On-street bicycle lane removed

[speedog]

Fucking Nenshi....

Wait a minute...

On-street bicycle lane removed - link (http://www.metronews.ca/news/calgary/2017/10/25/calgary-bike-lane-axed-in-favour-of-on-street-parking.html) to news article.

[Gestalt]

Noone rides bicycles in Calgary.

Fucking purple man

[J-hop]

Great to see they are willing to get rid of some that don’t make sense.

Still waiting for them to remove Northland drive. Literally no one uses them.

[g-m]

remove 12 ave! They are an abortion

[rage2]

What's hilarious is that of all places that should have a bike lane, it's 1st Ave. NE. A large number of students from Langevin ride bikes to school daily, and rely on the sidewalks. The handful of times I've ridden in with our oldest to school there, we wouldn't dare use the roads and ride along the sidewalks with all the other kids. The traffic there is pretty heavy and unpredictable, single lane, uncontrolled left turns, makes it a daunting task to have good communications between drivers and cyclists.

[flipstah]

remove 12 ave! They are an abortion

YES, please.

[88CRX]

Until 12th Ave is fixed... 'fuckin Nenshi'.

[sneek]

Interesting decision...I live in the area and I didn't know about it until I saw it. Lukes does need more parking but I am not sure this is wise because many residents/students use that path to get to and from Edmonton trail's bike lane.

[Manhattan]

They've put in one way bike lanes on 14th and 15th Ave. There's a chance those will replace the 12th Ave bike lanes and still make the cycle track work.

[born2workoncars]

remove 12 ave! They are an abortion


:rofl:

Did you mean aberration or abhorrent?

[JRSC00LUDE]

:rofl:

Did you mean aberration or abhorrent?

Abomination?

[flipstah]

Arboration?

[ExtraSlow]

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-ban-the-bike-how-cities-made-a-huge-mistake-in-promoting-cycling
Cities make a huge mistake promoting cycling

[J-hop]

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-ban-the-bike-how-cities-made-a-huge-mistake-in-promoting-cycling
Cities make a huge mistake promoting cycling

Pretty much how I feel about them even as what I would consider an avid cyclist. They increase pollution by causing congestion. They negatively impact businesses along bike routes by decreasing accessibility and at the end of the day benefit an extremely small minority.

The garbage you always hear is “people need to change and stop driving”. Yea, the guy living in seton should be biking 30+km to work every day. Thanks but with that logic I’m surprised you can tie your bike shoes in the morning.

[suntan]

"Mamils". Heh.

Also I'm glad somebody besides me noticed that it's all rich white guys that keep wanting this shit.

[buh_buh]

Coming from a guy that uses the downtown cycletrack daily, I don't think it should be a on congested street like 12th Ave. They'll probably get rid of it eventually in lieu of the ones they put on 14th and 15th going in opposite directions. I'd have no issues with that.

[hurrdurr]

Coming from a guy that uses the downtown cycletrack daily, I don't think it should be a on congested street like 12th Ave. They'll probably get rid of it eventually in lieu of the ones they put on 14th and 15th going in opposite directions. I'd have no issues with that.

I walk several blocks up 12th ave every day and the amount of cyclist is hilariously low. One day I seen a sign that said there was over 800 cyclist that day, must have been a glitch or Nenshi propaganda.

[Xtrema]

Coming from a guy that uses the downtown cycletrack daily, I don't think it should be a on congested street like 12th Ave. They'll probably get rid of it eventually in lieu of the ones they put on 14th and 15th going in opposite directions. I'd have no issues with that.

12th make sense because 14th and 15th got too many residential parking.

As I have said many times before, it should be extended east to west end to end completely and it should not create that BS land shuffle in front of the school.

Who cares if it's used in winter or not.


The garbage you always hear is “people need to change and stop driving”. Yea, the guy living in seton should be biking 30+km to work every day. Thanks but with that logic I’m surprised you can tie your bike shoes in the morning.

The change in habit is to not living in Seton at all. Urban crawl is too expensive.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I literally moved because of that bike lane, it was not a decision I took lightly. I gave it the one year for "evaluation" and when they decided to keep it, I moved out. It was that bad.


12th make sense because 14th and 15th got too many residential parking.

12th ave makes zero sense. 10th ave already has a bike lane, and has much fewer stop lights so it was much preferable, especially given the incredibly small amount of bike traffic. 12th ave sees around 20,000 vehicles a day, and it is reduced to 1 lane in parts to accommodate what is usually 0-200 bikes a day instead of smooth flowing traffic for around 15,000 more vehicles. They also completely botched the parking situation, have jogging lanes, and extremely unsafe turning lanes. It's a fucking disaster. People are always illegally parked on it too because the bike lanes removed a huge amount of parking. My gym was 10 blocks away and sometimes took me 30+ minutes to get there instead of 3-4 mins. If there was a Flames game I couldn't even get out of my area.

[buh_buh]

14th and 15th already exists since they turned everything into a one way.
And the counters based on what I've seen are actually accurate. When I come in the mornings, I see the counter move up one number when I ride past and anywhere between #40-60, and on my way home depending on how nice it is 900-1000.

[Xtrema]

I literally moved because of that bike lane, it was not a decision I took lightly. I gave it the one year for "evaluation" and when they decided to keep it, I moved out. It was that bad.



12th ave makes zero sense. 10th ave already has a bike lane, and has much fewer stop lights so it was much preferable, especially given the incredibly small amount of bike traffic. 12th ave sees around 20,000 vehicles a day, and it is reduced to 1 lane in parts to accommodate what is usually 0-200 bikes a day instead of smooth flowing traffic for around 15,000 more vehicles. They also completely botched the parking situation, have jogging lanes, and extremely unsafe turning lanes. It's a fucking disaster. People are always illegally parked on it too because the bike lanes removed a huge amount of parking. My gym was 10 blocks away and sometimes took me 30+ minutes to get there instead of 3-4 mins. If there was a Flames game I couldn't even get out of my area.

10th does make more sense but again it's a half ass design that ruined it.


14th and 15th already exists since they turned everything into a one way.
And the counters based on what I've seen are actually accurate. When I come in the mornings, I see the counter move up one number when I ride past and anywhere between #40-60, and on my way home depending on how nice it is 900-1000.

14th and 15th are BS IMO. Too many 4 way stops going east/west.

[Mitsu3000gt]

14th and 15th already exists since they turned everything into a one way.
And the counters based on what I've seen are actually accurate. When I come in the mornings, I see the counter move up one number when I ride past and anywhere between #40-60, and on my way home depending on how nice it is 900-1000.

I've seen people out there jumping on the counters, and riding their bikes in circles over the counters haha - this was especially prevalent during the evaluation process when it was in the news.

In fact the total number of riders in the entire downtown core over a whole peak month do not equal a single day's average vehicle traffic on 12th ave when all the lanes were usable. Also by the cities count, of all the people entering/exiting downtown over the course of a year, around 2-3% are on bikes and a 75% reduction in traffic flow through is made on 12th ave to accommodate whatever portion of that 2-3% are 12th ave riders. I am very much in favor of bike lanes in general, my problem is specifically with implementation. With 12th ave what we see is a grossly disproportionate disruption made to the traffic and the surrounding area in general to accommodate what ends up being a statistically insignificant amount of riders compared to vehicles, and those riders by and large are only out 4-5 months of the year and 5 days of those weeks.

[J-hop]

The change in habit is to not living in Seton at all. Urban crawl is too expensive.

Oh yea tell that to the family that can’t afford to live closer lol.

[kertejud2]

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-ban-the-bike-how-cities-made-a-huge-mistake-in-promoting-cycling
Cities make a huge mistake promoting cycling

the direct economic burden associated with cycling megaprojects is staggering...

...is spending 120 million euros on 9,000 new bicycle parking spots alone.

To put this in perspective:

If Lawrence Solomon's company wanted to build 9,000 underground parking spots where they are (underground because that's what Amsterdam is building for bikes), it would cost them $450M to build and $50M a year to maintain. And this is only based on costs of GTA hospitals where the land acquisition costs are still relatively cheap compared to a dense, urban centre like Toronto, nevermind one like Amsterdam. This also doesn't take into account the exponential cost increases of building underground, as these costs would be based on an average underground lot and there are none this big in Ontario. Hell, 9,000 spots would put it third for parking structures total behind Pearson Airport and Canada's Wonderland, both of which are above ground with ample land to build. For comparison sake, Chinook Centre has 1,200 underground parking spots.

http://canadianparking.ca/the-high-cost-of-hospital-parking/

If you want to talk about direct economic burdens of a form of transportation, then the car will lose every time. Especially in an urban setting.


As for the health problems cyclists face, well, they have studied it (not that Lawrence Solomon cares about studies, he works for a climate-change denying think tank. Not just 'sure the climate is changing but human's aren't causing it' type of denier, but the 'don't make policy based on the environment because we aren't doing anything bad and nothing is changing, period' type of denier) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/cycling-is-good-for-you-even-when-the-air-is-thick-with-smog-stu/

The new study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, compared the effects of both raised pollution and active travel on 'all-cause mortality' – how likely you are to die for any reason in a given period. And the evidence suggests that the benefits of exercise, even in an environment filled with noxious gases, outweighs the problems brought on by no exercise at all.



In a user-pay or market economy, where users pay for the services they consume, bicycle lanes would be non-starters outside college campuses and other niche settings. If roads were tolled to recover the cost of asphalt and maintenance, no cyclist could bear the burden he foists on society. The cyclist has been put on the dole, made a taker rather than a giver to society.

One of the main reasons they don't do this (cities have been looking at user-pay models for decades) is because they can't afford to build the transportation options required when low-income people can't afford to drive anymore. If roads were tolled to recover the cost of building and maintaining them, very few people could afford to operate a car, especially the further away from their jobs they live. Why would anybody believe this crap. People already bitch about gas/road taxes and they already don't pay for this stuff. Yeah sure, bill everybody. Start with an inner city congestion charge ($5 per day) and then toll the major commuter routes ($1 each to travel on Deerfoot, Glenmore, Anderson, Memorial, Stony and Crowchild) and if that's received well move onto all the other streets individually (likely a neighborhood charge would be easiest for residential streets). Then when the total money is collected, adjust as needed to cover the costs. The gas taxes will be maintained to cover for roads that aren't used to pay for them (i.e. $1.1B to upgrade Highway 63 and maintain it). Enforcement costs would also need to be considered, not cheap. But drivers have long been willing to set up money losing agencies to tax and register bicycles so I don't think that will be an issue.

The cost for current cycling levels to recover the capital costs for the Cycle Track Network would occur long before any capital costs were recovered from driving, and that is before you need to pay for capital upgrades (like say, Crowchild over the Bow). Wouldn't take long to have cycling be a much cheaper option for basically everyone except for the wealthy inner city drivers who don't need to use major roads very much.


As for Solomon, he's still pretty upset that London is pushing for its "Ultra Low Emission Zone" in, and Paris has their 'odd and even' driving days and is phasing out gas cars by 2030. Hurts his bottom line.

[J-hop]

That’s kind of a weird study. Cycling in smog vs no exercise at all? How is that relevant?

On days I cycle I don’t work out and vice versa. It’s not cycle or be sedentary!?!?

[kertejud2]

10th does make more sense but again it's a half ass design that ruined it.


More importantly, roads wouldn't give them 10th. It was 11th or 12th, and 12th made more sense with CT (buses on the right, cycle track on the left).

[kertejud2]

On days I cycle I don’t work out and vice versa. It’s not cycle or be sedentary!?!?

For many people, yes. Many people do not exercise. For many their cycling commute is all the exercise they consistently get, and those are people who are on average more active than most anyway.

In case you didn't know, the UK has an obesity problem just like the U.S. Just like Canada. Brought on in large part by a lack of activity, overeating, exacerbated by a sedentary lifestyle.