Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

So there is a proposed Route 2 cycling plan.

It's amazing how bad things have gotten in Ontario. Seems the Frederick and Benton cycle lanes will not be happening (are deferred a decade in the future). Of course if they'd bothered to do it when I presented it to council, this wouldn't be the case.

So as a result the "Route 2" cycling proposal is signage of existing routes + several dangerous on road segments that I wouldn't cycle on anymore, let alone with a child.

So utterly disappointing that any progress that was being made has been completely halted by the province.

And yeah, accuse me of fear mongering all you want, the fact is, this report is terrible. And I feel for the folks involved, I know (some of) them care and it must suck to not be able to do your job because of this bullshit.

City staff noted this in their report for the Community and Infrastructure Services Committee:

Community feedback identified several safety challenges along the route that pass along or
through roads and intersections under the jurisdiction of the Region of Waterloo, namely
Ottawa Street and Frederick Street. City staff and Regional staff met several times to discuss
routing and infrastructure options. There are no feasible alternative routes that avoid these
Regional Roads. Wayfinding signs will encourage users to use caution on sections that do
not qualify as “all ages and abilities” infrastructure.

My two cents is that city staff have acted quite rigidly when presented with these safety issues. I don't know if they're lazy or if they don't care, but it doesn't appear that they've shown any initiative or creativity for solving these challenges. I'm actually surprised that they'd admit this so transparently in this memo.

The most egregious example in this case is the crossing at Ottawa. Many people noted that the cheapest and easiest way to have a 'AAA' crossing would be to just use the existing streetlights at Ottawa and the Highway. But staff noted that they couldn't do any changes along Ottawa because it would require coordination with the Region as it's their road. Like, ya, we know, we're paying you to do this kind of coordination work! 

Considering these numbered cycleways are supposed to be the City's flagship cycling corridors, I have serious concerns that they'll be able to create anything meaningful or usable.

I don't know which staff you spoke with. I suspect some of them feel quite powerless. I'm sure others do not care.

The region is often a strong obstacle, but correctly stating that is not something staff feel they can do (they should, but I understand why they don't, it's one of the reasons I didn't fit well with my bank job, I was too honest about shit).

That said, I don't think "creative" solutions are really solutions. Yes, going to the lights is a "creative" solution, but I think it's still a bad one, it takes 'route' users out of their way, crossing at the lights is still not exactly safe, especially at a highway interchange with right on red and a 10 meter wide right turn lane.

I'd have more respect for staff (or advocates) that are willing to stand up and say "no, this is bad, we should not do it, and if you're unwilling to make the politically difficult decisions to do better, than we should do nothing, because this is worse than nothing", because this is also a correct statement that we should  be willing to stand behind. But unfortunately in general staff that would do this are replaced by staff that "follow orders".