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Calgary Bike Lanes and Bike Paths

Is that second one on the Bowness Park side of the new Stony overpass?
Yep. Sadly the pathway doesn't go any where past Stoney Trail, but if they could bet a conector built from there to Bearspaw area where there's another existing path, it would be nice bike path. I believe the intended path to Cochrane would follow roughly where the red lines are.

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Yep. Sadly the pathway doesn't go any where past Stoney Trail, but if they could bet a conector built from there to Bearspaw area where there's another existing path, it would be nice bike path. I believe the intended path to Cochrane would follow roughly where the red lines are.

View attachment 492895

IIRC (and I could definitely be wrong), the connection was more likely to come through the new Rockland Park community (ie. up the pathway below/parallel to Stoney that has a bridge over the train tracks and then a tunnel to the north side of Nose Hill Dr, then west along there).

Your route would be nicer, but there would be a bunch of challenges dealing with CP and the dam operations.

As of a couple years ago, there is also a hold up with one landowner between Rockland and Glenbow Ranch
 
For all you bike geeks - the City has an engage page up for Riverwalk West, which will extend to 14th Street:

https://engage.calgary.ca/riverwalkwest

I'd like to see the current Bow Trail slip lane realigned to provide more public space along the river, either via 10th or 11th Street connecting to 6th Ave. That single lane hogs a ton of land! I know this might tick off west-side residents - but they are already spoiled with having the quickest vehicle access to downtown anyway.

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The existence of the reversal has enabled traffic in the Sunalta cuplet to drop by 50, 60%, enabling the neighbourhood to no longer preferred as a high-ish speed shortcut.
 
If this can be the start of a wholesale change that's required (as we've discussed in the roads thread), it would be exciting. Many small changes add up.
 
The existence of the reversal has enabled traffic in the Sunalta cuplet to drop by 50, 60%, enabling the neighbourhood to no longer preferred as a high-ish speed shortcut.
Where did traffic drop by 50 - 60% as a result of the reversal? Is that for both peaks?
 
-33% on 11 ave (presumably pm peak) -53% on 12 ave (presumably am peak)

in 2000
View attachment 493290
2018:
View attachment 493291
Interesting - the good news is that given the existing inefficient layout, it would be an "easy have your cake and eat it too" here, keep some form of lane reversal if the demand is still there while consolidating the green spaces into the river parkway to allow for a higher capacity and more useful park environment to support the high density neighbourhood around there.

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Congestion on this stretch of pathway is also a growing issue as it's one of the busiest mixed-traffic zone in the city centre. Good opportunity to be more thoughtful with riverfront space in a busy area.
 
The existence of the reversal has enabled traffic in the Sunalta cuplet to drop by 50, 60%, enabling the neighbourhood to no longer preferred as a high-ish speed shortcut.
-33% on 11 ave (presumably pm peak) -53% on 12 ave (presumably am peak)

in 2000
View attachment 493290
2018:
View attachment 493291

Those are average daily volumes. But it's interesting, I had a look at west downtown access at a bigger scale; here's the 2018 volumes and the change since 2000:

1691036589438.png


Traffic is down a lot on 11th/12th, but it's also down almost everywhere.

Percentages can be a little misleading, though; the 7% reduction on EB Bow Trail and the 20% reduction on 10th Ave W of 14th St both represent reductions of 2000 vehicles, just from a higher base on Bow Trail. Here's the volumes across two screenlines; one west of 14th and one west of 11th streets:
1691038626312.png


It's hard to say that the traffic on the reversible lane is traffic that would otherwise be going through Sunalta; for one thing, some of that volume was there before (since it's not reversed in the PM), and the overall volumes on Bow Trail are down.

I included a couple of midpoint years; 2014 to represent higher downtown office activity (not much change since then), and 2012 because I had a hypothesis that the West LRT (which took 30,000 cars a day off the road per the first year report) might have had an impact, but there doesn't seem to be much before/after difference. One thing that I think does have a very modest difference in Sunalta through-cutting is the cycle tracks, which reduced car volumes on 12th by around 3000 vehicles per day.


Decreased volume to the downtown is the broad trend most places:
1691038924302.png

That up point at the end on the Memorial NE bridges is a bit of a false trend (like Macleod in 2014); data's a little noisy. That volume was down again in 2019.

Long story short, I don't think that lane is really needed, particularly west of 14th St which is the narrowest, crummiest part of the pathway.
 
Than lane definitely should be axed. It should be converted into a bike lane to increase the RiverWalk space in that area.

Based on the traffic map also, I feel like they could convert 11th Ave west of 14 St into a two way road to give the road a bit of a diet, and improve the pedestrian experience there. Crossing the road there (and driving as well) can feel a bit dicey as a pedestrian since it can feel a little bit of an expressway for vehicle traffic due to how wide the road, and how blind you can be to incoming traffic if you're crossing from the south side to north due to it being one direction of traffic; in what should be a residential focused road.
 
Eau Claire pathway section getting closer
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You captured my current least favourite piece of infrastructure. I believe this is for flood prevention/mitigation but the placement creates a massive blind spot (the picture doesn't do it justice). I'm not sure if it is in its permanent location but I feel it likely is unfortunately
 
City is now looking for feedback on your experience using the bike lane. Unfortunately it seems like a certainty it's coming out.

The wording the city has used is also interesting, "The purpose of this information gathering is to better understand what The City needs to consider when 3 Avenue S. becomes a permanent bikeway. "

 

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