General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[ijmorlan]

I don’t know anything about the property, but I do know the city would be improved by reducing the street to two lanes in that area. There would be plenty of space for bicycle lanes and some space between the sidewalks and the road.

There is space, but it's really a short stretch (Charles to Courtland, only three blocks) and it doesn't connect with any other bicycle routes -- although the last bit of Benton (which is two lanes only) ends not too far from the Iron Horse Trail.

Not saying it's a bad idea, but by itself it wouldn't achieve much, it would need to be part of a bigger plan.

I don’t view bicycle lanes as something that needs to be part of a bigger plan. Every street has lanes for cars, without discussion; why is the same courtesy not extended to bicycles? One of the things I found the most disgusting about the discussion in Toronto about the Jarvis St. bicycle lanes was the idea that “bikes already have Sherbourne St.” (or whichever street it was), so “why do they need Jarvis too?”. Nobody would suggest that car drivers should jog over a block to continue their journey, or that car lanes every fifth street would be enough.

Really however my point is more about the dominance of the space by cars. Of the space between the buildings, almost all of it is devoted to four lanes of traffic. My point is that reducing this to a single lane in each direction would free up an enormous amount of space for other uses and allow improvement of the character of the street.