Cycling in Waterloo Region

[plam]

I don't think a link to this article from the Record about potential pilot segregated bike lanes in Waterloo was posted yet.

plam was good enough to alert us to the consultation sessions this coming Tuesday and Thursday. The article includes a map of the study area, which is the universities and Uptown, more-or-less, and a bit further east. I think the pilot lanes' usage will inevitably be hampered by the fact that they will be short. Apparently there is only funding for five kilometres of lanes. My first thought was that Weber and University should get them, but who knows.

I don't think the initial consultation is asking where the lanes should go: it seems to be focussing on the selection of Uptown Waterloo. Anyway, I plan to be there on Tuesday.

5km is pretty short. The highest-traffic streets are King, Weber and University.

• University has non-segregated bike lanes, which would be easier to implement segregation on than King or Weber.
  
• I ride on Weber pretty often. It's pretty poor in the study area. It's also kind of parallel to Spur Line, so maybe it doesn't make the most sense.
  
• King could be logical, if only we had segregated bike lanes in Uptown (ha, ha) to connect with.
  

Erb and Bridgeport are also options too. I did notice that the traffic seemed scarier when Bridgeport was two way during the construction, and I have some suspicions as to why, but I'm not sure.

I was through Uptown today. The thing that has been confusing me is that on the east side, people are good about not parking in the bike lane because there is parking space. I remember that there was discussion about there being no parking on the west side due to the bike lane. I look forward to enforcement; people really shouldn't be parking there!

[MidTowner]

It seems like some process or other led to the Uptown/University study area (which doesn't include much of Erb or Bridgeport according to that map), and now the consultations concern where specifically to put the pilot lane/s, and what kind of segregation to use. I intend to be at the consultation, too.

My feelings about Weber are that it is overbuilt for the traffic it handles, and could stand to lose a lane. It's also (to me) downright scary to bike on. In the study area, the Spur Line doesn't apply, but I see your point.

[Canard]

We drove through UpTown today while doing some errands. I noticed they have put temporary “Parking is allowed here” signs on the Northbound lanes, and nothing expressly prohibiting it on the South, on the bike lanes. As usual, the entire bike lane was full of cars.

I guess at this point I don’t really care - if I were biking through here now with the snow, I’d be on tbe road, which is ploughed.

[plam]

It seems like some process or other led to the Uptown/University study area (which doesn't include much of Erb or Bridgeport according to that map), and now the consultations concern where specifically to put the pilot lane/s, and what kind of segregation to use. I intend to be at the consultation, too.

My feelings about Weber are that it is overbuilt for the traffic it handles, and could stand to lose a lane. It's also (to me) downright scary to bike on. In the study area, the Spur Line doesn't apply, but I see your point.

We recently spent $200M widening Weber, although that was further south than the study area. Weber is pretty busy and somewhat scary, but I think that's why it really could use some segregation. I agree that the Spur Line is slightly further south than the study area, although you can get there through the Laurel Trail, which is in the study area.

[tomh009]

My feelings about Weber are that it is overbuilt for the traffic it handles, and could stand to lose a lane. It's also (to me) downright scary to bike on. In the study area, the Spur Line doesn't apply, but I see your point.

The reality is that 90% of people still commute using motor vehicle (personal car or transit), so we still need some arterial roads.  And between the Expressway and Westmount Rd, Weber St is really the only one.

I'd rather spend the money improving cycling infrastructure on a route parallel to Weber, but not on the same roadway.

[chutten]

I'm game. I think we could have a much more comfortable cycling experience if it didn't involve Weber.

That being said, Weber is still host to many destinations. How do we make them accessible to cyclists while on a busy arterial?

[tomh009]

I'm game. I think we could have a much more comfortable cycling experience if it didn't involve Weber.

That being said, Weber is still host to many destinations. How do we make them accessible to cyclists while on a busy arterial?

Side street to Weber, then a short stretch on Weber using the sidewalk, whether riding or walking. It's not perfect, but at least in theory it would be half a block or less on Weber.

[danbrotherston]

My feelings about Weber are that it is overbuilt for the traffic it handles, and could stand to lose a lane. It's also (to me) downright scary to bike on. In the study area, the Spur Line doesn't apply, but I see your point.

The reality is that 90% of people still commute using motor vehicle (personal car or transit), so we still need some arterial roads.  And between the Expressway and Westmount Rd, Weber St is really the only one.

I'd rather spend the money improving cycling infrastructure on a route parallel to Weber, but not on the same roadway.

An arterial road doesn't have to be 4 lanes.  I haven't bothered to look up traffic counts for the whole thing, but north of Parkside, where I was looking for the future bike lane project, there is no traffic justification for four lanes, its entirely political.

[tomh009]

The reality is that 90% of people still commute using motor vehicle (personal car or transit), so we still need some arterial roads.  And between the Expressway and Westmount Rd, Weber St is really the only one.

I'd rather spend the money improving cycling infrastructure on a route parallel to Weber, but not on the same roadway.

An arterial road doesn't have to be 4 lanes.  I haven't bothered to look up traffic counts for the whole thing, but north of Parkside, where I was looking for the future bike lane project, there is no traffic justification for four lanes, its entirely political.

North of Parkside (which I think is not in the study area, or is it?) is indeed quite different than what it is up to, say, King St N.  My suggestions relate really to the rest of Weber St, through urban Kitchener and Waterloo, not the northernmost part.

[ijmorlan]

The reality is that 90% of people still commute using motor vehicle (personal car or transit), so we still need some arterial roads.  And between the Expressway and Westmount Rd, Weber St is really the only one.

I'd rather spend the money improving cycling infrastructure on a route parallel to Weber, but not on the same roadway.

An arterial road doesn't have to be 4 lanes.  I haven't bothered to look up traffic counts for the whole thing, but north of Parkside, where I was looking for the future bike lane project, there is no traffic justification for four lanes, its entirely political.

Not only that, but it’s not a real 4-lane road. At Parkside and at Albert there are *no* through(-only) lanes. The intersections would probably have higher capacity if they replaced 4 lanes everywhere with turn lanes at the intersections.

[plam]

I'm game. I think we could have a much more comfortable cycling experience if it didn't involve Weber.

That being said, Weber is still host to many destinations. How do we make them accessible to cyclists while on a busy arterial?

Side street to Weber, then a short stretch on Weber using the sidewalk, whether riding or walking. It's not perfect, but at least in theory it would be half a block or less on Weber.

Sometimes there's even another entrance to the parking lot. On Weber that rarely works; it would work for Tri-City Cycles but not many other places. But I did use the back way to get to Public Kitchen and Bar on Lancaster last month, before they moved to Victoria: you can take Bond to Union (which has a bike lane at least) and then to, say, Spur Line.

[Bob_McBob]

More fine social commentary from the Woolwich Observer...

Caption: "When basic logic and math skills go into using taxpayers' money"

[MidTowner]

Weber Street through the study area carries about 20,000 vehicles per day. You could take a lane and convert it into a protected two-way cycle track, and the street would function perfectly fine as one lane in each direction plus a centre turning lane.

It's disingenuous to say that we need arterials (of course we do, but the above configuration works for arterials carrying that volume in many places) because x% of the population commutes by car. That proportion commutes by car at least in part because we have such poor infrastructure. Creating "solutions" for cyclists that involve walking their bike the last few blocks to their destination will not increase cycling's mode share.

[ijmorlan]

Weber Street through the study area carries about 20,000 vehicles per day. You could take a lane and convert it into a protected two-way cycle track, and the street would function perfectly fine as one lane in each direction plus a centre turning lane.

It's disingenuous to say that we need arterials (of course we do, but the above configuration works for arterials carrying that volume in many places) because x% of the population commutes by car. That proportion commutes by car at least in part because we have such poor infrastructure. Creating "solutions" for cyclists that involve walking their bike the last few blocks to their destination will not increase cycling's mode share.

I find it interesting that the problem isn’t even just a misguided engineering approach: there are x cars, therefore we need y amount of space dedicated to cars. The road is actually over-engineered, even taking as given the assumption that car traffic must be accommodated.

And that cartoon from the Woolwich Observer is a form of bigotry. It wouldn’t be acceptable to slag accommodations for wheelchair users or other groups that way.

[DHLawrence]

Awfully big jump from cyclists to people in wheelchairs, don't you think?