12-11-2017, 11:41 AM
(12-11-2017, 11:24 AM)tomh009 Wrote: I understand your view. And I think the parallel routes need to be reasonable. For example, for your commute, this route could probably be made reasonable at a reasonably low cost:
https://goo.gl/maps/j41NY92a98D2
20 minutes and 4.7 km is longer, but not all that onerous, I think.
My personal view is that we should consider not only the desirability of the different bicycling infrastructure options but also the probability of being able to gain approval for those. A fabulous infrastructure concept is of little value if it won't get approved: we'll just end up with exactly what we have today.
I totally agree, that would be a perfectly reasonable alternate route (although the hill on Marshal wouldn't be ideal), but it still wouldn't work as is (like just adding signage), reason being there are no safe crossings of Bridgeport, Erb, or Union, so somehow those crossings would have to be improved (given that I cross those roads daily, I know it's possible, but it's certainly not safe comfortable or fast). You could bypass to Margaret which has crossings, but now you're up to 5.3 km.
In fact, this is the very problem with one of the CoK's planned "signed bike routes" that they're "building", which has people crossing five lanes of traffic (plus two bike lanes) on Fischer-Hallman Rd. at Forest Hill Dr. It does this to get cyclists on a 'quite parallel route', but makes the route useless.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.4247968,-...312!8i6656
This is to provide a route for bikes that doesn't go up McGarry, so that they don't lose parking...a road which could easily have no parking.
(On another note, how do you get those shortened Google maps links?)