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Calgary Bike Lanes and Bike Paths

on 11th St through the Glenmore underpass
I remember this part having a painted bike lane, but maybe I'm wrong? IIRC the bike lane ends at Heritage, and there is work to do in Heritage Meadows.

Edit: I was wrong. It ends at 64 Ave SE, and is sharrows until the Glenmore overpass where it stops.

Seems like this could be easily fixed. There's tons of room to widen 11 St in this area.
 
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Larger map in PDF, with legend

More info on the bikeway plan

I wish there was more detail here. I guess a 5 St bikeway would go along the back of Chinook Centre, and then over Glenmore, and then continue south through the T intersection. But how does it interface with 5 St in Kingsland and Haddon Road farther south, and where is the northern endpoint? Some combination of streets through Elboya to the river path at Stanley Park?
 
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Winner of the river walk west was announced:
I'm happy enough with it. Personally I would have preferred something involving the rafting more, as it's a huge part of the river action, but I get it's only 2-3 months of the year. Trickle Creek is something that might work well on the rafting side..
 
Winner of the river walk west was announced:
The pathway and park design is very cool and quite realistic and well designed for all potential users.

I'm going to assume as the design is refined the big ticket things will be value engineered out: Four season pool off 10th Street, Saunas peppered throughout, and retail north of Bow Trail just east of 14 Street bridge. (And rightfully so in my opinion, I don't see them being used but maybe I'm a stick in the mud.) It was nice to see something other than dog parks and basketball courts.

Four season pool on the right.
1699555259677.png

Retail in no man's land
1699555337416.png
 
A lot of interesting ideas in there but now the VE-ing begins.

My main interest is seeing a high-speed bike lane from 10th to 14th St that is reasonably straight, reasonably continuous, and separates wheeling from walking.

That doesn't seem to be a priority in the conceptual design but there is more than enough room to make it work as the concept gets refined.
 
I generally like this idea. They end up removing small roads that are essentially redundant (and also confusing) and get rid of the most underwhelming part of the Bow River pathway as well as converting unused property into a park space. My main concern is that when actually in the hands of the city, so many compromises will be made and not the right ones as well as, in typical Calgary fashion, whip out the chainsaws and rev 'em up cause we got some trees to cut down and replace with twigs we won't take care of.
A lot of interesting ideas in there but now the VE-ing begins.

My main interest is seeing a high-speed bike lane from 10th to 14th St that is reasonably straight, reasonably continuous, and separates wheeling from walking.

That doesn't seem to be a priority in the conceptual design but there is more than enough room to make it work as the concept gets refined.
This would be nice for two reasons. Even as someone who uses the cycling path at most twice a year on a rideshare scooter, and otherwise will only use the ped path, these kinds of paths really make the experience less stressful for all involved.

I haven't had a good look so I wouldn't know, but what is replacing the lawn and parking lot as far as festival space goes. I imagine a better dedicated space for things like Taste of Calgary could be implemented that otherwise is not a parking lot and dead lawn that people otherwise aren't using.
 
This plan requires the removal of the section of 4th Ave that connects to Bow trail. Also the Outdoor pool might be a good draw as it's within walking distance of Kensington and a bunch of Condo towers in the area. Downtown is also starved of pools at the moment with the closure of the YMCA. Has the city ever experimented with a 4 season outdoor pool before?
 
I think the most exciting piece of this is removing Bow Trail between 9th and 14th street. It opens up a lot of real estate to work with and will do wonders improving the connectivity of west downtown with the river. Heck you could just put up some barricades today and move cyclists onto it right now.
 
A lot of interesting ideas in there but now the VE-ing begins.

My main interest is seeing a high-speed bike lane from 10th to 14th St that is reasonably straight, reasonably continuous, and separates wheeling from walking.

That doesn't seem to be a priority in the conceptual design but there is more than enough room to make it work as the concept gets refined.
Remember in Calgary, pathways and sidewalks are usually urban design projects, only roads (and sometimes transit) are transportation projects. Here's a helpful cheat-sheet:

Network CharacteristicsLikely Network Type
Network upgrade triggered automatically by the city - through regular monitoring, set capacity standards, and existing city budget processes. Goal is to improve the capacity and quality of the network.Road
Network upgrade triggered unpredictably - usually through an alignment or coalition of political interests, random programs, and sustained public advocacy. Goals vary and are dependent on the coalition of project boosters, not the network's measurable demands.Pathway
Pointlessly curvy, increasing both concrete used to construct, and future travel timePathway or suburban road.
Curvy, but with the goal to increase travel speeds especially when changing directionRoad, likely an interchange or slip lane.
Randomly changing widths and several different "standards" applied within a block for no reasonUsually a sidewalk or pathway if the changing standards reduce capacity. If capacity randomly increases due to breaking standards, it's probably a roadway.
Trees and generally nice places to bePathway, but typically only the river ones. Sometimes neighbourhood streets and sidewalks.
Fairly direct routes with priority over other networksAll roads and LRT
Randomly endsSidewalk or pathway
Maintained in winter with set targets for snow clearing. Major roads or river pathway only (not connections to them)
Haphazard and inconsistent winter maintenance dependent on thousands of individuals with no coordination efforts and no enforcement.Sidewalk
Randomly placed obstacles reduce speed, visibility and network capacity.Sidewalk
Has standards for lighting to allow for safe travel at nightRoad
Okay to mix different travel speedsMulti-use pathway
Never okay to mix different travel speeds - even when there's no reason to encourage the faster speedsAll road

In all seriousness - this pathway project is great, apart from the pointlessly curviness. The unfortunate part is we can only seem to build our pathway and active mode network by one-off urban design projects every 3 - 5 years, and only in locations with random alignment of political and budgetary capital.

Using such an approach will never see most of the pathway network updated or improved in capacity, speed, safety or quality. This needs to change.
 
The proposal says a lot of the right things about naturalization, softening the transiting between natural and urban, unbundling the pathway, and picking up materials from the east end of the walkway. I have a hard time believing some of the structures (including the layered pathway) and pool will ever see the light of day.

Either way, the river path is one of the best parts of the City, so extending it would be welcomed!
 

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