Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

We had some errands in town to do and on King at around Northfield a young lady with no helmet came flying out of a driveway in front of me and started riding against traffic. I repeat: On King, by Northfield. This is how people die.

I really don’t understand the reverse cycling. Although I once saw it on University at Keats Way, where the bicycle lane is between the straight-through lane and the right-turn lane. So instead of being right at the edge of the road cycling the wrong way, the person was coming right at me. In other news, my car’s horn works properly, and keeps working if you hold down the button!

If somebody doesn’t want to cross the street to get to the right-way bicycle lane they should just use the sidewalk, carefully. Although I suppose somebody who thinks it’s OK to bicycle the wrong way probably won’t be careful on the sidewalk either, so maybe I shouldn’t encourage them…

There are many reasons for this, but they largely come down to the infrastructure being terrible.

Its one part laziness.

One part being taught to walk against traffic and cyclists ending up being treated like pedestrians by a third of the drivers on the road.

One part believing it's better.

And again, infrastructure.

I've noticed this time and time again.   To be a cyclist in the region, you're forced to break the law frequently.  When that happens enough, it becomes clear the law isn't designed for you, it doesn't make sense for you, it trains people to ignore it.

Frankly, I don't entirely blame these cyclists, I sure feel nervous when listening to a car passing me way too closely from behind.

I'm not defending bad behaviour here, I'm simply suggesting the best way to mitigate it is better infrastructure.

As for wrong way cyclists being bad actors on the sidewalk, my observation is the reverse, most wrong way cyclists I see are ones who just jumped off the sidewalk to go around pedestrians.

I'm just frustrated to hear people complaining and speaking of this getting people killed, when I walked home today and counted no less than 30 drivers distracted on their cell phones. That actually kills people, and unlike cyclists, it kills innocent people who've done nothing wrong.