Cycling in Waterloo Region

[timio]

Most recommend kids be 1 or older before going on bikes. Something about head and neck control.

We have an Everyday 2 passenger trailer. The wheels come off with one button and the frame folds flat for easy storage.

I'm somewhat terrified of a seat. Seems not very safe if I were to go down.

[danbrotherston]

I am about to embark on taking my 10-month-old daughter on bike trips in town, but I don't have room to store a trailer in my townhouse.  I'm looking for advice on mounting a front child bike seat on my bicycle. (eg here is what Thule offers). Does anyone have any advice, or a recommended local bike shop that would carry this, and/or be able to install it if necessary? My current bike is a 25-year-old Raleigh Discovery mountain bike.

Thanks.

Some have mentioned age, I don't know much about that, but the preference I've seen has been a front seat for smaller children. Black Arrow Cycles in DTK sold me one as a gift for a friend's babyshower. The owner there is very knowledgeable and helpful.

[jwilliamson]

Most recommend kids be 1 or older before going on bikes. Something about head and neck control.

We have an Everyday 2 passenger trailer.  The wheels come off with one button and the frame folds flat for easy storage.

I'm somewhat terrified of a seat.  Seems not very safe if I were to go down.

There's some debate about the safety of seats versus trailers. The child is more likely to be injured in a seat if you fall over, but trailers are prone to rolling over while turning and are less visible to cars.

[boatracer]

Bid for the installation of the cycling lane pilot infrastructure is now up for bid on the RoW website.

Separated Cycling Lane Pilot City of Waterloo

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....4d55cdd4f3

[danbrotherston]

Bid for the installation of the cycling lane pilot infrastructure is now up for bid on the RoW website.

Separated Cycling Lane Pilot City of Waterloo

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....4d55cdd4f3

Excitingly, this is the first time I've gotten to see the engineering plans.

Edit: Couple of preliminary thoughts:

Design is more or less what I expected, certainly a huge improvement over what is there. Intersections are weak, and bus stops crossing the bike lane are unfortunate (but expected).

King St. south of University is included in the plan, and protections including planters will be tried.

The best designed portion appears to be Erb St., which despite the idiocy of the curb placement near Caroline (why is there parking on a arterial through street!) looks well designed.

However there are still challenges, lanes that are unnecessarily wide, with narrow bike lanes (Page 8: 1.2 meter bike lanes, with 3.7 meter car lanes at Hazel and University), Albert has 1.5 meter bike lanes with 3.75 meter car lanes. And the King/University intersection as well as the UW Plaza entrance appear to be especially poorly designed. Some of that is necessitated by turn lanes, some is just the region.

But I think this will be such a huge improvement over the previous situation, that I doubt these weaknesses will threaten the success of the project. It's a temporary project so there's plenty of opportunity to make small improvements, but most importantly it can be a change in the region's thinking.

[GtwoK]

What's the timeline for this?

[boatracer]

What's the timeline for this?

From the bid document the estimated starting date is July 29. Contractor must start within 10 working days from the date of instruction to start. Work must be complete within 40 working days.

[clasher]

The Iron Horse trail is closed at Queen street now, excavators and bulldozers were working when I was there this morning, I didn't go down Mill so I don't know if it's closed beyond Mill yet but I'd imagine they'll progress fairly quickly.

[robdrimmie]

The Iron Horse trail is closed at Queen street now, excavators and bulldozers were working when I was there this morning, I didn't go down Mill so I don't know if it's closed beyond Mill yet but I'd imagine they'll progress fairly quickly.

It is. I walked up Mill from the bridge that connects it to Borden last night and IHT is closed off on both sides where it crosses Mill. I couldn't see how far up the construction fencing went, but it seems safe to assume it is closed at least as far as Madison.

[danbrotherston]

What's the timeline for this?

From the bid document the estimated starting date is July 29. Contractor must start within 10 working days from the date of instruction to start. Work must be complete within 40 working days.

That's actually a much later schedule than was originally planned.  We were told that July it would be in progress, and early August it would be finished.  Pretty sad to see so much slip on this project.

You want to see our regional government in action, this pilot was planned to be implemented last year, and it was supposed to take 8-10 months from inception to completion.  Here we are 22 months later and we're still potentially going to miss (school) summer as a deadline. The City of Kitchener planned a protected pilot that was started in January, and AFAIK it is on track to be rolled out July of this year (7 months). The Regional delays actually cost us access to upper government funding. I do believe the city project is perhaps more frantic, and certainly has a few fewer elements too it, but even at the city level, I am hearing from staff that the region is putting constraints on them that are making the project worse.

[boatracer]

Bid for the installation of the cycling lane pilot infrastructure is now up for bid on the RoW website.

Separated Cycling Lane Pilot City of Waterloo

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....4d55cdd4f3

Hmm...its been up for a week now and not a single company has registered for the bid.  Usually at least the local construction associations will grab it for their members. 2 weeks until bid close.

[danbrotherston]

Bid for the installation of the cycling lane pilot infrastructure is now up for bid on the RoW website.

Separated Cycling Lane Pilot City of Waterloo

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....4d55cdd4f3

Hmm...its been up for a week now and not a single company has registered for the bid.  Usually at least the local construction associations will grab it for their members. 2 weeks until bid close.

Perhaps it is typical to wait until near the end of the bid period.  I'm not worried yet, although I continue to be frustrated with how slow the region is even on their priority pilot projects.

[Bob_McBob]

Everyone is predictable losing their shit about plans to convert street parking to bike lanes in Vista Hills.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/neighbourho...-1.4494336

I've spent a lot of time in this area. Sundew Drive is the continuation of Columbia Street and the main access route to the subdivision. A large portion of it already has bike lanes, but they disappear in the residential sections. The point of this change is to make it safe to connect the existing bike lanes with the trail infrastructure at the end of Sundew which is heavily advertised by the developer.

Every affected property in this section has 3 or more parking spaces, and the furthest distance from a side street with parking is 200m, with most being 100m or less. The idea guests will have to trek huge distances to find parking is simply not true.

If you read the petition, a large part of the objection is property owners on the side streets who think other people shouldn't be allowed to use "their" street parking.

[danbrotherston]

Everyone is predictable losing their shit about plans to convert street parking to bike lanes in Vista Hills.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/neighbourho...-1.4494336

I've spent a lot of time in this area. Sundew Drive is the continuation of Columbia Street and the main access route to the subdivision. A large portion of it already has bike lanes, but they disappear in the residential sections. The point of this change is to make it safe to connect the existing bike lanes with the trail infrastructure at the end of Sundew which is heavily advertised by the developer.

Every affected property in this section has 3 or more parking spaces, and the furthest distance from a side street with parking is 200m, with most being 100m or less. The idea guests will have to trek huge distances to find parking is simply not true.

If you read the petition, a large part of the objection is property owners on the side streets who think other people shouldn't be allowed to use "their" street parking.

*sigh*...I feel like we're making negative progress on bike lanes. This was already supposed to be bike lanes, but because the city allowed parking for a while, now people don't want to give it up. Even when we design subdivisions with bike lanes, we screw ourselves over.  How stupid are we as a city? Or is this intentional?

[ijmorlan]

*sigh*...I feel like we're making negative progress on bike lanes. This was already supposed to be bike lanes, but because the city allowed parking for a while, now people don't want to give it up. Even when we design subdivisions with bike lanes, we screw ourselves over.  How stupid are we as a city?  Or is this intentional?

How stupid. They should have been built as segregated bike lanes in the first place, with barrier curbs separating them from the motor traffic lanes. Actually out in the suburbs segregated lanes with bike boxes at intersections would work extremely well. With low traffic overall, the environment is actually pretty quiet; all that is missing with the conventional dangerous design is some separation from the motor traffic.