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Zarley · 12-16-2016, 01:13 AM

I'll preface this by saying that I'm an inner city dwelling cyclist and until recently I lived adjacent to the 12th Avenue bike lane.

In principle I'm a fan of the program - bike lanes are great for people like myself who aren't comfortable cycling on congested major routes. I've made extensive use of the network since it's implementation.

The problem however is the fact that the major boosters of this project appear to be driven by ideology rather than pragmatism, as evidenced by the chosen routes being high profile traffic arteries. The logical decision would have been to run north/south bike lanes along 1st and 8th Streets SW, which have lower traffic volumes and offer better connections to both Connaught and (in the case of 1st Street) Mission and the Elbow river pathway system. Also, 13th Avenue was initially chosen as the east/west link through the Beltline but this was abandoned without announcement.

Instead of this, they went with 5th Street, 12th Ave, and initially proposed another lane on Macleod which was wisely shot down by council. Obviously all of these are major vehicle commuter routes. Some people within the cyclist lobby in the city are intent of making a political statement rather than producing the best network possible. Had they chosen 1st, 8th, and 13th Avenue, the following things would have happened:
- Lower cost due to less signalized intersections
- We likely could have avoided the additional cost of even having a pilot project because there would have been minimal concern regarding traffic impact on these routes - the network would hence be ahead of the game
- Reduced opposition to future expansion of the network

The network we have is fine, but there are a few major issues that should have been foreseen:
- The idiotic lane jogs that occur along the west end of 12th Avenue
- The 5th Street lane ends abruptly at 17th, unable to continue into Cliff Bungalow thanks to the change from 1 way to 2 way traffic (would have been solved by using 1st Street with a connection to 2nd via Rouleauville Square)
- The lane on 8th Ave has resulted in a significant reduction in street parking availability (which is stupid because thanks to the extremely wide sidewalks on the west end of 8th, there is more than enough room for parking lanes and bike lanes on either side of the road if a few feet are ceded from the sidewalk)

In summary, the system we have is the definition of mediocrity. With a little bit of pragmatism and innovative thinking we could have had a better system with far less controversy - although I've learned to never expect either of those qualities from the planning department.

12-16-2016, 01:13 AM	#82
Zarley First Line Centre Join Date: Jan 2013 Exp:	I'll preface this by saying that I'm an inner city dwelling cyclist and until recently I lived adjacent to the 12th Avenue bike lane. In principle I'm a fan of the program - bike lanes are great for people like myself who aren't comfortable cycling on congested major routes. I've made extensive use of the network since it's implementation. The problem however is the fact that the major boosters of this project appear to be driven by ideology rather than pragmatism, as evidenced by the chosen routes being high profile traffic arteries. The logical decision would have been to run north/south bike lanes along 1st and 8th Streets SW, which have lower traffic volumes and offer better connections to both Connaught and (in the case of 1st Street) Mission and the Elbow river pathway system. Also, 13th Avenue was initially chosen as the east/west link through the Beltline but this was abandoned without announcement. Instead of this, they went with 5th Street, 12th Ave, and initially proposed another lane on Macleod which was wisely shot down by council. Obviously all of these are major vehicle commuter routes. Some people within the cyclist lobby in the city are intent of making a political statement rather than producing the best network possible. Had they chosen 1st, 8th, and 13th Avenue, the following things would have happened: - Lower cost due to less signalized intersections - We likely could have avoided the additional cost of even having a pilot project because there would have been minimal concern regarding traffic impact on these routes - the network would hence be ahead of the game - Reduced opposition to future expansion of the network The network we have is fine, but there are a few major issues that should have been foreseen: - The idiotic lane jogs that occur along the west end of 12th Avenue - The 5th Street lane ends abruptly at 17th, unable to continue into Cliff Bungalow thanks to the change from 1 way to 2 way traffic (would have been solved by using 1st Street with a connection to 2nd via Rouleauville Square) - The lane on 8th Ave has resulted in a significant reduction in street parking availability (which is stupid because thanks to the extremely wide sidewalks on the west end of 8th, there is more than enough room for parking lanes and bike lanes on either side of the road if a few feet are ceded from the sidewalk) In summary, the system we have is the definition of mediocrity. With a little bit of pragmatism and innovative thinking we could have had a better system with far less controversy - although I've learned to never expect either of those qualities from the planning department.