Cycling in Waterloo Region

[goggolor]

Is the "Cyclists dismount" sign existing, or part of this project? Hoping this isn't like the Caroline St MUT where legally you're supposed to dismount and walk your bike across every intersection.

[danbrotherston]

Is the "Cyclists dismount" sign existing, or part of this project? Hoping this isn't like the Caroline St MUT where legally you're supposed to dismount and walk your bike across every intersection.

Existing....

If you guys like I can rant about that...but I'm about to go into a meeting with the folks who tried to justify it...so it'll have to be later .

[Bytor]

Is the "Cyclists dismount" sign existing, or part of this project? Hoping this isn't like the Caroline St MUT where legally you're supposed to dismount and walk your bike across every intersection.

Isn't there something in the HTA that makes those signs invalid or even illegal?

[catarctica]

Thanks for the pictures. This is moving surprisingly fast! I didn’t know installing curb is so…. easy lol.

The Victoria curb looks great. If only it’s raised that’d been perfect but what an improvement already.

[danbrotherston]

Is the "Cyclists dismount" sign existing, or part of this project? Hoping this isn't like the Caroline St MUT where legally you're supposed to dismount and walk your bike across every intersection.

Isn't there something in the HTA that makes those signs invalid or even illegal?

The sign exists in the design standards but it is "explicitly counterindicated" in that location. It is suggested ONLY for use in explicitly pedestrianized only areas.

Staff explained that they have leeway to implement things that are against the recommendations, and they were doing it to see if it improved safety...of course they gave no way to meaningfully measure safety, or even compliance, nor did they explain why they have leeway to break the rules when putting up threatening signs, or when building substandard ped and cycling infra, but could not possibly conceive of narrowing a vehicle lane below 40 cm OVER the "recommended minimum" width in the TAC guide.

Of course, I didn't say that part out loud, but these days I kind of wish I had.

[danbrotherston]

Thanks for the pictures. This is moving surprisingly fast! I didn’t know installing curb is so…. easy lol.

The Victoria curb looks great. If only it’s raised that’d been perfect but what an improvement already.

Yeah, I mean, the process is significantly shortened, they aren't doing anything to the underlying layers of the road...they cut out the old asphalt, staked out the location for the new curb, and the brought in the curb forming machine.

Usually road work involves tearing out the roads foundations, and then rebuilding those usually 2 layers of different sizes of agregate, by pouring each, leveling each, and compacting each...before you even get to pouring curbs and laying asphalt.

So this is relatively cheap and easy...relatively...

[Bytor]

I don't think most people realise how cheaply separated bike lanes can be added. I mean, it's always cheaper to do it at the same time at th ebeginning, but if all your doing is teh bike infrastructure later, it's not like you need to redo as deep as a vehicle lane because wear and tear will be orders of magnitude less.

[ijmorlan]

I don't think most people realise how cheaply separated bike lanes can be added. I mean, it's always cheaper to do it at the same time at th ebeginning, but if all your doing is teh bike infrastructure later, it's not like you need to redo as deep as a vehicle lane because wear and tear will be orders of magnitude less.

I don’t think people realize how freakishly expensive road infrastructure is. The amounts we quibble over spending on paving bicycle routes are rounding errors in the discussion over widening roads and building expressways.

[tomh009]

I don't think most people realise how cheaply separated bike lanes can be added. I mean, it's always cheaper to do it at the same time at th ebeginning, but if all your doing is teh bike infrastructure later, it's not like you need to redo as deep as a vehicle lane because wear and tear will be orders of magnitude less.

I don’t think people realize how freakishly expensive road infrastructure is. The amounts we quibble over spending on paving bicycle routes are rounding errors in the discussion over widening roads and building expressways.

The current 401 widening project cost is $640M for 18 km. Some lanes already exist while others are new, and the logistics are a bit ugly. But it's somewhere on the order of $3M per lane-km. Or $36M for a km of 12-lane highway. Or $3000 per metre of driving lane.

[Bytor]

I don’t think people realize how freakishly expensive road infrastructure is. The amounts we quibble over spending on paving bicycle routes are rounding errors in the discussion over widening roads and building expressways.

The current 401 widening project cost is $640M for 18 km. Some lanes already exist while others are new, and the logistics are a bit ugly. But it's somewhere on the order of $3M per lane-km. Or $36M for a km of 12-lane highway. Or $3000 per metre of driving lane.

$3M per lane⋅km is cheap—the North American average for highway-grade lanes is around $4M, from what I have read.

[taylortbb]

The current 401 widening project cost is $640M for 18 km. Some lanes already exist while others are new, and the logistics are a bit ugly. But it's somewhere on the order of $3M per lane-km. Or $36M for a km of 12-lane highway. Or $3000 per metre of driving lane.

$3M per lane⋅km is cheap—the North American average for highway-grade lanes is around $4M, from what I have read.

It's $3M per lane-km when pricing in both the new and existing lanes (640 / 18 / 12). While that does cover rebuilding some existing lanes, which I acknowledge is occasionally necessary maintenance, maintenance alone wouldn't cost anywhere close to $640M. So IMO it's more accurate to view the cost of the project as $6M per added lane-km, as only a negligible amount of the total is attributable to the existing lanes.

[danbrotherston]

[tomh009]

$3M per lane⋅km is cheap—the North American average for highway-grade lanes is around $4M, from what I have read.

It's $3M per lane-km when pricing in both the new and existing lanes (640 / 18 / 12). While that does cover rebuilding some existing lanes, which I acknowledge is occasionally necessary maintenance, maintenance alone wouldn't cost anywhere close to $640M. So IMO it's more accurate to view the cost of the project as $6M per added lane-km, as only a negligible amount of the total is attributable to the existing lanes.

Whether $3M, $4M or $6M, the point is that it is far more expensive than active transportation infrastructure.

[tomh009]

Well, today is going to be a frustrating day:

It's not really collision reporting -- there is not even a date mentioned. She just uses that as an intro for an article about trail etiquette.

[danbrotherston]