New Bike Tracks on Greenfield Ave

Reading Time: 6 minutes

It took about half a decade, but finally the construction in the Colonel By Drive, Main Street and Greenfield Ave area is pretty much complete, bar some landscaping and deficiency corrections. What has changed for cycling?

Sewers on Greenfield

Sewer replacement is going to be a big thing in the next several decades. Much of Ottawa’s older suburbs need new underground infrastructure: the older pre-war areas and even 1950’s and ’60’s suburban areas already will see continued work. There is serious concern among several citizens though that the city doesn’t set aside enough money, but the City is sending messages not to worry (until after the next election I guess).

Greenfield Ave before (Google Screenshot) and after (my photo)

The reason for the Main and Greenfield area undertaking was indeed the replacement of the combined sewers with separate storm and sanitary sewers, replacement of sections of older watermains and reconstruction of the roadways. This, as every councillor and cyclist knows, is the moment to add bike tracks to a road, because our next chance will be three generations from now.

Signalised intersection at Main St. and Colonel By Drive

If you travelled through the area, you may have noticed that the city also built a signalised intersection with separate cycling signals where Main Street meets Colonel By Drive and Echo Drive. This work already started in 2021. I wrote about it in September 2022 here: Colonel By and Main intersection.

a birds eye view of an intersection showing new cycling infrastructure at a T intersection with an extra prarllel road making the intersection somewhat complicated. a ram brings cyclists and pedestrians from a lower level along the canal to the intersection

Bike tracks and Multi Use Pathways

I won’t bore you with all the details but the good news is that the city added bike tracks to Greenfield Ave and on Main St. The northern part of Main St. towards Colonel By Drive had a missing link in protected cycling infrastructure. I seem to remember the reason was that there was not enough space for separate tracks when earlier work was done on Main St., but somehow the city made it (almost) work this time.

Bonus: no right through red

Short raised bike track is missing

But why did the City skip these handful of south bound meters, coming from Colonel By heading into Main St? Space. You want (car) lanes before and after the intersection to be aligned. If they are not, that difference in alignment is called a ‘skew’. If that skew is wide and happens over a short distance and there is little space, you don’t want a curb on the right, so that cars can veer to the right; this is why I suspect there is no raised bike track.

With just paint for a bike lane in that spot (actually not even, according to the geometry below), drivers can use the bike lane if needed to pass left-turning traffic on the right side. I am not too worried for that particular bit, as I don’t think speeds will be high. I hope I won’t be eating my words in the future though. I strongly suggest you don’t hug the curb there, as it make drivers assume they can squeeze by, pushing you in the gutter.

A technical geometry drawing of part of a street showing a missing piece of cycling infrastructure that has been solved with a bike symbol only. the affected area is shown in a read rectangle — A small missing piece of bike track on Main just off Colonel By/Echo Drive

Raised bike tracks on Greenfield Ave

If you look at the older preconstruction images, you can see that the Greenfield road space was incredibly wide, 12 meters from curb to curb, or 40 feet. Twelve meters is about the width of nearly four car lanes, so there was enough space to build both raised cycle tracks and parking bays. This was all before the Conservative Party of Ontario vetoed that lanes could be converted to bike lanes recently.

An odd little concrete lip creating a trip hazard that has probably (hopefully) been removed by now

The city’s project web page shows some stats which I copy here:

1908: age of the oldest watermain (fun fact, that year a man with the awesome name ‘Napoléon Champagne’ was mayor of Ottawa).
2.1 km of new watermain
2.1 km of new sanitary sewer
2.0 km of new storm sewer
4.6 km of electrical, community and utility ducts installed
1.5 km of bike tracks and MUP (approx.)

6273 tonnes of base lift asphalt placed
3174 metres of concrete curb installed
6744 m2 concrete sidewalks built
530 tons asphalt for cycle tracks and multi-use pathways placed

The cost of the work

$46.5M the approved budget:

$226,000 support from Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) COVID-19 Resilience Stream

The current and ongoing main Greenfield-Main-Hawthorne et al. reconstruction contract, and associated costs is estimated at approximately $42.3 million of the overall budget. (From: City of Ottawa project page)

A cross walk crosses a bike track and a road. A post with a sign has been placed in an awkward location, making it nearly invisible for cyclists — I am not sure if this is the wisest choice of a location for a sign. This could be a hazard

How much does that bike infrastructure cost?

I did some fun back of the envelope math on a cold Saturday afternoon after shovelling the driveway at -30C windchill (I was still overdressed). I googled the cost of asphalt per ton and it is anywhere between $100-$200 per ton according to Google. Let’s take the 530 ton of asphalt for the bike tracks at CAD 200 per ton = CAD 106,000.

A parking or bus bay in the road shown as part of the new road configuration

Let’s divide that asphalt by the length of pathways that was built: CAD 106,000/1500 meters = CAD 70 per linear meter of asphalt. Assuming the path is about 2 meters wide on average, that is CAD 35 per m2. Of course, there is also crushed stone underneath and curbs to be built and asphalt to be compacted, so that CAD 35 is not the only cost. And remember, this is a very rough bit of math.

Still, on a 46.5 million dollars budget, the cost of bike tracks is peanuts. Even if the cost of the asphalt is only 10% of the entire cost of a bike track, it would be circa 1 million dollars for the bike track or 1/42.5 = just over 2% of the total cost. And look what you got for that 2%. Every city should spent that extra 2% for the enjoyment of several generations to come.

Part of a bike track and sidewalk is shown in front of a row of houses — Note the gradual slope from the driveway towards the road. Great for draining the driveway, not so great for pedestrians in winter. Walking on a slippery slope is a challenge

What did all that digging mean for cycling?

There are several cycling improvements. Quite neatly, there is a connection from the canal to the Lees MUP now that gets you on to the pathway that runs along the LRT tracks towards several LRT stations.

On Echo Drive/Colonel By Drive there is now a signalised protected intersection and a new multi use pathway between Immaculata High School and Hawthorne Avenue.
On Greenfield Avenue (Main Street to King Edward Avenue) are now new raised cycle tracks.
On Main Street, from Hawthorne Avenue to Colonel By Drive, you will find a rebuilt protected signalized intersection at Main Street and Greenfield Avenue and new raised cycle tracks (except that one bit)
On Lees Avenue from Greenfield Avenue to the Confederation line (Line 1) pathway, you will discover a new multi-use pathway connection link. A protected intersection at Lees and Greenfield would be a further improvement, but the LRT berm might be a serious hindrance for that.

a geometric design shows an intersection with a missing cycling link — The Greenfield and Lees intersection could use a protected intersection for better connection (where the green arrows are). Ideally, this would have been part of the new road configuration, but alas

Like I mentioned before, the protected intersection with Colonel By has been there for a while already, but it was all part of that project. If you can’t really visualise where all this cycling infrastructure is, here is an overview.

A map shows where the new cycling infrastructure was built

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New Bike Tracks on Greenfield Ave – Hans on the Bike