UPTEN | 121.91m | 37s | Strategic Group

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With all these high density projects being completed along 1 St SE it really makes me wish the City of Calgary had built the cycle track along there as was originally proposed as part of the pilot program. It would be a quick and convenient way for a lot of people to get downtown, especially with the scooters now.
 
With all these high density projects being completed along 1 St SE it really makes me wish the City of Calgary had built the cycle track along there as was originally proposed as part of the pilot program. It would be a quick and convenient way for a lot of people to get downtown, especially with the scooters now.
What could have been... 1st Street SE was the sacrificial offering to get the whole thing approved back in 2014 in a close vote - too many Councillors and Calgarians couldn't imagine a world where "MacLeod Trail" and "bicycle" go together, despite the obviously very different characteristics of the ten urban blocks of MacLeod Trail and the 250 very not urban ones. If I recall the rumour at the time, I think it was the deciding suburban councillor vote (or two) was traded behind the scenes on condition of removing MacLeod Trail from consideration.

This was all despite the engineering studies and pages of evidence that MacLeod Trail southbound is overbuilt by a lane (i.e. there aren't enough input traffic lanes to actually push the road to capacity under normal conditions and a lane could be removed and the road would operating the same.)This is probably still true today on MacLeod as traffic hasn't increased and local population has boomed.

On the scooter front, even the most cycletrack boosters didn't mention it - electric transport was barely a consideration in in the debate. Accessibility was a topic, although I think was understated by the pro-cycletrack proponents for how big of a boost the system has been for mobility devices. I do recall much debate on the lanes interfering with building drop-off zones, probably far more time spent on that in debate then it ever amounting to a significant issue in real life.

Fast forward to 2020: ~1,000+ units have been added to the corridor, bicycle and pedestrian counts have exploded everywhere, electric personal transport is mainstream and COVID lanes are being reclaimed all over for addition sidewalk space in few hours what the cycletrack debate took years and 100+ public meeting debates to do. It's a good reminder that progress is happening, as painful and slow as it might seem sometimes - this building was just an abandoned pit when the cycletrack debate raged!
 

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