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Last week, Bike Ottawa pointed out three projects that all involve new bike lanes. One is in Barrhaven, one is south of South Keys, in Blossom Park and one is in the older part of Nepean, along Meadowlands.
Let’s have a quick look at all three projects. I am not saying they’re not good, but I am not excited about them either.
The projects are all on line and you will find the links enclosed. However, once the projects are finished, the City’s pages will likely be removed so if you read this on a later date, they may not work anymore.
Barrhaven – Highbury Park Drive
There is gradually more cycling infrastructure coming to Barrhaven. It is really a shame that this community, that is only roughly 6 x 6 km, is not a cycling paradise. It could have been if it had been planned properly for active transportation and be one of the top cycling areas in all of Ontario, if not Canada. Now, it requires a lot of retrofitting at a higher cost. But things are changing.
A fairly modest improvement is a bike lane that connects Greenbank’s multi use pathway to the pathways that run a bit away from, and parallel to, Greenbank on the east side. I don’t think this will be a controversial project as there is not a single home on this stretch of road: no driveways, no bus stops, no slip lanes. As it is not entirely clear from the drawings, I asked the project manager last week if there will be a curb cut to enter Burnt Oak Drive via a modal filter at the east end where the bike lane peters out. I have not received an answer yet.
Blossom Park – Bridle Path Drive
Across from the south entrance to South Keys Mall at Dazé Street, you’ll find a road called Bridle Path Drive. Dazé Street cuts along the edge of the mall property towards Cahill Drive at Bank.
Unfortunately, the slip lanes on Bridle Path stops the bike lane from being painted all the way to the traffic lights. That is a bummer, because going north, you’ll have a slip lane (a smart channel really, as the roughly 70 degrees angle towards the perpendicular traffic is different). On your northbound way towards South Keys, you will still have car traffic on both your left and right hand for about 25 meters.
This is an area where right turning traffic will cross your path. Given that many people feel that traffic is getting more aggressive and fast, that is not a desirable design to encourage cycling. This design has cost a person their life at the bike lane in front of city hall, when hit by a driver. I think I would stick to the curb and cross at the pedestrian lights instead.
An alternative very roundabout way to avoid this would be to take the pathway next to the O-Train, loop back after you have crossed over Hunt Club and take a bit of Saw Mill Creek pathway to the underpass at the South Keys LRT train station.
If you look carefully, you can see some green rectangles, called super sharrows, crossing the intersection. In my opinion, that is pretty useless, for they have no function. I’d say save that money on the super sharrows.
Nepean – Meadowlands Drive
Meadowlands runs from Woodroffe, crosses Merivale and Fisher and ends at Hogs Back Falls. It could be the perfect, fully separated cross Nepean spine cycling route. There is tons of space and the two car lanes are so wide (5.5 m each), that in could nearly be a tight four lane road. Fortunately it isn’t.
But because it is so wide, speeding is a serious problem there. There used to be a speeding camera in front of St. Gregory school, but obviously with Bill 60 in place, that camera has been switched off. I noticed when driving there, people often barely drove 35 km/h.
The current maximum speed is 40 km/h but who drives that? Even I have a hard time adhering to it when I drive there once in a while and I try hard, especially when there is someone sitting on my tail. Residents have complained about speeding, so it was decided that adding bike lanes will likely bring down the speed on the stretch between Fisher and Chesterton Drive.
To be honest, I think that using cycling lanes as traffic calming devices is not a good starting point for creating cycling lanes. But let’s put that aside for now.
The red paved bulb outs will be removed. I think that is a bit unfortunate as they create more of an angle for drivers to enter a property. I have suggested to the project manager that they leave them in, but create ride-over bulb outs (see below), saving some money too. This way, you create a better angle for drivers to see a cyclist on their right when turning into the parking lots.
The design looks promising, with some parking removed. Few people park already on the road in the first place as there are mostly single family homes on the west half of that part of Meadowlands. There are several towers at the west end towards Merivale, but they have their own parking spaces. Closer to Deer Park and Fisher are townhouses and several mid rise buildings, with ample parking space.
Several entrances to the Minto owned rental unit parking lots will get concrete continuous sidewalks, functioning somewhat as a speed bump and giving off a signal that you are entering a slow zone.
There will also be a shared loading zone. I am not sure why that is, but I am guessing it means as a cyclist, you ‘ll find Purolator and Fedex vehicles in your lane, forcing you to get back into traffic. Plus, delivery vehicles stop wherever they want anyway. Not a good idea as we saw on McCarthy, where they recently ripped out the new traffic calming infrastructure.
Then there is the issue of the bus stops. There are 15 bus stops along this 2 x 1800 meter stretch of Meadowlands, meaning that bus operators have to pull over into the bike lane. From my own experience, that usually works, but once in a while a bus operator underestimates my speed, which is rarely over 20 km/h by the way, and gradually wedges me between the bus and the curb, thinking they can easily stop in front of me, likely forgetting I actually move too. It happened this summer. On Meadowlands no less.
Another unfortunate part is the missing 100 meter stretch between Chesterton and Grant Carman, east of Merivale. Grant Carman was recently repaved and has nice wide bike lanes.
Then there is the issue of dooring, with a bike lane hugging the parked cars on the driver’s side along one stretch of about 100 meters.
Meadowlands’ Elephant in the room
But the elephant in the room is the provincial Conservative Bill 60. In the plans for Meadowlands, left turning lanes will be removed so that the bike lanes can continue longer. (Bike lanes do eventually disappear for a bit anyway near intersections, usually when there is a bus stop). Unfortunately, under Bill 60, the left turning lanes can not be removed anymore, so this means there might not be enough space for three lanes and two bike lanes. That is 3 x 3.50m plus 2 x 1.80 for the bike lanes for a total of 14.10 meters. But there are only 11 meters available. The likely solution will be stopping the bike lane paint before the two lanes become three lanes, and have hundreds of meters of bike lanes missing.
With all those lane interruptions, it becomes a bit of a Swiss cheese and I am really not sure if that defeats the purpose of increased safety for cyclists.
I have asked the project manager for clarification Tuesday last week.
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Here are the three projects. You have until December 19 to respond. The drawings for Highbury Park Drive, Bridle Path Drive and Meadowlands Drive in PDF. Find a bit more plus the contact person here.
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