Cycling in Waterloo Region

[dtkvictim]

I've learned that a lot of people (both motorists and pedestrians) don't know the difference between a yellow (warning) and white (regulatory) pedestrian sign, so we have an uphill battle here.

A lot of drivers don't know the difference between a crosswalk and a pedestrian crossover, but the Ontario government provides enough information about them that drivers reasonably should know how to behave at them. Crossrides might as well not exist at the city, regional, and provincial levels, but there are hundreds of them on trails all over Waterloo Region. There's no ontario.ca page about cycling I can link to that explains crossrides, and they aren't covered in the HTA or driver's handbook. I don't expect people to slog through several pages of OTM Book 18 to understand what they are. I follow local driving groups on Facebook and constantly have to explain what a crossride is while people jeer at cyclists riding across them for "breaking the law". Many people simply won't accept that they exist because of the lack of information from official sources.

Well, there's a few things going on here. But as someone that likes browsing dashcam communities I can say that the people who comment in those places are perhaps the most consistently and confidently incorrect people on the internet. No surprise you are seeing that too, especially on a place like Facebook.

I disagree that Ontario provides adequate training and testing for things even as "basic" as a crosswalk vs pedestrian crossover. In the past we may have depended on a certain level of cultural osmosis to provide drivers education simply by growing up within the system. But as driving adults are increasingly not raised in the Canadian/Ontario/North American driving system, we can't depend on that. Just a couple of years ago I decided to do drivers ed before re-doing my license after letting my previous one expire. I came across an entire industry focused on getting new immigrants to pass the driving test, not on teaching them how to drive. My instructor was incorrect on a number of things (that you don't come across during the road tests), and didn't say a word of defensive driving. The written G1 test is a complete joke, and even then the people I was in a room with were openly cheating. The written test covers an extremely small portion of our road rules, is too forgiving, and all of the answers can easily be memorized without actually learning the rules. 

But Ontario also completely fails at keeping driver education up to date. A lot of people on the road have licenses that predate roundabouts and crossrides (not that either is covered in the testing anways), and we make 0 effort through retraining or education campaigns to keep existing drivers up to date.

Completely agree about the availability of information though. For what it's worth, crossrides aren't the only information missing from the Ontario governments website. I've tried looking up some basic rules and even basic signage before only to find it completely absent from the Ontario website.

[plam]

But Ontario also completely fails at keeping driver education up to date. A lot of people on the road have licenses that predate roundabouts and crossrides (not that either is covered in the testing anways), and we make 0 effort through retraining or education campaigns to keep existing drivers up to date.

I took an M2 -> M course/exam a few years ago and roundabouts did come up; in particular I did the roundabout wrong after mishearing the direction from the instructor/examiner during the test. I sure got feedback about that. Not sure how it goes for cars.

[danbrotherston]

But Ontario also completely fails at keeping driver education up to date. A lot of people on the road have licenses that predate roundabouts and crossrides (not that either is covered in the testing anways), and we make 0 effort through retraining or education campaigns to keep existing drivers up to date.

I took an M2 -> M course/exam a few years ago and roundabouts did come up; in particular I did the roundabout wrong after mishearing the direction from the instructor/examiner during the test. I sure got feedback about that. Not sure how it goes for cars.

It is definitely not the case that the region makes zero effort though, the region has made multiple educational pushes using multiple different mediums including TV, websites, and mailing flyers.

But yeah, at a provincial level, there's near zero effort made.

That said, infrastructure SHOULD be understandable without training. It should be intuitive to use, and should strategically use ambiguity in order to slow down traffic.

This of course is wildly different from how infra actually works in Ontario. I literally have had drivers threaten me because I would not cross illegally in front of them. What can I say...

[danbrotherston]

I’m just gonna put this out there: I’m a pretty consistent cyclist and I genuinely don’t know or care what a crossride is.

I’m going to use crossings in the way that makes sense to me and I’m definitely not going to dismount and walk to follow a law that puts me at risk so it can keep total liabilities down.

Real jurisdictions don’t waste time with this arguing about paint, they just build it right the first time and with dignity built-in for everyone using the public space.

When it comes to drivers and pedestrians, they never have to choose between following the law or being safe… only cyclists need to be engineering and legal experts just to go to the store.

I do disagree with this. Pedestrians often must make this choice as well. For example the same risk to peds occurs for crossings. Regional engineers will refuse to install necessary ped crossings because they feel doing so would make them responsible for the safety of people already crossing.

For drivers this happens also but less obviously. Basically our feckless engineers put inconvenience above safety. If we actually cared about safety even of drivers we wouldn’t have stroads with uncontrolled left turns. They are very unsafe and only exist for convenience.

[bravado]

No, I think there are deficiencies in pedestrian infrastructure for sure - but if a pedestrian gets hit, there's no chance they're going to be facing charges because they didn't know the full text of the HTA when they crossed a poorly designed crossing.

There's a non-zero percent chance that happens to a cyclist who winds up in a hospital and gets a ticket or charge when they wake up because they mistook yellow paint for white or didn't walk their bike across an intersection and spend more time in the danger zone just to follow the letter of the law.

[danbrotherston]

No, I think there are deficiencies in pedestrian infrastructure for sure - but if a pedestrian gets hit, there's no chance they're going to be facing charges because they didn't know the full text of the HTA when they crossed a poorly designed crossing.

There's a non-zero percent chance that happens to a cyclist who winds up in a hospital and gets a ticket or charge when they wake up because they mistook yellow paint for white or didn't walk their bike across an intersection and spend more time in the danger zone just to follow the letter of the law.

This definitely isn't true. In fact, I gave an explicit example of this, but let me give another, even more egregious example.

Years ago I was crossing Weber St at the Laurel trail, after they put the ped island in. I walked to the middle and waited for the other direction to clear. A police cruiser stopped for me to cross, but even aside from the fact I don't have the right of way, it's a four lane road so there is still another lane of traffic moving.

After I refused to cross and waved them past, they pulled up and asked me why I wasn't crossing when they were letting me go and I said, "Officer, I don't have the right of way. If I start to cross and get hit by a car in the second lane, you're the one who is going to give me a ticket, hopefully after you take me to the hospital."

So yeah, pedestrians can get a ticket, because our infra (and behaviour) is bad.

As for drivers, the example I gave the laws are simply so permissive, that yes, drivers wouldn't be ticketed there. That said, drivers going up Shirley ave at 70km/h are following what the infrastructure is telling them to do, and yet will also get a ticket for doing so. But I will grant you, I don't really care about that, the speed limit is well known to be 50, drivers know they are breaking the law there, even if too many feel entitled to do so.

[ac3r]

And then everyone clapped.

[danbrotherston]

So apparently they are considering improvements to the cycle connections to Fairway mall and beyond:

https://www.engagewr.ca/rockway-fairway

This is actually pretty good. I used to cycle this all the time, and it wasn't bad but there were some pretty bad gaps, and this appears to close them all. It's a bit silly even for Kitchener that they don't simply close the _entirely_ redundant Floral Crescent to cars but probably building a MUT is cheaper than building a small parking lot for the park. But honestly, that section could probably manage without a MUT, it sees almost no traffic.

The biggest improvements are to Dixon which was horrible (and which will be vastly better for the people who live there also) and to Wilson which does not need to be 4 lanes and this improvement looks entirely reasonable.

[KevinL]

It does see a lot of traffic on spring and summer Saturdays - of wedding parties and their photographers. But I imagine they can find a solution there.

[danbrotherston]

Apparently the city of Kitchener has won an award for the downtown cycling "grid" (which isn't actually a grid since the region/local business owners killed part of the network).

https://www.kitchener.ca/en/news/key-dec...-2025.aspx

A very nice recognition of a really nice piece of infrastructure.

[Acitta]

TVO: ANALYSIS: A pro-cyclist court decision could create headaches for rural Ontario

The Bello case has nothing to do with Toronto’s bike lanes — and the whole province should take note

Ontario’s highest court just handed down a decision that could benefit Ontario’s cyclists — but not the one you’re thinking about. The Ford government’s appeal of the CycleToronto decision that preserved, for now, Toronto’s bike lane network, will be heard early in 2026 (and the Court of Appeal committed to deliver a swift verdict in case the government prevails so it can take advantage of the construction season). But this week, the same court delivered its reasons in a case from Hamilton that could have major repercussions for municipalities around the province, particularly small and rural towns.

[Acitta]

Future bike lanes banned by new provincial legislation
Bill 60 also blocks the creation of bus-only lanes, wider sidewalks and some forms of traffic-calming measures.


Doug Ford and his car brain supporters are enemies of the people of Ontario. He wants cyclists and pedestrians to die. Fucking asshole!

[dtkvictim]

Future bike lanes banned by new provincial legislation
Bill 60 also blocks the creation of bus-only lanes, wider sidewalks and some forms of traffic-calming measures.


Doug Ford and his car brain supporters are enemies of the people of Ontario. He wants cyclists and pedestrians to die. Fucking asshole!

That's a whole lot worse than just the anti-bike angle. Does this bill still leave room for seeking exceptions from the province? Does it have implications for LRT expansion where lanes need to be removed?

[danbrotherston]

Future bike lanes banned by new provincial legislation
Bill 60 also blocks the creation of bus-only lanes, wider sidewalks and some forms of traffic-calming measures.


Doug Ford and his car brain supporters are enemies of the people of Ontario. He wants cyclists and pedestrians to die. Fucking asshole!

That's a whole lot worse than just the anti-bike angle. Does this bill still leave room for seeking exceptions from the province? Does it have implications for LRT expansion where lanes need to be removed?

Doesn’t matter if there are exceptions. This will kill all progress. At this point Ontario is the last place in Canada I’d move to. Zero future prospects.

I dunno. It makes me very depressed the direction Canada and especially Ontario is going. The world isn’t exactly inspiring but between the federal liberals infatuation with Alberta’s oil industry and Ontarios war on people outside of cars, it seems like the “at least we are better than the Americans” identity that is so central to Canadians is as tenuous as I’ve ever seen it.

[tomh009]

Future bike lanes banned by new provincial legislation
Bill 60 also blocks the creation of bus-only lanes, wider sidewalks and some forms of traffic-calming measures.


Doug Ford and his car brain supporters are enemies of the people of Ontario. He wants cyclists and pedestrians to die. Fucking asshole!

That's a whole lot worse than just the anti-bike angle. Does this bill still leave room for seeking exceptions from the province? Does it have implications for LRT expansion where lanes need to be removed?

There is no obvious path. A court challenge, maybe, but that is not a slam dunk to succeed.

The wiggling room is in the language: it doesn't actually block creating bike lanes or MUTs, it only blocks the removal of motor vehicle traffic lanes. Making lanes narrower to free up space would not violate the revised HTA, nor would the conversion of a parking lane into a bike lane, MUT or wider sidewalk. I don't know whether a dedicated bus lane would violate that as buses are motor vehicles, too--but removing traffic lanes to add LRT tracks could considered a violation, the provincial government would only need to issue a regulation stating so.