Margaret Avenue road diet

I was tweeting away about news that the City of Kitchener is going to road diet Margaret Avenue, so the Kitchener Post ended up interviewing me about it. All they got was opinion, though. I had to wait until Wednesday night to get some fact.

The public information session was sparsely attended (maybe a dozen or so attendees?) and there weren't a lot of surprises either. In fact, it's pretty standard stuff:

• Margaret's too wide, it drives up speeds
• Margaret's traffic volume is fairly low (though significant for a road of its type)
• To make the corridor safer and more usable, Margaret will be repainted to adjust lanes, provide parking and designate cycling lanes.

 And it's really nice to be able to say that's "pretty standard stuff", isn't it?

I spoke to city representatives and we pitched a few ideas back and forth. I've wanted this region to be building out more segregated cycling infrastructure, to grow the number of people on bikes from the vast population of those who are just uncomfortable in traffic. Margaret is getting plain jane cycling lanes though, on the outside of parked cars. And I will begrudgingly admit that given the low budget for the treatment, the high density of driveways and the width available, this is probably the best achievable option.

Still, they have to keep hearing interest about it. Tidbit that came up: Block Line is apparently getting some bike tracks of some sort.

Pictures below. Some last parting notes:

• Sharrows were discussed for crossing points where the pictures show a gap in line painting. Hopefully they will be added: anything that emphasizes the presence of a cycling right of way to driveway and side street users would be beneficial.
• Bike boxes were bounced back and forth. We saw no suitable point on this road given the lack of cycling viability of Victoria, and the low levels of traffic.
• Road diet usually involves the removal of lanes. In this case, we have a road that is wider than it needs to be, but only in one or two small places (near intersections and especially over the bridge) are there any actual lane removals. Still, the principles stand.

And on the lighter side:

• One of the reps wondered if I had a motorcycle, since I was carrying my new Bern bicycle helmet with me. I told him no, but it's a statement of what I think about riding in traffic. (Also, I love the style.)
• Two elderly gentlemen were quietly grumbling next to me (and my bicycle helmet) about why the heck don't they just put in four lanes and let the traffic flow?? Those cyclists should use the back streets! Despite the fact that Margaret is a minor road and could triple its traffic level and still be well-served by 2 lanes, I bit my tongue. But it puts the generational attitude gap into depressingly sharp relief.

Please excuse the fuzziness in some of these photos. Crap cellphone camera + people in the way.

Union southward

At Guelph St. (in case you didn't realize)

Rounding the bend towards Wellington

Wellington, Breithaupt, Victoria

Traffic levels of ~6000 vehicles a day - road diet has been applied to 15-20K roads

High speed levels that we can bring down by tightening lanes.

A year of Waterloons

Didn't even notice it go by. A year of Waterloons.

Erin and I set this up in March 2011, to talk about our combined local interests. I've had perhaps more to say, but it's interesting to note that one of Erin's posts is the second most popular.

A year ago, we were in the thick of a community debate on LRT. My motivation was to have an outlet I could express (and sometimes sort out) my thoughts on those issues, but we both agreed there were plenty of interesting topics beyond just transit: urbanism, sustainable development, art and gardening have all graced these pages.

The culmination of the LRT discussion was in June, when with Erin's support I gave regional council our story and our support for the project. On the eve of the vote, I wrote up some reflections (titled, unsurprisingly, Reflections on the Eve) which Mike Farwell, then with 570 News, used as his opening for his radio show the following day.

In it, I made a point-- to others, sure, but really to myself-- that LRT has galvanized civic engagement, and there are some of us who it brought into the public discourse. And now that we were here, we could remain engaged.

It's something that I've kept in mind since then. I've been in touch with the city and regional councils about more issues than just LRT, and I'm now contributing some of my time to TriTAG. Twitter has put me in touch with a pretty wide assortment of like-minded (and sometimes not) people, as well as a number of our councilors.

So, that's a year (and change). Thanks for reading, and here's to another year!

By the numbers:


Total posts: 44 (counting this one.)
Total page views: 5508


Most popular posts:

It's the System, stupid!

Dec 8, 2011, 5 comments

483 Pageviews

Art in the online comment forums Mar 25, 2011, 9 comments 217 Pageviews

Waterloo's Great Cycling Gulf Aug 19, 2011                   207 Pageviews

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.

Cask Ale makes a (brief) appearance in Waterloo

This post is a change from the usual fare.

I have a confession: I am a massive beer geek, and a homebrewer. As such, the latter helps me deal with a fact that affects the former: that Ontario, and to a greater degree Kitchener-Waterloo, are backwards when it comes to quality craft-brewed suds. We've seen some good progress in the fight for good beer in Ontario, but KW took a major step backwards when the Castle on King closed in 2008.

I am a big fan of something called Cask Ale (also known as "real ale" in certain parts of the world, notably those where CAMRA holds sway). Actually, it's not so much a style of beer so much as an aspect of its production and serving. Cask ales undergo secondary fermentation in, and are served directly from, the casks that give them their name. These containers, once made of wood but now usually stainless steel or plastic, are not force-carbonated like normal beer kegs. Instead the beer naturally carbonates by the action of live yeast. They are usually served by hand-pump ("beer engine") or gravity feed (directly from the cask).

To the neophyte, cask beer tastes warmer and flatter than refrigerated, force-carbonated, filtered beer. However, the reason why Erin and I seek out cask ale is that it is unequaled in flavour. If you care about how your beer tastes, you owe it to yourself to seek out cask ale and try it. And don't be put off when the waitron snaps its gum at you and drawls, "D'ya know it's warm and flat, right?"

Down the highway, Toronto is becoming a hotbed for cask ale, with a growing number of establishments that will have a cask of something available at least part of the time. Personal favourites like the legendary Bar Volo and C'est What have led the way-- I highly recommend either if you find yourself downtown on Yonge or Front.

Closer to home, the Woolwich Arrow in Guelph usually has two or three different casks at any time, and Gambrinus in London has popped onto my radar. But Waterloo Region is home to no cask-serving establishment that I know of. As previously mentioned, the late lamented Castle would often serve cask, but we have been without Harold's cask ale stewardship for over three years now.

But, this past weekend, cask ale made a Waterloo appearance. One day only, the Perimeter Institute Black Hole Bistro hosted Bask in the Cask, a ticketed event which featured casked product from Grand River Brewing (Curmudgeon IPA), Muskoka Brewing (Double Chocolate & Cranberry Stout), the ever-improving Flying Monkeys (Netherworlds Cascadian dark IPA) and Stonehammer (Coffee Stout, and a Maple Red Ale.) Of the offerings, the Curmudgeon and the Maple Red were standouts, but every beer was interesting. And the event was well attended, with over 100 people willing to pay $25 for 4 8oz samples.

Unfortunately, even as I asked around, none of the brewers could tell me about establishments willing to carry cask.

And there's a reason, unfortunately. Casks' shelf-life may be in the order of a couple of months, but once tapped they need to be consumed within a few short days... and that's with the bartender taking certain end-of-day precautions to keep the beer from spoiling. That's because the cask isn't sealed... air is drawn into the cask as beer is drawn out, and oxygen (as well as airborne microbes) are death to beer.

In fact, that's a part of casks' charm. Their character does evolve over the lifetime of the cask, as the beer is a living, changing entity. But as a bartender, you need to be able to serve it out fast enough, and you need to know how to handle it. And these are not trivial things.

Still, change is afoot. Oncask may not have an active website, but they are actively promoting beer served "on cask in Ontario" (get it?) They have a very active account on twitter (@oncask) and encourage you to follow the hashtag #oncask to get the latest on who is serving what.

On the local front, I'm pretty sure we could see a number of places be willing to experiment with casks, if enough people start asking them about it. I plan on leaning hard on Beertown when they open up-- one does not call oneself a "beer town" without also being a justifiable prime beer spot, unless one wishes to invite criticism and mockery.

But I suspect that one of the local craft-beer-friendly watering holes (Kickoff? Borealis? Lancaster Smokehouse?) are going to clue in to the fact that they could create a unique draw for a small, but growing, number of beer drinkers by offering up the occasional cask. And when they do, Oncask will be there to help them get their message out.

And I will be first in line.

Between a rock and a hard place

Did you know that Guelph Transit revamped its entire route structure on January 1st? I have been hearing tidbits about the pain that this redesign has caused, and the Mercury chronicles the changes with articles [1] [2] [3], editorials and oh! the opinions! [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Here in Waterloo region, we should pay attention. Grand River Transit will face the need to revamp part or all of its network over the next decade. With twice the ridership as GT and active expansion in routes and ridership expected, GRT needs to move away its current hub-and-spoke design, and towards a decentralized, grid-based system.
 
Reboot the System


There are two big strategies to cutting out existing bus routes. Guelph has demonstrated one: go cold turkey and simply shift buses around, and damn the consequences.

A second strategy is to starve existing routes by first providing more attractive service. This is one of the ideas behind the GRT express bus plan: a roughly grid-like network of limited-stop buses, with LRT along the corridor of heaviest demand, which will run regularly, at decent frequency, and provide quicker cross-town travel. These will draw riders away from some of the lower-frequency neighbourhood wanderers we have accumulated over so many years, allow those resources to eventually be shifted.

Still, Guelph reveals a problem that we will also face: in a community that is underserved by transit, any attempt to rationalize routes will cause pain. The reason for this is that existing transit users have trip needs that already cluster along our existing routes. Those who have simple trip needs that could be easily served by a grid network may not use transit simply because the current network doesn't provide.

Crazy Eights

So in shifting towards a more efficient, intuitive network that can draw greater ridership, there will be pain for existing users. GRT Route 8 [pdf] is an interesting example to look at. This is an impenetrable double-loop passing through the downtown terminal, and even after almost 20 years, I still need to refer to the route map-- or more recently, blindly rely on Google Maps' directions-- to have any idea if it will get me where I need to go. It has bizarre mid-loop terminations at certain times of the day, leaving confused riders stranded.

And yet, it serves certain corridors where nothing else does (Weber St. in Waterloo, and the Belmont Village corridor, to name a couple) and happens to provide direct trip options for both of these areas to the University of Waterloo and Laurier. So despite its incredible unintuitive opaqueness, it's fairly popular among existing transit users. Even with better bus service (12) along Westmount, and new University Avenue express in 2013, fixing a route like the 8 is daunting because it will leave dense areas along Weber and the entire Belmont Village area unserved.

Horse precedes Cart

Making this kind of network alteration palatable to transit users will require that they are presented with useful options first. To do that, we must provide more service, overlaying the new routes on top of the old, before we can reallocate the old routes' resources.

More service will require more funding, and the expectation that fare-box recover will lag as a result of higher subsidies. In fact, any reasonable transit growth strategy will probably see low fare-box recovery rates until new ridership catches up to the very system improvements that attract them!

Tough Love?

So if existing transit users' needs are the "rock", regional council's recent decision to aim for 50% fare-box recovery presents a "hard place". And our transit planners are stuck between them.

I know I've harped on this senseless, counterproductive decision before, but it smacks of politics winning out over the region's needs. The region still says it wants to triple the transit share of an ever growing number of trips within two decades.


But after making a series of high-profile moves to improve transit, council decided to smack transit around a little as if they were scared to show too much favouritism to one particular child. To "keep it in its place".

It will only hold us all back.

TriTAG: Recent trends favour LRT

I have a post on the TriTAG blog, in response to last week's media pieces which tried to construct a case against LRT from recent trends which tend to support LRT, or show evidence of LRT plans already having a positive effect.

Read it.