(06-12-2019, 12:55 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(06-12-2019, 12:48 PM)Acitta Wrote: Recently, a section of Highland Rd. was rebuilt. This section includes three strip malls, 4 grocery stores and lots of other businesses, yet no bike lanes were added in the process, even though it is a wide and heavily trafficked road. I would like to know why. Cyclists go where everybody else goes like grocery and other stores. Bicycle lanes should be built on the streets where the businesses are that cyclists patronize.

Highland is a Regional Rd., the region is very far behind on bike infra, the failure to put it here was a huge mistake, but unfortunately, not an uncommon one in the region.

If you're looking for the reason why that particular road was missed, locals near other projects have successfully fought the region to have some sense and actually build good bike lanes, I'll point out that the locals on that road are likely to be lower income than many other roads.  Frankly, it's shameful how badly that was handled, as even the pedestrian facilities are shit, and as you point out, it's a very important roads for non-drivers.

(06-12-2019, 01:12 PM)Acitta Wrote:

(06-12-2019, 12:55 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Highland is a Regional Rd., the region is very far behind on bike infra, the failure to put it here was a huge mistake, but unfortunately, not an uncommon one in the region.

If you're looking for the reason why that particular road was missed, locals near other projects have successfully fought the region to have some sense and actually build good bike lanes, I'll point out that the locals on that road are likely to be lower income than many other roads.  Frankly, it's shameful how badly that was handled, as even the pedestrian facilities are shit, and as you point out, it's a very important roads for non-drivers.

This is a major problem with with arbitrarily dividing responsibility for roads between the city and the Region. For instance, in the 18 years I have lived in Kitchener, no effort has been made to build sidewalks on Victoria St. North. Seems like one thing that makes for a good argument for unification.

(06-12-2019, 11:51 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Queens Blvd. and Belmont Ave. will be going from 4 lanes to 3, which is a much safer configuration, which should also hopefully slow traffic to a reasonable speed.

(06-12-2019, 03:57 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:

(06-12-2019, 11:51 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Queens Blvd. and Belmont Ave. will be going from 4 lanes to 3, which is a much safer configuration, which should also hopefully slow traffic to a reasonable speed.

Ironically, this will probably improve traffic flow. Not increase speed, necessarily, but make it flow more smoothly — reduce occurrences of straight-through traffic getting jammed up behind traffic waiting to turn. Which is better — if we’re going to pay for all this road space, we might as well have some of it devoted to actually moving traffic.

(06-12-2019, 04:50 PM)clasher Wrote: Is the entire length of Queen's Blvd. going down to 3 lanes? I often ride from Highland to Westheights and find the few parked cars to be the biggest impediment to traffic flow... for parts of the road it seems like it's effectively a two-lane road already with enough parked cars to make it that way.

(06-13-2019, 01:55 PM)bpoland Wrote: I wonder how they are going to handle Belmont from Highland to Queen's -- it doesn't seem wide enough to have 2 lanes of traffic plus 2 protected bike lanes.

(06-13-2019, 02:33 PM)clasher Wrote:

(06-13-2019, 01:55 PM)bpoland Wrote: I wonder how they are going to handle Belmont from Highland to Queen's -- it doesn't seem wide enough to have 2 lanes of traffic plus 2 protected bike lanes.

They likely won't be protected there since there are two driveways for the plaza as well as a bus stop and then a right-turn slip. A bunch of paint will have to keep us safe.