I've been bike commuting from Elbow Park lately, and boy do I miss my normal route of taking the nicely cleared Bow River paths/Riverwalk home.
I work on 3rd ave and 3rd st, and the only sane way out of downtown when the roads are really bad and I don't want to worry about slipping and falling under a car who is giving me 2ft of space is to go all the way west to the 7th st cycle track. That thing is awesome. Except it goes almost nowhere.
You hit 8th ave, and your back onto the road where the shoulder isn't cleared ever. Now you get to risk your life in the 8th street underpass, or walk your bike along the sidewalk, or try ride slow and piss off all the pedestrians.
Now what? Well, cutting back to 5th street would be nice, but the 10th ave bike lane is one way. Lame.
8th street is designated as a cycling route, but again, the shoulders are totally snow covered and you're risking your life of ending up under a bus.
On the days I decide to roll the dice and take 5th street all the way south, again, it's a "bike route" but the shoulders are covered in slush and snow to the point they are unrideable, so I'm forced over a whole lane, I'm sure pissing off all traffic. 5th street gets so narrow at one point there is only room for one car. You just kind of try take the lane and hope no one will buzz you.
Then it's onto the Elbow river path, which is a total disaster of packed snow and ice because it wasn't cleared for a few days and saw lots of foot traffic. You can rattle your teeth down that, and then the path ends. Again, you can ride on the sidewalk and piss everyone off, or cross the street with your bike and ride down Elbow Drive.
In the morning 2nd street was awesome before the snow. Nice wide shoulder with painted bikes to let people know I belong, but now covered in brown crud slush that will result in an instant 2 wheel drift if you try ride in it. So over into the tire ruts you go, pissing off all the cars.
I understand lots of this will get fixed when the cycling strategy gets rolled out, so my point of this little rant is:
1) We really need all the planned infrastructure. I can see why lots of people stop riding in winter as it is right now
2) Can we at least get the snow cleaned off of alleged bike routes in the meantime?
3) No wonder people always look at the 7th st cycle track and say "We don't need anymore of that stuff, no one uses it!". It's nearly useless. How was that the first one to be put in?
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