Joborule
Active Member
Probably won't happen until West Village development becomes a thing, but would be nice for that location to have a underpass for the pathway. Therefore there's no conflict with the trains that go by.
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Calgary Bike Lanes and Bike Paths
- Thread starter Cowtown
- Start date
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Walk Or Cycle Instead Of Driving, Urges Ford Boss
Spearheading a “park your car” campaign Ford Europe president Stuart Rowley says the world would be a better place if more people gave up driving and walked and cycled instead.
www.forbes.com
Ford has entered the chat.
Edit: As someone who is switching jobs and about to start taking transit/biking to work, I can tell you first hand my mentality towards transportation has changed.
lemongrab
Active Member
I think it's a little beyond the main areas of contamination concern, but the scale of the clean up may be so large I think it's worth considering some pretty dramatic changes to the hole area. It might not be too crazy to trench the CP tracks from about Crowchild to just east of 14 Street (more ideally just east of 11 St SW, but the city seems close to building another underpass there and there is more adjacent development).
My rudimentary understanding is that they may haul away thousands of tonnes of earth for treatment, that will also need to be replaced. It's a drop in the bucket, but digging a CP trench might create a hundred tonnes of replacement.
18 St could then have a level crossing into WV, as well as this bike path.
Also realign and trench/tunnel Bow Trails to run to 4 + 5 Avenues, leaving a much wider riverside park/pathway system. 9 Ave becomes a 2-way street with a level intersection with 14 St, which can bloom into a Main Street from ~8 Ave southward.
Begrudgingly accept 4th and 5th as overbuilt car-havens - though I think this reduce congestion from people traversing 9th to 5th Ave), but it would open up 6 Ave for a cycle-track+improved sidewalks from George C King bridge to 11 St SW.
darwink
Senior Member
Down 5-10 metres (current containment wall is 8 metres) over an area of approximately 72,000 square metres. The volume of contaminated soil is estimated at 270k cubic meters, but the amount of soil moved to get at that 270k could be much higher (350-700k). It is a large enough volume that it makes sense to build a temporary treatment plant for the 3-5 years necessary (especially since the disposal option was the most expensive).
Anyways: contamination does not reach the mainline of the CPR.
lemongrab
Active Member
I'm just saying the scale of the project will be so massive that you might as well dream big and take the opportunity to fix everything you can...it's a pretty rare opportunity to have a totally clean slate with such a big/central parcel. It would be a shame to spend a billion+ dollars and still end up almost totally surrounded by hostile/impenetrable barriers
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Just remember that CPR owns their land and cannot be bought out or forced to move, and they have been very clear they have no interest in moving and are not playing nice with the city lately. It would be awesome to try and fix parts of the tracks, but I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon.
This is only going to increase as time goes on...partly because of people's concern about the environment, but probably more so due to costs. The cost of owning and maintaining vehicles keeps going up, and even when we switch to electricity, the costs are still going to be high. Many will be trying to go car free, but the trend I think we'll see coming is toward having one car. I mean the thing is, cars are very handy. I love cycling and walking and love that I can cycle to work, but I won't be giving up my car yet. It's too darn convenient at this point in my life. I just won't use it much, and we are thinking of dropping down to one car once my wife's car is past its prime. Right now it's paid for and is mostly parked , thus not costing much really, but when it comes time for a new car, we are planning on skipping, and just going with one.Walk Or Cycle Instead Of Driving, Urges Ford Boss
Spearheading a “park your car” campaign Ford Europe president Stuart Rowley says the world would be a better place if more people gave up driving and walked and cycled instead.
Ford has entered the chat.
Edit: As someone who is switching jobs and about to start taking transit/biking to work, I can tell you first hand my mentality towards transportation has changed.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Cycling is a great way to get around, but on a windy day like today it's nice to drive instead. I'm about 50/50 driving and cycling to work now, probably 90% cycling by summer.
Nimbus
Active Member
I think conditions like today is where the e-bike becomes the great equalizer and removes another barrier to daily riding.
potatopizzafan
Active Member
Ive been riding daily lately, the wind was pretty brutal today but manageable. Definitely noticed way less cyclists than usual. Afternoon rain should be fun, but thats what goretex is for.
JoeUrban
Active Member
I've always really disliked the sloping driveway sidewalk sections here, those Ottawa ones look ideal. Even in Toronto they are 1/2 to 2/3 level before sloping. How can we get this changed?
CBBarnett
Senior Member
I would fully support that and have no clue.
The sidewalk and roadway slopes (technically called it's "crossfall" I think) are one of these weird things where it's too niche to have attracted much public attention. The crossfall on our roads and sidewalks are enormous and totally impact how easy it is to get around as a pedestrian or in a wheelchair. I have no idea why they are so big, why they are bigger than other Canadian cities - at least anecdotally - and how to change them.
Sidewalk and roadway slopes are another example of common public space complaints that appears to be fully immune to 3-1-1 requests, public engagement feedback on specific project, and any number of guiding policy documents that state "pedestrians should be prioritized". That suggests to me it has all the red-flags of being buried in a transportation engineer guideline or construction "best practice" document that overrides public or Councillor inputs to how public spaces should be designed.
Always curious that other cities with equally powerful and immune-to-feedback transportation design processes landed on completely different outcomes regarding crossfalls that are far more balanced for pedestrians and cycling. If there's some logic about ice and run-off to why we build them so sloped, fine - but then why does Vancouver (5x the rain), Ottawa and Montreal (5x the snow and ice) build so few of them at way gentler slopes?
MichaelS
Senior Member
While I can't tell you the "why", your comment about being buried in a transportation engineer guideline is pretty spot on. From the City of Calgary Roads Construction Standard Specifications (2015):
Mountain Man
Senior Member
The glacier on the S pathway between Edworthy and Crowchild has been removed, looks like a bobcat was brought in for it. I do wonder what the city's long term plan for this area is given the recent incident with the train.
Col du Edworthy
Active Member
Our family has always been a 1 car household. My spouse and I both have been fortunate to work downtown for most of our careers and have intentionally picked inner city neighbourhoods to live in which has helped facilitate this choice. We both bike into work and continued to do so with kids, dropping them off at daycare downtown. When we had 1 child I used the Thule seat on the bike and with 2 children upgraded to the standard go to of a chariot. But as they've grown and the weight has increased climbing out of the river valley (and any small grade or head wind) has gotten harder and more importantly made the choice to bike with them more and more of chore (which makes the alternative of driving look better and better).
This spring we added a RadPower RadWagon and it has been a total game changer. Ebikes aren't cheap when compared to our traditional view of bike prices but having the motor and pedal assist is transformative. And this is coming from a 'traditionalist' who never thought I needed a motor and took pride pedaling up center street all on my own. The ebike lets you knock off all those trips that are in the 5 to 10 k range without working up a sweat and comfortably carrying gear (and with our bike easily bring the kids with you). Having the motor and cargo capacity when you need it changes your riding experience from our classic North American view of a weekend outing &/or exercise to "this is the simplest, fastest and easiest option to get from point A to B (and embody the dress for the destination not the journey)"
It's also been quite fascinating to see just how much interest our bike generates from other people.