The nonsensical protest around Hillside Park

Protesters against paving Hillside trails, ironically standing on a spot where they've already been paved for a decade. (photo credit: James Jackson)

I recently read about protests against plans to pave the trail surface in Hillside Park, and I am disappointed. While the residents of Ferndale Place raise a legitimate concern about how city staff notified people about upcoming work, the complaints that a few unhappy citizens are bringing forward just don't make sense. 

One complaint is that upgrading the trail surface will ruin this park as a natural gem. As a daily user of the park, I can attest that the park is a beautiful natural oasis, but less than two years ago it was a muddy construction zone filled with heavy earth moving equipment. If the park can survive a sewer replacement, it can withstand a paved trail.

Sewer reconstruction in Hillside Park: where were protesters then?

Furthermore, worries about "environmental damage" completely ignore the current reality. I saw gravel trails washed out by stormwater three times in 2014 alone, and countless times before. After each incident, heavy vehicles truck in tons of new stone and sand to repair dangerous washouts that are sometimes a foot deep. With each new storm, this material is spread into meadows and silts up the creek. A hard trail surface will permanently solve this problem and prevent injuries.

Storm runoff gouged this gravel trail down to the foundation layer in 2014.

What is lost in these protesters' message is how Hillside Park's degraded, loose gravel trails make it inaccessible to many in our community. Paving the trails will improve accessibility for all: in wheelchair or mobility scooter, with stroller, as well as on bike or on foot. Virtually every other city park provides paved trails without diminishing the natural environment, including Forwell Creek Park which directly connects to Hillside, so that they are not a barrier to those of us who struggle with mobility challenges.

The concerns of a few residents who don't want any changes need to be weighed against the needs of everyone. Accessibility must trump aesthetics. Hillside Park is a public space, not a private backyard.

Celebrating Waterloo the Good

It's very easy to write a post when something gets up in my urbanist junk. I see red and the words flow. Recently I've been pretty critical of our municipal governments.

But here's the thing: by and large, and more so than most anywhere else in this province the region of Waterloo gets it so very, very right. I'm proud to live here, and it is the general positive direction we are in, and the vision this place has, that makes me happy to get involved. Because a man has hope living here.

Here's a couple of things, just from today.

The region got hammered by a ruling from the Ontario Municipal Board, the entity that former BC premier Mike Harcourt has called a "medieval abomination". The OMB has sided with developers-- who often direct much more legal resources at OMB hearings and seem to (almost) always come away with the upper hand-- against the region in its bid to limit greenfield development (i.e. sprawl.)

But the region is not going to take it lying down, and will appeal the ruling. I don't know if they'll win, but it will cast a stark light on the OMB's heavy, undemocratic hand in municipal planning. If nothing else, we'll go down fighting for principles.

Let's not forget, as quoted in the appeal article: the region of Waterloo has maybe the most aggressive growth management strategy in Ontario. It is the only municipality that is defining a countryside line to limit sprawl (and this, too, is going to be the subject of an OMB ruling.) We are blazing a trail. The Ontario "Places to Grow" act is based in no small part on the work done by local governments here in this region.

Along these very lines, today the Central Transit Corridor project presented to regional council on its draft community building strategy, apparently published just a few days ago. (I got listed as a stakeholder, thanks to one day in May I got to work with them on the Midtown vision.) It is pretty inspiring stuff, not exactly a prescriptive document but a descriptive one of where we can go from here. And it's heady stuff. The stuff cities are made of.

On a much smaller scale, today council decided to put aside the quantitative analysis by staff and support a pedestrian signal crossing at Weber and Wilhelm, where some major widening is happening and the Spur Trail will eventually intersect. The Mount Hope - Breithaupt Park neighbourhood association went to bat, and councilors took a more strategic view of the situation and almost unanimously supported aiding pedestrian movement across a widened Weber.

As a bonus to all of this, some measured progress is also being made on pedestrian infrastructure for the vision impaired.

So, let's not all be doom and gloom? I want to compliment the region for getting it right and heading in a positive direction.

Routes and Secrets of east Waterloo

Fall looms

It's that part of September that is still officially summer, but is fall in spirit. It's positively autumnal these last few days. And it feels good! Even if it's a tad wet. I admit that I wussed out of cycling through Tuesday morning's deluge and took transit instead.

I've not blogged much about #loabKW lately, because there hasn't really been anything very interesting to say. I bike during the week. It's normal. The Lexington expressway crossing still sucks, but that's normal too. Groceries get bought, places get visited, life is surprisingly unremarkable.

But I do like the ducks. And the bunnies. I see a lot of each on my rides. Flickers, too, for some reason-- you can recognize them by their white butts as they fly away.

That's one thing I haven't really talked about: the rides, and the routes that I'm on every day. I do try and explore as much of KW as I can on bike, but most of the time I'm going to and from work. Much of these rides are on quiet streets or trails (though some trails have only recently been reopened) and when you're on two wheels, you can take in the scenery a lot more.

Route secrets

If you need to move to and from north-east Waterloo, you move from embarrassment of cycling riches to awful choke points and back again. There is great cycling in the neighbourhoods around Bridge Street, north of University:

<<<< sorry guys, Google doesn't embed maps with the cycling layer turned on, because Bob returned late from lunch last Friday and didn't spend 5 minutes implementing that feature... please click the links to follow along. As for Google, they and I need to have a few words. >>>>

Snippets of trail, lots of cut-through paths (although not on Allenby Court), and cycling lanes on roads like Bridge and Davenport. Even the ward councilor, Diane Freeman, is an avid cyclist.
 
Unfortunately, you can't get there from here. Literally: if you don't have the intestinal fortitude to mix with speeding traffic-- or are willing to flaunt the rules and sensibility by biking a sidewalk perilously close to a low guardrail and a 30 foot drop to the expressway below-- this neighbourhood is entirely cut off from the rest of Waterloo. But we've been here before and we know the solution is: road-diet Lexington. Just waiting on staff and council to see the light.

Still: if you can stomach Lexington, the city is your oyster. Well, maybe not quite-- UW is a major high-traffic gap away (the Columbia/King mess), but you can get to Uptown and to Kitchener if you know where you're going. Dearborn Boulevard is your gateway off Lexington and away from the 80km/h traffic, and connects with the great trail system that is the Forwell Creek and Hillside Park. From here you can ride trails up to Manulife headquarters, over to Canadian Tire, or all the way down to University Avenue near a small street called Carter Avenue.

It's hard to get across University right now, but that will change in a year or two: reconstruction will add a refuge island here. And Carter leads you to Moses Springer Park and into the heart of the bike-navigable Lincoln neighbourhood.

Infill! Infill!

Last night I saw something that piqued my interest: a City of Waterloo planning map that shows a proposed trail extension from Lincoln Park across Weber to connect with a trail leading to Uptown, here at Mackay Crescent. Getting across Weber here is key. I hope discussions between city and region bear fruit.

If you can get across Weber right here (here's a hint: you can't. It's stupid.) then you have almost clear sailing all the way to Uptown Waterloo, the Laurel Trail, the Iron Horse, you name it. Otherwise, there are some options if you filter along Lincoln Ave and through the Sobeys plaza (pick up your groceries while you're there!) and then on down Devitt or Moore. Moore provides access to Duke, which is the best way to downtown Kitchener on a bike if you can't get to the Iron Horse... or it will be, until the Spur Trail is constructed.

(Do you sense a theme? A theme of being close to a great cycling network but for a few critical gaps? Talk to your councilors. Explain to them the wonder of infill. Tell them you're not willing to wait until the gaps get reconstructed.)

Of course, this also passes the Mount Hope cemetery, which is my stomping grounds (or... maybe a little less in the cemetery as near it.) From here you're on your own.

Alternatives

But if you want to make the same trip in a different way, you could try riding past the Canadian Tire, braving a short stretch of Weber and Columbia, and head down Regina. Not too bad, especially if you work the lights right. You still have to cross at Lexington though.

Or you could take a different plot and head down Bridge to Lancaster (possibly avoiding the roundabout by taking this dogleg). This is not pleasant cycling, as it's decades-old infrastructure with no cycling accommodation-- but the widths are generally good, and if you don't mind a brutal hill or two, you could do okay. Lancaster happens to lead right to Queen, which is a great gateway to Kitchener too. But it's a traffic lunatic asylum, so be warned.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that there's some great cycling in the City of Waterloo, especially on the east end. But to enjoy it, you have to deal with the fact that the City of Waterloo is in fact two cycling networks, disconnected by an expressway. Maybe this will be fixed soon, but in the meantime you should ask yourself if you really need to wait for that.

I can't. I have to be out there.

There's ducks, after all. And bunnies. And flickers.

See you on the trails.

[LOABkw] Tools of the trade

Life On A Bike in KW is a series of posts about Chris' attempt to get as much done as possible on two wheels, while Erin takes the car out of town to observe birds. How cycle-friendly is KW? 

Erin is now at Rock Point, banding birds. I am officially car-less. More or less. For instance, I booked a car rental for the weekend after this one, to go visit her. The price shocked me... only $53 for a two day weekend rental? I wonder if I'm missing something. At that rate, you could rent a lot of weekends before you hit your typical lease or loan payment, assuming you don't need a car during the week.

Also, the rental agency (Avis) is a short walk from my home. That's a big deal: when I rent a car to travel for work, I insist on renting from that place. No pickup/drop-off hassle. Once again, the importance of geographic proximity over other aspects when you aren't driving yourself everywhere.

The Obligatory Gear Post

I backed myself into a corner, saying that the next thing I would blog about would be a "what I ride" post. Turns out, I don't like dictating my own blogging agenda beforehand. I like to go with the flow, write about whatever is on my mind.

Still, this is a post that needs writing, for this series to cover what I want it to. Since I've been cycle-commuting for twelve years, I've tried a lot of different products, clothes, clever ideas and gimmicks. A kind of darwinism of usefulness, and a new-found love for cycling minimalism, has whittled those down to the things that are truly valuable. I hope you find it interesting... or at least informative.

What I want to do is draw a line between what is truly important, what is helpful, and what is simply "nice to have". Cycling requires very little. Cyclists tend to accumulate stuff over time. If you're a gear fetishist-- and I admit, I used to be-- you could easily turn a cheap travel option into an expensive hobby. You have been warned.

Bike

In June, I put aside my undersized and beat-up Jamis, and bought a beautiful new Brodie Section.7 from King Street Cycles. This one has a few must-haves, like fenders and rear cargo rack. It still needs a chain guard, and will get one as soon as I'm biking in long pants again.

Section.7 and the things I ride with

(I recommend local retailers for bikes, as many of them offer free service on purchases. This is really helpful, if you're not the type to tear bikes down and put them back together again in rideable shape. Even though I've replaced the Jamis' whole transmission, I appreciate not having to monkey up this bike.)

Riding this bike has taught me some important lessons:

1. The right bike is much better than the wrong bike. The Jamis served me well, but was ill-fitted to my body and physical limitations. That sapped my motivation. I didn't want to spend money on a new bike when I had a working one, but I haven't regretted this purchase now that I finally made it.

Still, the corollary to this lesson is, any bike is better than no bike. If you want to get started, don't let the idea of "finding the perfect bike" get in the way. Chances are you'll need to ride a couple of years before you even know what the perfect bike is. I rode the Jamis for 12 years before I knew.

2. A beautiful bike will make you fearful. Bike theft is real. I bought a flashy bike. Now I stress about where I leave it. This is not a problem I had so much with the old Jamis.

If this idea bothers you, buy a used bike for cheap. Of course, when you do, try to make sure it's a legitimate sale and not "hot".

3. You don't need a billion gears. The Section.7 has a 7-speed shifter and no rear derailleur. In KW, that is enough. And now I understand how the Dutch get by with 3-speed bikes in their flat country.

The Jamis was a 21-speed and had a granny gear for steep hills (which I never used it on a road, it felt like surrender.) Turns out, I didn't need all that for city riding. Chances are you don't either.

The Brodie has a number of other nice features. I like twist-shifters, but that's a personal thing-- many hate them. The internal hub shifting system is a wonder for city riding. Simply put, I can shift at a stop... that simple fact has changed my world. Also the benefit of lower maintenance, as the hub is a sealed unit.

Okay, that's enough talking about the bike. Less text, more pictures!

Helmet

Okay, let's get this out of the way first: I do not support mandatory helmet laws. I believe bicycle helmets have their place and provide some small safety benefit, and adults should be free to make their own risk assessment. The effects of mandatory helmet laws on cycling safety are complex, and sometimes detrimental. Read here if you want to understand more.

I do wear a helmet for a substantial portion of my cycling, because I am frequently trekking 9km through some busy traffic corridors, and I'll take any edge I can get. These days, I'm wearing a Bern Brentwood.

Size XXL.

You should replace your helmet every 5 or so years (recommendations vary) so this year I decided to move away from the "spaceship on your head" fluted style to something that I felt would provide some better side and back impact protection. There is a lot of debate about whether traditional helmets truly provide a safety benefit (especially when weighed against the effect of risk compensation) and while this is still not a helmet rated for being hit by a fast-moving car, I think it's a step up.

For short rides within my neighbourhood I will omit this. Sometimes this makes me uncomfortable, but the reaction is almost a superstitious one. I've gone 12 years without ever being hit by a car, so sometimes I wonder if I use a helmet as a totem. I have had a serious fall at over 30kph, but even then my head never touched the ground.

Clothes

If I had written this a year ago, I'd have a lot more to say about clothes. But I've decided to put aside the cycling-specific clothes as much as I can... bike shorts, half-gloves, yellow-lensed glasses... whatever. By and large, I now cycle in my street clothes as much as possible. I will occasionally wear a loose-fitting synthetic cycling shirt, if it's excessively hot.

There may be more to say about clothes when the weather cools. If the weather ever cools. The short version is, have a decent jacket for wet weather, but you won't be biking in the rain that often. Apart from that, just bike in your clothes as much as you can. Or bring a change of clothes, if it helps. You don't need to wear a special uniform.

Visibility

Pay attention. This is important.

City cycling inevitably means negotiating for space with cars. There are a number of things you should strongly consider having.

Don't skimp. Get a high quality rear flasher.

Get a rear flasher. And use it whenever you're on major roads, even in the daylight. A good one will be visible a hundred metres away in bright sun.

This is really valuable. I notice a big difference in the space cars give me on the road when I'm running this flasher. I believe it makes motorists aware of me earlier, which gives them more time to pass me in an orderly fashion, instead of a late reaction which results in a tight high-speed squeeze.

In combination with assertive lane placement (something I'll talk about some other time), that means that almost all drivers will pass me courteously on the worst roads.

The one above is a Planet Bike flasher from MEC. Not expensive. Get one.

 

Keep a front light for night rides.

The front reflector is legally required in most places. But I strongly recommend having a front light handy for riding after dark. If it flashes, that's helpful. You want it more to be seen, than to illuminate the road that streetlights are already shining on.

The Night Rider I have mounted on there is a fairly expensive new acquisition, enough to dazzle in daylight. At the very least, you should have a 1 watt LED lamp handy. And don't worry about batteries... unless you have a high-power light, they'll last for ever. (And if you have something brighter, it should be rechargeable.)

Deliberate mirror shot.

My left handlebar carries two vital tools: a mirror (another must-have for mixing with traffic) and a bell (a must-have for mixing with pedestrians.) Get a mirror and a bell. Use them.

The red switch on the right is something a little extra: an Air Zound air horn. It's somewhat handy, but I wouldn't whole-heartedly recommend it. It can really grab motorists' attention (or wake up the gaggle of ipod-wearing students blocking the entire trail.) But it makes you choose between horn and brakes, and you should always be choosing brakes.

It's astoundingly loud, though. And good value for money. I wish I could mount it closer to my thumb, but the twist shifter on the right handlebar gets in the way...

Hauling

There's a lot of different products for carrying things in bikes.

Get a rear pannier rack. With that, you can get traditional pannier bags (MEC makes some great ones), or rear baskets. Refer back to the first photo to see each.

Speaking of which, I'm very fond of these Basil Memories baskets. They hook on and off very quickly, and have an integrated handle. Great for grocery shopping, though they do bang around noisily.

They should pay me an advertising fee.

Locks

What you get for a lock depends on your bike, location and level of paranoia. There's a lot of opinions about locks on the internet, and most of it will make you terrified to leave your bike anywhere ever again.

I have a Kryptonite U-lock and cable combo. The cable is a handy addition, allowing me to quickly run a noose through the frame and front wheel. Lets me relax a bit more about letting this bike out of my sight.

Final words

Hopefully, I've made this post descriptive but not prescriptive. This is what works for me, what works for you might be quite different. But take a look around... you may find exactly what's right for you.

For instance, yesterday I locked up at the supermarket next to a young lady with an awesome long tail. I admired her ride for its cargo capacity (200lb, she said.) She admired mine for its gearing and light weight. (I guess we checked out each other's equipment.)

It's great that there are finally so many purpose-built bikes showing up here in Canada. Utility cycling and commuting can be done with your bog-standard mountain bike, but gradually we're catching on to better alternatives. With bikes built for just getting around, infrastructure to make us welcome on the street and and at our destination, and learning to normalize cycling as a routine part of life, this community is shifting gear.


It's exciting to see.

[LOABkw] Countdown and looking ahead

Life On A Bike in KW is a series of posts about Chris' attempt to get as much done as possible on two wheels, while Erin takes the car out of town to observe birds. How cycle-friendly is KW?

Erin heads out of town this weekend. You can follow her bird-nerding adventures on a blog aptly titled Adventures of a Bird Nerd. And since she's taking the car, my countdown is on.

Erin wishes her bird nerding would be this awesome.

The funny part is that to a large extent, things won't change next week. (When it comes to getting around, that is-- Erin's absence will certainly affect my life for the next few months!) After all, I'm already cycling to work 3 or 4 days a week. How much different will this be?

The challenge is going to be in errand and "one-off" trips, I think:

• Groceries: I can do it, but I have to think about volume and weight.
• Hardware store (hard to predict what you need to haul to keep a house in working order. A box of screws is easy-- a new toilet, less so.)
• Pet store. (7 birds to feed, and the best deal for food is over in St Clements.)
• Visits out of town.
• Heavy occasional supplies that I use for brewing beer, such as RO water and propane refills

When I started thinking about this, I realize that despite the fact that I have reduced my personal car dependence quite far, it's the last mile (so to speak) which is the least flexible. Alternatives exist for specific things, like I know where to get more parakeet food in town, conveniently on my way home-- but at almost twice the cost. Hardware stores tend to offer delivery.

A big, less obvious benefit of car ownership is that you don't have to think about this sort of thing very hard. You make a decision and go. Your cargo capacity is enough to handle almost any need. You can go further to get the best deal. You can go whatever the conditions are, and you have secure storage on hand for multi-stop trips.

I can haul a lot on my bike, considering it's a fairly conventional design. Two Basil Memories baskets are already demonstrating their value:

Handles with all the grace of a pregnant sow.

... and this past weekend, I proved that they had the strength to carry 24 cans of pop on one side, and 5kg of ice on the other. That's good, but there's no way I'm fitting a 20lb propane tank or a 5-gallon water jug in there. There will be the point at which I turn to Car Share. And there's always transit, too.

Though this guy has figured it out.

Flat Rate vs. Pay-as-you-go

It's clear that car ownership is simpler, and while driving an owned car is certainly not free, a single trip feels virtually free-- purchase, insurance, maintenance and even to a certain extent gasoline all feel like fixed overheads. (Yes, I believe it's easy to think of fuel as a fixed overhead: ask yourself if you mentally debited $1 from your budget the last time you drove 10km.) Car ownership feels like a flat rate that once you pay, you get a lot of convenience for free. People like that sort of thing.

Car Share and transit are pay-as-you-go, and they come with the (sometimes uncomfortably obvious) awareness of what each trip costs. Do I want to take a Car Share vehicle for an hour ($10 on my plan) to get a $15 propane tank fill? Or spend $70 to visit my parents? That incremental cost seems outrageously expensive, but it has to be compared against the cost of buying and running a new car ($8-$13K a year) or even keeping a cheaper used car on the road.

It seems clear to me that there will be opportunities to trade time for money, and money for time. Overall, there will be a drive (no pun intended) to seek efficiencies: combine trips, buy in bulk, choose destinations based on accessibility rather than bargain-hunting across town.

And of course, do as much as I can on two wheels, for free.

(courtesy Threadless)

Next time... the tools of the trade!

[LOABkw] - Life On A Bike in KW

Life On A Bike in KW is a series of posts about Chris' attempt to get as much done as possible on two wheels, while Erin takes the car out of town to observe birds. How cycle-friendly is KW?

Welcome!

I'd like to welcome you to something new. A blog within a blog, if you will: Life On A Bike in KW.

Riding bikes in this town is nothing new for me. I have been a part-time cycle commuter during the warmer months for over a decade, regarding that ride as an easy way to get exercise. I have put over seven thousand kilometres on a Jamis Explorer mountain bike, wearing through a set of panniers and an entire transmission in the process. With helmets and reflective jackets and purpose-designed bike clothes, I regarded myself as "part of the cycling subculture" willing to take on any road to get where I need to.

Me with a spaceship on my head, ca. 2010

But there has been a sea change in my thinking this year: I realized that I don't want to be some kind of counter-culture hero. I just want to be a regular guy, on a bike. I want to treat cycling as a natural way to get around this city. And I want others to see me as a regular guy on bike they can identify with, instead than a spandex-clad road warrior. Because more than anything else, I want other people out there on bikes with me.

Also, I look terrible in spandex.

The Story So Far

The Region of Waterloo has come a long way since I bought that Jamis in 2000. At the time, virtually no road had bike lanes. There was no formal statement at any level about growing cycling as a transportation mode. The Iron Horse Trail had been established only a few years before. If I saw another person on a bike, it was almost always a student of a university or high school. (Of course, my route at the time usually went through UW campus, so this shouldn't be surprising.)

Contrast our current situation in 2012. The region and the cities all have master plans for cycling. The city of Waterloo has even won an award for its progress. Bike lanes and pathways don't quite form a continuous network yet, but the gaps are much smaller. Despite occasional signs of waivering conviction (the region's backpedalling-- no pun intended-- in Conestogo, the city of Waterloo failing to pull the trigger on Lexington, and penny-pinching budgets by all governments), I can attest personally to the improved bike friendliness of Kitchener and Waterloo.


We have reached the point at which a minimal level of continuous cycling infrastructure is within reach. The region has established Walk Cycle Waterloo Region to look at the situation holistically, and they are painting a picture of how to build a more mature network of cycleways. The outcome has been a gradually growing number of people for whom cycling is within their comfort zone.

Have you noticed how many bikes there are out there right now? I know the weather has been great, but there's more going on than that.

The Opportunity

This year, I have been biking more than I ever have before. There are a number of reasons for this, which I will discuss in time. But I have been presented with an opportunity to live effectively car-free for the rest of the summer: my partner and occasional co-blogger Erin will be spending ten weeks in a provincial park, as a bird observer. And she will be taking the car.

I'm pretty well equipped to deal with the absence of the car (though the absence of Erin is another matter.) I have access to transit, and I've picked up a Grand River Carshare "simple" membership just in case. And of course, there's always my own two feet.

But more than anything else, I look to my bike to make this work: now for more than just commuting, it will be my primary mode of transport.

And it's not the Jamis anymore. I have a new bike. Which I'll talk more about in another post.

Brodie Section 7, loaded for bear (and to bear)

The Journey

The idea of this series will be to show how a regular guy in KW can make cycling as primary transportation work. Also, to show where our governments are getting it right, and wrong, on cycling, what barriers need to be bridged (*cough* Expressway *cough*) and any other discoveries along the way.

I hope you'll read along.

Simplistic solutions to complex problems: the helmet debate

The Ontario Coroner's Report on cycling deaths is available here.

As I am a cycle commuter, you probably expect me to have an opinion on the renewed cycle helmet debate it has spawned. I do. I was burning to write up a blog post about it.

But someone else has already done me one better: Jim Davies of Ottawa asks the question, "What is the best bike helmet?" And he neatly covers all the big reasons why a mandatory helmet law recommendation is the the stinking turd in the middle of a coroner's report full of gems, and absolutely the worst possible thing for Ontario cycling.

Read it. Understand it. Remember that every time we get into the debate about helmets, ask yourself if you're arguing if helmets should be mandatory, or simply whether helmets are a good idea. That latter question is very much in doubt: answering it by enacting law would be a travesty.

And all of this is taking away from the fact that there is a lot of good in the Coroner's report. Let's consider:

Safer Infrastructure: A provincial "complete streets" strategy and updated cycling plan. Paved shoulders for provincial highways.

Education: For cyclists. For motorists. For truckers.

Legislative Improvements: Overall Traffic Act review. A 1-metre passing law. And side guards for trucks!

All of the things I list above would contribute positively to the safety and popularity of cycling, and to the overall health of Ontario's population. Spoiling the party, though, is a mandatory helmet law recommendation which would detract from each of these goals!

So what does the panel have to say for itself? I'll wrap up this post with with their own words. (Emphasis is mine, though. Editorial privilege.)

The issue of mandatory helmet legislation for all ages is much more controversial, and was the subject of much debate among the members of the Expert Panel. While Expert Panel members were in agreement about promoting helmet use by all cyclists in Ontario, there was disagreement as to whether mandatory legislation was the best way to achieve this goal. There were three general arguments advanced against mandatory helmet legislation.

The first related to the potential for mandatory helmet legislation to decrease the overall number of cyclists. Proponents of this view cited the experience in Australia, where the introduction of mandatory helmet legislation was associated with a drop in cycling activity. Some research exists which suggest that the health benefits of helmets may be outweighed by the detrimental effects on overall health in the population through the decrease in cycling activity in jurisdictions where helmets have been made mandatory.

The second argument against mandatory helmet legislation relates to the view that government may see mandatory helmet legislation as “the answer” to cycling safety, with the result that other measures recommended in this Review (improved infrastructure, legislative review, education and enforcement activities) are de-emphasized or not acted upon. 

The third point raised by members of the Expert Panel is that helmets are, indeed, the last line of defence and of value only after a collision has occurred. Instead of mandating the use of helmets, it was argued that efforts should be focussed on preventing the collision (through strategies such as improved infrastructure and expanded public awareness and education programs) – in other words, if one prevents the collision, helmets become unnecessary. In addition, some stakeholders felt that mandatory helmet legislation sent the message that the responsibility for safety rests with the cyclist alone, rather than being a shared responsibility of all road users.

(Coroner's Report, page 23)

Powerful stuff. Bike and drive safe, folks.

A sanctity of trails

The city of Waterloo has to ask itself, at what price intensification? Is it worth rerouting a critical trail whose unique right of way could never be regained?

Mady Development and the city are looking at a proposal for a second tower at the 144 Park development, to be called 155 Caroline. The proposal would consume much of the block north of the Sun Life parking garage, growing the green section below to encompass the orange section in one contiguous block.


View 155Caroline in a larger map

The purple represents the corridor set aside for an Iron Horse realignment. What could go in there is still up for debate, but the developer is proposing separate cycle path (2m) and  walking paths, with various improvements for walkers.

The number of units is set to more than double, as is the amount of parking on-site. The bulk of it would have access to Park St., while 62 spots at ground level (covered) would enter and exit from Caroline. (These spots are a requirement imposed on the Bauer lofts developer, who currently owns the gravel surface parking, and who wants to maintain that parking supply.)


At the informal meeting tonight with councilor Melissa Durrell and representatives from Mady and the consultants involved, some new developments came to light in response to concerns raised at a previous meeting. Focusing on the Iron Horse Trail, a 3m multi-use trail connection was added to the plan along Caroline St, and factors to mitigate the ugliness of a parking garage across the street from the thriving Bauer retail have been introduced.

So, the question needs to be asked: Is this worth moving the Iron Horse for?

To be sure, concessions have been made to make sure that the trail connects to Allen at Caroline. The point was made that a perpendicular crossing at Park St. may be safer. The functional connectivity is maintained.

But it comes in exchange for a main apartment pedestrian entrance, a townhouse entrance (at the Allen/Caroline corner) and a potentially busy parking driveway now crossing the Caroline trail segment. It eliminates a natural and historic corridor (reflected in the trail's very name) and replaces it with a canyon between a wall of windows inaccessible to the general public on one side, and an eyesore of a concrete parking garage on the other.

Worst of all, though: it sends a signal that the city of Waterloo is willing to sacrifice its trail corridors for development. At a time when the region is trying to build another rail-trail through the Waterloo Spur to connect downtown and uptown, the most popular cycling corridor in the city would come in second place to developer interest. If they can reroute Park to Caroline, why not the Park to John segment too?


Still, here's the rub: the corridor is owned by the city of Waterloo. The developer and the city are discussing a land swap. To make this happen, the city has to declare the lands surplus, and hold a public meeting. This needs to go through council.

There's a large number of local residents who are concerned at the scale of this project for reasons which differ from these, primarily traffic and parking. There are urbanists who see the ground-level presence of this development as lipstick on a pig at best, but more likely a terrible wasted opportunity for growing a vibrant uptown. And there are 144 Park condo owners whose great vista will disappear much faster than they could have expected.

This might be a situation where trail enthusiasts, urbanists, new residents and the old guard all have aligned interests. If you don't like it, talk to your councilors.

Personally, I think Mady is very close to making out like a bandit at the city's and region's expense. A land swap that turns an awkward piece of property into a large-scale development opportunity? Even if I supported this proposal, I think the city should be able to extract a lot more out of the developer for what they stand to gain from the city's concession.

Bridge/Northfield and the Poor Pedestrians

Addendum: After sending this letter I did receive a response. Most of the pedestrian concerns are addressed, including sidewalk access along the fronts of the development and to the bus stop/path access, and pedestrian refuge at that point-- provided by the developer.

It's still a very suburban development that in some places pays lip service to vibrant streetscape concepts, and there will be difficulty at the Labrador intersection, but the worst concerns for pedestrians are addressed.

I work very close to a proposed mixed-use development at Bridge and Northfield. As I'm a transit user as often as I'm a driver or cyclist, pedestrian access in the area is very important to me. And it's awful: impossible intersections, missing sidewalks, no lighting.

I'm hoping that the development will bring with it some improvements to the intersections and pedestrian infrastructure (like, you know... sidewalks) but I'm trying to drive the point home with Waterloo city council none the less.

The following is from a submission I put together this holiday morning:


To whom it may concern,

I work at a business near Bridge St. and Labrador St. in Waterloo. I am writing to express my support for the amendments to allow development of a mixed-use node at Northfield and Bridge. At the moment, this part of town has almost nothing commercial to support the many people who work and live in the area, and plans I have seen of the development are, if not perfect, at least working towards the goals of higher density and infill development.

As a driver, transit user and cyclist, I urge council to take into account transit, pedestrian and cycling access in this area when looking at the developers’ plans and the infrastructure needs they generate.

Most urgent is pedestrian access: there is no suitable pedestrian access to Northfield or Bridge along this property, despite the presence of GRT stops and pathway connections to residential neighbourhoods. The intersection at Bridge and Labrador is now extremely busy at rush hour, with dangerous left turns and aggressive drivers making Bridge almost impossible to get across for those on foot. The proposed development will only make this worse, so these problems must be addressed before the development is complete.

On transit, there are two GRT bus routes which serve this intersection now (31 and 35, connecting from Conestoga Mall to U of W and Uptown respectively) and in 2013 GRT plans to implement and extend 2 iXpress routes through this location, providing express access to much of the city of Waterloo and connections to future LRT.

Because of this, city council should push for more density and reduced parking for the buildings at this site. We don’t have a lot of open space to infill and this is a great opportunity to define an anchor for this area. It should not be wasted.

I have attached a map and photos to demonstrate some of the problems I have seen in the area. If the city addresses these problems promptly, this development would be a major benefit to the area. Without that support, however, I see the increased traffic becoming a major threat to my personal safety whether I am on foot or in car.

 View from Bridge St. bus stop, looking towards Labrador and Northfield.

Congestion on Bridge cuts visibility, and forces left turners from Labrador to turn blind onto Bridge. They routinely use the median as a merge lane. Southbound traffic often dives into the paved shoulder to avoid.

This makes pedestrian crossing at Labrador almost impossible, and crossing at the bus stop location necessary (but still dangerous.)

This intersection would see additional traffic from a new development and needs to be upgraded. Pedestrian access to the development needs to be addressed.

Waterloo's Great Cycling Gulf

For some years, I have been saying that we have some pretty good cycling routes in Waterloo Region, but they are too disconnected. I've been mulling a question: How do you best show the gaps in our cycling network that need attention?

To answer this question, you must define our cycling network. For instance: while I know some cyclists will brave the major arterial roads such as King, Weber, Northfield, University, and so on, I would not include the portions of those roads that don't provide any cycling infrastructure as part of my cycling network. And in fact, I go to great lengths to avoid them as unpleasant and too dangerous. In general, casual and new cyclists will also do this, unless they have no choice. A lack of alternatives may keep someone from becoming a cyclist at all.

On the other hand, parts of this city that aren't "officially" cycling routes are, in fact, very suitable for cycling-- most of our minor side streets and neighbourhoods are calm enough to be welcoming to cyclists.

I've played a bit with Google Maps, learning how to use its javascript API to visually sift through geographic information. I've focused on the City of Waterloo-- after all, Waterloo (the City) has a silver ranking for cycling friendliness and also where I do most of my commute and utility cycling, despite living just over the border in Kitchener.

I haven't worked out how to get this kind of javascript querying of Google Maps to embed nicely in Blogger, but that's okay. In the end I took information out of two maps and combined them:

• A map highlighting all minor "local" roads (on the generous assumption that they are bike-friendly enough for casual riders, even without cycling infrastructure)
• A map using Google's "Bicycling Layer" (which excludes any road-- major or minor-- without cycling infrastructure)

The result is below. I recommend you click through to see the image in all its high-res glory:



Even without zooming in, there should be one thing that's abundantly clear. Do you see it? Viciously cutting an uninterrupted swath across the entire northern corner of the city?

It's Waterloo's biggest cycling problem. It's the Great Conestoga Parkway Chasm. Like the Amazon River, the Parkway snakes its way through our city, and you take your life in your hands to ford it.

By excluding from my map anything that a casual cyclist would reject, I can reveal in stark relief just how big a problem this is for cyclists. In Waterloo, every crossing of the Parkway is an arterial road. None of them have cycling infrastructure. And they look like this:

Northfield Dr.


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King St. N


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Lexington


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University


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Enough to send your sense of self-preservation into a tizzy, and make you think about leaving two wheels behind and taking four.

Two observations to make. One: none of these routes are the kind you'd want your child biking on. And two: Lexington is the least bad of a very bad lot.

As it stands, we have a completely disconnected cycling network. For a city priding itself on its move towards complete streets, this should be Number One on its cycling improvement agenda. Fortunately, providing some small solution to this problem does appear to be on the city's radar.

With the proposed Lexington upgrade, we go from completely disconnected to one imperfect and tenuous connection across the Parkway Gulf. A step in the right direction. It must happen, as soon as possible: the Gulf is a major impediment to the adoption of cycling by young and old.

But it must also be followed by other crossing points for cyclists and pedestrians. I've been over each of these monstrous crossings on foot, and they range from unpleasant to horrifying. I can tell you what Northfield Drive is like, in January after dark as the wind and snow drives down and the speeding headlights are everywhere. I've used the Gulf and Giant River metaphors already, but for pedestrians the Parkway is also a wall.

Dear City of Waterloo council, should you read this: please remember what I've said when the Lexington improvements come before you.

Why Davenport is a good idea

I know Davenport Road pretty well. I used to live on Kingscourt, behind Conestoga Mall. You needed to have your wits about you on Davenport Road.

Davenport used to be a speedway. A twisty 1980s era 4-lane road, filled with obstacles like an overflowing Timmy's drivethrough (serving as a kind of multi-level symbolic reminder of how we're getting some pretty basic things in our life badly wrong), stopped left-turners waiting to get into the mall, and of course the cars who weave in between it all.

What it is now is being billed as Waterloo's "first complete street". Really, it's our first no-holds-barred Road Diet.

You've probably heard that term bandied about for a while now, it's been seeping into popular usage for a while. On the surface, it sounds like bald euphemism-- what is a road diet, then, but less road for cars to fit on?-- but road diets are a remarkable example of the non-intuitive nature of traffic. From less, you get more. Or at least, you get the same amount of car capacity, but you get more of other things: cycling lanes, pedestrian friendliness, safety, adherence to speed limits, visual attractiveness...

But don't take it from me. Here's Streetfilm's piece on Road Diets:



A 2-lane road with turn lanes, like new Davenport, typically faces opposition from people who think that it is going in the wrong direction when it comes to accommodating our growing traffic. But, there is data (such as Walkable's report [pdf]) which shows that road diets like this frequently maintain the amount of traffic capacity that the old road had, especially when the number of driveways and turning opportunities on the road are limited-- such as they are on Davenport.

The dieted road is slower. No question. But it's not congestion so much-- the pace of traffic self-limits better. Without an extra lane to allow passing, the pace is now set by the prudent driver. We're also getting better at designing roads that psychologically cause drivers to limit their speed. And the turn lanes still allow for good traffic flow at intersections-- the difference is intersections are no longer chicanes and obstacles in the middle of a long speedway.

So traffic is calmer, the opportunity for and severity of accidents is reduced, and the extra space can allow for cycling lanes, pedestrian refuges and plain old landscaping.

And still, initial reactions to Davenport reveal a lot of criticism and doubt. Even someone whose backyard has been driven into twice openly wishes that it was still four lanes. This underscores how intuition in urban design has really led us down the garden path-- and then caused us to dig up the garden path, replace it with a freeway, and wonder why the garden withered and died.

What road diets reveal to us in great clarity is the folly in optimizing for the car. Much of the last half-century has been based around the premise that what's good for the car is good for everyone, because everyone drives. Instead, the truth is that what's good for the car comes at the expense of just about everything else, and the incremental denial of spaces to anyone but the automobile-enabled ends up forcing everyone to use a car. Finally, when capacity for cars is reached, we end up with an urban form that punishes everyone, and with no easy fix available.

We need an urban form that enables car use, but does not optimize for it, especially on a road like Davenport which is not a major thoroughfare. 4-lane road capacity turns out to be only marginally better than a well-designed 2 lane road with proper turn facilities. That marginal improvement comes at the expense of usefulness for other modes, and of safety for all.

Oh, and hey! The new Davenport has Waterloo's first bike box! But that's a topic for another time...

Battle Won, Whither the War?

n Wednesday, Erin and I gave away our Ignite tickets because we knew that if we went, our hearts wouldn't be in it, and our eyes would be glued to our phones watching the Twitter feed out of Regional Council.

So, instead, we gave away our tickets and walked down to Regional Council, to watch a little bit of history. And we got that: we got the long, drawn out speeches, the numbing due process, the anticlimatic transition from looking-good to foregone-conclusion to it's-passed, and we had a wonderful time!

Now, it is two days later, LRT is still half a decade away, and it's time get back to our regularly scheduled lives.

Or is it?

I think it's safe to say that I've discovered a passion for a certain set of urban issues. Having taken an increasingly public stand on this major issue-- letters to the local newspaper, letters to our councilors, an opinion blog that's drawn a little attention and even stepping up in front of council to have my say-- it's nice to see this particular battle won and it's nice to relax a little. But I don't want to disengage.

So, I have a passion for... what? Urban planning? Transit? What aspect of this LRT issue drew me out of my shell so effectively, that will drive my future motivation?

The issues of how people move around our city are what interest me the most, but that describes the "what" and not the "why". I think the reason why these issues engage me is that I have a vision for the kind of place I want to live.

In this vision, destinations are nearby and people move freely. "Nearby" doesn't mean everything is up the block, but rather that you can get anywhere you need to go conveniently without assistance or planning. Being able to do this without using a car is critically important: cars have their uses and, but they are expensive and they take away from our freedom more than the freedom they give: I never feel more unencumbered than when I leave my car behind.

I would ask you to think about that for a moment. A car usually allows you to get to your destination quicker and more conveniently than any other mode of transportation, but in doing so you are so shackled to the car that you can't just go somewhere else without it. You park the car, and in doing so, you enter into a contractual obligation to return to that spot, for it is the only way you can leave.

You are also never free from the concern about what happens to your car. It could be stolen or damaged, or it could be ticketed. If you've traveled with passengers, you are probably responsible for their return as well. You can't have a drink without worrying whether it inhibits your driving ability. You usually can't leave your car parked somewhere overnight. So taking a car defines your schedule, your responsibilities, and your behaviour.

It's interesting that most people experience a sense of freedom when they get their first car, but that is often because they deal with inadequate transit, or cities that have sprawled because of car use, to the point that you can't interact with it the way you want without a car.

So to me, if you must have a car to get to your destination, you cannot move freely. Nor is anything nearby , because you live on an island where the sea can only be traversed by your car. Granted, the trip may be short, unless your car is broken or the wife has it or there's no parking or gosh traffic sure is heavy at rush hour or you have no license, in which case your destination is effectively unreachable.

When it comes to the freedom of moving around this city without a car, we really end up with only a subset of our urban area where this is possible. Transit does cover most of our city, but it's designed to provide a minimal level of service to a maximum amount of people for minimum cost. And moving away from that is going to take a long time-- LRT will not solve it in and of itself, any more than the stud frames of your house help keep the snow and wind out on their own. LRT is meant to massively reduce resistance to movement along its route, extending the area that people can tolerably reach, be it by LRT alone or by some combination of train with bus, bike and walking. And because of the way we are laid out as a city, LRT provides capacity in the zone where car-free movement will build, and build, and build. It does, however, need its supporting network of express and neighbourhood buses.

But I digress. Months of LRT proselytizing takes its toll and the LRT debate has seen a lot of points taken out of context.

I see Waterloo Region becoming an area where enough of the cities become accessible to car-free movement, and as a result, sustain a critical mass of car-free life. And that has secondary benefits: urban form becomes driven by needs that are not based on the car, and evolves to better suit people instead. Everyone, not just the automobiled elite, enjoys an independence of movement. Demand may make housing more expensive, which means more apartments and less detached homes, but people enjoy a better lifestyle because they spend much less on simply getting from one island to another.

And it forces people to deal with others face to face. A car and a suburban home allows us to abstract away the entire world, and when we rage on the road, it's because we don't perceive other drivers as real human beings. I'm certain this promotes a worldview that puts self ahead of everything, no matter the cost.

Finally, without question, a car dependent place is ugly. The infrastructure and land use patterns that support the car is physically repulsive to me.

So I see reduced car dependence as a way to transforming the environment around me. I wouldn't call myself an environmentalist though-- I haven't even touched upon air quality and health and all that jazz. I've been happier in places with worse air than KW (as unlikely as it sounds)-- downtown Toronto, where I had all the freedom that a metropass and a subway station around the corner provides, or Hong Kong, where as a teenager I could cross the city on my own for virtually nothing. The freedom of those times is indescribable. And certainly, those are metropolises, and Waterloo Region is not... but then, building a suitable transit system and changing our places to benefit non-automobile users are steps to take on the way to our becoming a major city, not things that must wait until we are.

So the things that help our environment edge away from its old, car-dependent form into a more human-friendly one, those are what drive me.