Park would include some safe facilities. But I worry with the installation of the River Road extension, which includes roundabouts at Wilson, won't include these facilities. If you can't tell from my username, I have an interest in this particular path!

Yeah, you've got a great point! It would be nice if they could connect the Conestoga College Doon campus better especially because a lot of students don't have cars. There is the Walter Bean Grand River Trail that snakes along the Grand River which is useful, but it ends up dumping you off at the Freeport Bridge and since it follows the river itself, it's very long to ride and doesn't get you to any truly useful destinations. There are also trails going through Homer Watson Park, but again those aren't the greatest (especially in winter - neither trails are maintained AFAIK).

Utilizing bike lanes on Homer Watson would be useful or even Manitou which would allow cyclists to connect to Fairway Station and all the buses/LRT. But unfortunately, Homer Watson is a challenging street to utilize for cyclists because it's 4 lanes wide, has multiple roundabouts and tends to have heavy traffic due to connecting roads like Blockline, Ottawa and the Conestoga Expressway. It could be possible to get a good MUT that runs through the Homer Watson woods, then up to perhaps Wilson to Fairway Station. It would be nice if it could continue on - perhaps using some space near the CP freight yard (though CP would most certainly never want that, they are hard to negotiate with) - then on to Mill Station to Courtland or King and into downtown. There are so many options for improving cycling networks here.

I agree that much of the city is very inaccessible by bike, but Hidden Valley is actually quite accessible to the downtown cores, I've ridden that way several times, going to Wabanaki Dr. through the best buy parking lot to cross Fairway Rd. then through the parking lot and to Wilson (or now the trail parallel to the LRT and up Vanier) and to Wilson Park and then under the expressway at Eckert, then through Rockway Gardens and onto the Iron Horse Trail. It's like, adjacent to one of the most major bike routes in the city.  And obviously you can also pick up the LRT at Fairway. I literally do this ride for recreation (although the part through Fairway and Bestbuy are unpleasant to be sure).

As for our protected bike lanes, the initial grid is downtown because that's where the most opportunity is (along with the university district). Some of our census areas have almost a 10% bike mode share. If you look at the cycling plan for Kitchener, long term, most of these areas are intended to be served, but it will take some time. Sadly, council has already significantly drawn out the timeline. The downtown grid probably should have been done in one year, staff proposed 2 years as a compromise, which council drew out to 3 years. So it's going to be a long time to build out the rest.

Westmount has no planned bike lanes as a result of the COVID lanes. It will get MUTs between Glasgow and Highland, the rest of the road, which is a bike route on the transportation plan, will be a fight, one that won't be won unless there is big turnover in the next election.

It's certainly possible to get from any point A to B to C destination by whatever mode of transport one wishes to use here, but the main problem is that it's rather time consuming. In many cases it's not safe, or certain parts of a route one may use are not maintained in winter. Recreational cycling is one thing, but when someone is wishing to choose it as a mode of transportation to get to work or run errands, time is a consideration.

This is where I think better MUT or separated bike lanes can come into play. Get some good paved trails and separated bike lanes where they are needed - maintain them in the winter - which connect all sorts of different areas of the city...and you can basically start to create MUT "expressways". That is, they have their own rights of way (i.e. trails) or protected lanes (separated bike lanes) that allow people to have more confidence in cycling around the region without having to worry about someone on a cell phone flattening them into a pancake. Adding on to the term "expressway" regarding bikes, it'd also be awesome to consider and use either tunnels or bridges in order to allow users to pass streets without having to stop or risk themselves. This is a very common feature in European cities.

There are so many potentials, I just hope the region/cities are willing to research and invest in them. They'd obviously take years to complete planning processes, engineering, land rights, zoning, contracting crews, construction itself etc but it would be great if our cities and region would be willing to take a progressive, inclusive stance to improving all of this. If they were paved MUTs, wheelchair/walker/scooter users would also benefit so they aren't mingling with traffic. 4 wheel vehicular traffic can still exist and run just as well even with all of this too. There are so many potentials and routes we could easily utilize here, it'd just take some willpower to achieve.

There are MUTs along HomerWatson all the way from doon campus to the bike lanes on Ottawa. As for Hidden Valley the route I explained is fairly direct and extremely comfortable, easily commutable. That was the point of my post.

[ac3r]

In that case, I guess I'm clueless about MUTs here. The cities/region don't publish much info about these sort of things nor do I have time to waste in my life to map bike routes. I imagine if you polled everyone in Waterloo Region how they could get from A to B on a bike, scooter or footpath in the most efficient and safest way, the majority wouldn't have a clue.

That said, they should be building more and more of them if they truly care about cycling etc and promote them via press releases, news articles, useful signage (distance, average time to use etc). Other cities do this but we haven't caught on to all the nuances, for the most part.

[Acitta]

In that case, I guess I'm clueless about MUTs here. The cities/region don't publish much info about these sort of things nor do I have time to waste in my life to map bike routes. I imagine if you polled everyone in Waterloo Region how they could get from A to B on a bike, scooter or footpath in the most efficient and safest way, the majority wouldn't have a clue.

That said, they should be building more and more of them if they truly care about cycling etc and promote them via press releases, news articles, useful signage (distance, average time to use etc). Other cities do this but we haven't caught on to all the nuances, for the most part.

2021 Region of Waterloo Bike Map


Bike Kichener web map