Calgary Bike Lanes and Bike Paths

[Mountain Man]

I was wondering why the gate on the west end was open yesterday, now I know. Even with studded tires I wouldn't try to drive a vehicle over that stretch of pathway lol. I wonder if it was a CP vehicle that was park of the maintenance they are doing beside the tracks there. That looks like the exact spot I show in my picture.

 

[lemongrab]

Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be far more mini-glaciers running across sidewalks this year (primarily residential)? It makes me wonder if we should have better engineering to get meltwater from homes/lawns to the street drains instead of just shooting it across sidewalks and hoping for the best...

 

[CBBarnett]

Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be far more mini-glaciers running across sidewalks this year (primarily residential)? It makes me wonder if we should have better engineering to get meltwater from homes/lawns to the street drains instead of just shooting it across sidewalks and hoping for the best...

It's been a very icy year for sidewalk users. I wonder if anyone tracks the inevitable slip and fall spike in emergency rooms from a year like this?

Heavy snow and cold at the least sunny time of the year really compounded things. Often in our late winter cold snaps (like February or March), the sun is high enough to remove much of the limited snow that comes with those cold snaps, even if it's not really much above zero. I recall many times where the pavement and sidwalks are bare after a few days, despite snow and cold. No luck this year so it's a far more limited melt, with far more snow to melt through. We actually had the first freezing rain day I can remember back in late December, certainly didn't help.

Then we have all the regular problems, just worse due to the heavy snow at the wrong time:

• Consistent, networked road plowing by the city v. inconsistent sidewalk plowing left to individuals - every 5 or 10th house doesn't bother to shovel, nor keeps up with it regularly when it snows again, so icy and pressed snow stretches form every block or two. Every road crossing is also impacted as the city's road plows usually leave big windrows in the middle of the corner making crossing difficult.
• Pathways & sidewalks generally too narrow and with many curb cuts, sloped ramps and alley accesses - these all make snow removal more difficult (assuming individuals do it at all) and add many more icy points in any walking or cycling path than necessary.

 

[lemongrab]

It's been a very icy year for sidewalk users. I wonder if anyone tracks the inevitable slip and fall spike in emergency rooms from a year like this?

Heavy snow and cold at the least sunny time of the year really compounded things. Often in our late winter cold snaps (like February or March), the sun is high enough to remove much of the limited snow that comes with those cold snaps, even if it's not really much above zero. I recall many times where the pavement and sidwalks are bare after a few days, despite snow and cold. No luck this year so it's a far more limited melt, with far more snow to melt through. We actually had the first freezing rain day I can remember back in late December, certainly didn't help.

Then we have all the regular problems, just worse due to the heavy snow at the wrong time:

• Consistent, networked road plowing by the city v. inconsistent sidewalk plowing left to individuals - every 5 or 10th house doesn't bother to shovel, nor keeps up with it regularly when it snows again, so icy and pressed snow stretches form every block or two. Every road crossing is also impacted as the city's road plows usually leave big windrows in the middle of the corner making crossing difficult.
• Pathways & sidewalks generally too narrow and with many curb cuts, sloped ramps and alley accesses - these all make snow removal more difficult (assuming individuals do it at all) and add many more icy points in any walking or cycling path than necessary.

The ER question is an interesting one - I might actually be able to get access to some of that data. I wonder how many of those falls lead to surgeries.

I think you're bang on with the sun level - I have a a perfectly south facing driveway/sidewalk, but a few moderately tall spruce trees across the street put it in shade for the early afternoon (in Dec/Jan). My other issue is drain placement...there is a drain between me and my neighbour to the east, but I think the lowest spot is actually right in front of my driveway, so the friggin water pools more than it drains...but it's pretty subtle and I doubt the city would do anything about it.


Snowbanks at pedestrian crossings are brutal. When maintenance plowing is happening in the days following a storm, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to deploy half as many plows and have crews clearing those banks immediately as they are made...once they set in they become impossible. And I wonder if a lot of residential plowing is actually counter productive...is getting the main sections down to pavement slightly sooner at the expense of massive snowbanks really a win?

 

[whatchyyc]

18 Street S.E. Adaptive Bike Lane pilot project

www.calgary.ca

Kind of a weird one, being sold as a bike lane but it's really for traffic calming. Such a short distance in a community full of pathways that it doesn't really connect any missing links, unless I'm missing something here.

Bumping this for a cool project that flew under my radar: https://www.calgary.ca/planning/transportation/dover-neighbourhood-streets.html

34 Avenue through Dover had one half converted to a pathway, and the other half converted to two-way traffic. I think this is a cool idea for the double pathway connection/traffic calming the city is looking for on 18 Street.

 

[Always_Biking]

18 Street S.E. Adaptive Bike Lane pilot project

www.calgary.ca

Kind of a weird one, being sold as a bike lane but it's really for traffic calming. Such a short distance in a community full of pathways that it doesn't really connect any missing links, unless I'm missing something here.

Yeah it’s a weird one. The city would get much more bang for their buck extending the 5th street path from 17th to Elbow. That section if built would 50 times as riders as the 18th street section. I’m not exaggerating the number either.

 

[UrbanWarrior]

Yeah it’s a weird one. The city would get much more bang for their buck extending the 5th street path from 17th to Elbow. That section if built would 50 times as riders as the 18th street section. I’m not exaggerating the number either.

I'd use that all the time. Currently I just use 2nd Street to the Elbow River. Fifth is perfect though as it connects under the tracks.

 

[CBBarnett]

Bumping this for a cool project that flew under my radar: https://www.calgary.ca/planning/transportation/dover-neighbourhood-streets.html

View attachment 453105

34 Avenue through Dover had one half converted to a pathway, and the other half converted to two-way traffic. I think this is a cool idea for the double pathway connection/traffic calming the city is looking for on 18 Street.

Great project repurposing underused assets and connects cleanly into the broader river and pathways network. Here's another background article: https://livewirecalgary.com/2023/01/21/dover-active-mobility-network-gets-federal-cash-infusion/

Love this quote:

"According to the city, the 34 Avenue SE corridor was built with two lanes in each direction and a capacity to accommodate 30,000 vehicles per day. It currently handles 3,400 per day."​

That's a pretty big swing and miss on the design v. reality - it's why these suburban boulevards are making such good candidates for adding cycling and walking infrastructure. It's not just that they were overbuilt and overly wide, it's that they were overbuilt by a factor of 10 times the need.

The one issue issue is that that demand works both ways - there's limited walking/cycling needs either, such is the nature of ultra-low, residential-only density suburban neighbourhood design at the time. We have no mechanism to do this and the cost would be prohibitive in most situations, but would be cool to decommission the northern half of 34 Ave SE and allow for actual redevelopment at more contemporary densities and housing mixtures, then apply the high-quality cycling walking infrastructure to the southern half of the road while maintain car access.

Frees up over 2 hectares of land and the required transportation capacity / upgraded cycling and pathway can easily fit in the remaining southern half.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Yeah it’s a weird one. The city would get much more bang for their buck extending the 5th street path from 17th to Elbow. That section if built would 50 times as riders as the 18th street section. I’m not exaggerating the number either.

50 times as many cyclists is probably accurate, and the stretch isn't very long. Maybe someone knows more of the back story, but I don't think it's related to costs, but possible to do with the width of roadway? Whatever the case, if the city could implement that extension it would be a major win.

 

[jhappy77]

50 times as many cyclists is probably accurate, and the stretch isn't very long. Maybe someone knows more of the back story, but I don't think it's related to costs, but possible to do with the width of roadway? Whatever the case, if the city could implement that extension it would be a major win.

If they did the extension, they might need to *gasp* remove some parking spots

 

[artvandelay]

Converting 5th to a one-way southbound would be the best way to do it - then you could easily extend the existing bike lane and still maintain parking.

 

[CBBarnett]

50 times as many cyclists is probably accurate, and the stretch isn't very long. Maybe someone knows more of the back story, but I don't think it's related to costs, but possible to do with the width of roadway? Whatever the case, if the city could implement that extension it would be a major win.

Converting 5th to a one-way southbound would be the best way to do it - then you could easily extend the existing bike lane and still maintain parking.

I think it's just a tough one on 5 Street SW - easy enough to design, but tight geometry really means trade-offs - no having your cake and eating it too on this corridor. Much of it can't even fit street parking already and has way below standard sidewalks - you are really only left with expanding onto the setback on the lawns if they exist or removing a car lane (my preference).

In the past the community association was actually pretty supportive of removing a lane for a pathway, most people in the area walk and cycle anyways. I would be curious if the real push-back would come from the wealthy car-commuters who are imagining a slower route to Elbow Park (although maintaining a single-lane southbound lane would negate this but anti-bike politics won't make this distinction).

Despite many great improvements and far greater general acceptance of cycling infrastructure, cycling investment is still ad-hoc and opportunistic, not strategic and demand-based. That means it's really a political thing that would need to initiate it and keep the momentum going to make this happen. 5 Street wouldn't naturally be on the path of least resistance approach that is used for investing in other cycling projects.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

50 times as many cyclists is probably accurate, and the stretch isn't very long. Maybe someone knows more of the back story, but I don't think it's related to costs, but possible to do with the width of roadway? Whatever the case, if the city could implement that extension it would be a major win.

The reason the 5th Street cycleway doesn't connect to the Elbow River pathway is because it was built as part of the Centre City cycletrack program, and the Centre City ends at the midline of 17th Ave. I wish it were something less stupid. See the Centre City bicycle volume map:

It's been the most obvious thing that 5th should go all the way down. The parking along 5th is generally underused. The northmost block (17th to 18th Ave) is often close to capacity, but between the church, the fire hydrant, the senior's home handicapped area and so on, that capacity is about five vehicles. The further south you go, the less the parking capacity is used, and if drivers won't even use it for free, why are we keeping it from cyclists?

It is equally obvious that it should go all the way north as well; the only reason it doesn't is that the +15 was being built between 2nd and 3rd avenues during the cycle track pilot, and nobody's followed up on it. I have half a mind to go do it myself one day.

A high-quality north-south spine that connects both river pathways is the most obvious thing, but instead we have to make sure that all of the invisible lines and pilot timeframes are respected. And that the millionaires of Elbow Park aren't slightly inconvenienced.

 

[Surrealplaces]

There's always talk everywhere I look about 5th being extended to the Elbow River, hopefully the city can make it happen. It would be great to cut out a lane and continue the cycle track on the east side of 5th, as well as widen the sidewalk. The sidewalk is narrow and it's used quite a bit.

 

[MichaelS]

It is equally obvious that it should go all the way north as well; the only reason it doesn't is that the +15 was being built between 2nd and 3rd avenues during the cycle track pilot, and nobody's followed up on it. I have half a mind to go do it myself one day.

The reason it didn't go further north is because the section of 5th Street between 2nd Avenue and Eau Claire Ave SW was sold to BcICM as part of their Eau Claire B Lands project. The reason they asked to purchase the ROW was because they wanted to integrate it into their development, keeping the roadway but making it more of a "pedestrian feel". There are access easement agreements over it though, so the public can't be barred from using it, it is just that the City decided to cede control of the design of this block to the developer. Too bad the project fell through. The Council meeting where first reading was given can be found here, specifically Item 7.3.