Cycling in Waterloo Region

[plam]

PS: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-80.5.../gray/bike

The Strava heatmap is a pretty handy tool, but for planning purposes, I wonder if the users wouldn't steer more toward serious cyclists and under sample people commuting for work or just riding recreationally.

It definitely does show, however, how integral the Iron Horse and Laurel Trails are for non-motorists. Speaking of the Iron Horse Trail, clearly most users just jaywalk or cut across Victoria. If they were to detach West from Strange and have it terminate at the Iron Horse Trail, it would probably be safer for everyone; the awkward geometry of the intersection would be gone and trail users would be crossing at a light. I'm sure they could work the signals out so that traffic on Victoria is minimally inconvenienced by the additional light.

Probably biases towards road riders, even. That would be consistent with the high traffic on Erb and Bridgeport, which fail to be awesome for many things but work well for getting out of town. I think that's also why Lancaster is so popular.

Yes, that Iron Horse intersection at Victoria is awful and it's not even clear that going to the intersection is even safer, because it's a weird intersection. Kind of like all of the intersections in Boston, but we're not in Boston here.

I'd rather cross Victoria either at the intersection or midblock than cross Caroline and Erb though.