MissingMiddle
Active Member
It's mind boggling to me that there aren't separated bike lanes, here of all places. The bike commute from here to main campus is perfect for students.
Argyle | 22m | 6s | Avi Urban | Gibbs Gage
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
It would be awesome to have a separated lane all the way down University Ave into the University. They easily have enough room to do it too.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
For the UD in particular, I would be really curious to know the backroom conversations on this when the neighbourhood was designed.
For such a deliberately neighbourhood-wide, car-lite design that celebrates it's walkability and public space in all marketing materials, I find it hard to believe they just forgot to consider a bicycle path - there's got to be a story, as they did practically everything else down to the details correct. There's no way they just forgot or didn't consider it.
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
Only thing I can wonder is if they felt the traffic lightness would be "good enough" for cyclists to just ride the road.
Robo
New Member
That is probably the case, so it’s good they made the roads wide because they will eventually need to retrofit a cycle lane.
I can see a lot of people cycling between University, District and the University. Not just people from University District, but people from the neighbourhoods across Shaganappi and across 32nd.
Shaka
New Member
We do this from Montgomery. Love having all of the amenities up there even if the hill to get there is a bit of a pain.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
What are the regional pathways like around U/D?
Shaka
New Member
A little broken up but not too bad on the west side. Easy to get around on the roads near the Children's hospital, but I imagine that will change whenever that part of UD starts. Easy to get accross Shaganappi and down to the river through Montgomery or down 16th from Foothills. The path east along 32nd is ok from Shaganappi to Crowchild. I haven't spent much time on the east side of UD, though.
It would be nice to have a bike path system that carries through U/D and ties into the 24th ave system, as shown in red, and maybe even a spur that connects down to the park kitty corner to the mall, although the road (in blue) is probably sufficient for now. The red dotted line could maybe be an alternative route through the U.
MichaelS
Senior Member
From a March 2023 construction townhall that UCPG put on:
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Even that is a remarkable departure from cycling best practices or many of the other districts like this that have developed.
Very poor and of random quality.
Every approach to and within the U/D and U of C area overall is randomly wide, often mixed traffic with pedestrians (sometimes on pavement, sometimes on just those weird shared sidewalks).
Most approaches by pathway in the area end randomly end at dangerous intersections or change condition so rapidly as to not be functionally useful to by bicycle.
To amend Surreal's idea, the cycling infrastructure should look something like this with direct, wide, separated and consistent infrastructure to and within the area. You know, kind of like if we imagined people wanted to get around by bicycles we should put consistent travel paths to all destinations, similar to how we did with the area's consistently overbuilt arterial and boulevard network.
The key is consistency - the network is so choppy currently because of incrementalistic approach used in the past few decades. A true neighbourhood-scale approach is what is needed. Exactly the same approach U/D used when planning the walkability of the neighbourhood as a whole and not just a random block surrounded by parking lots with no sidewalks.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Thanks for finding that - Kovitz as a shared street is pretty funny as it's totally meaningless. The street is only 3 blocks long, connects nothing to nothing, and will be relatively low traffic. So I guess that means they will do nothing:
Beltline_B
Senior Member
Kovits Ave as a cycle lane? Somebody suggested using a 3 Block Rd. with hardly any traffic as a place to put a bike lane?
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
"Conflicts and safety..." As far as we've come, cars and parking still win.
Edit: There's a design solution to both of those problems. These planners think they have to come up with something equal to sliced bread. Just do some research and copy something from somewhere else that works.
Edit: There's a design solution to both of those problems. These planners think they have to come up with something equal to sliced bread. Just do some research and copy something from somewhere else that works.
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