Stephen Avenue Place Revitalization | 155m | 40s | Slate

It seems Slate is trying to change the feel of the Stephen Avenue side. I go here to take care of an account every week and every time someone is in the middle of an argument with security. Today it was a courier getting kicked off the concrete step during his lunch break and recording security while telling them off. The week prior it was a guy telling them he wanted to talk to the security supervisor. I talked with security and they say that no one can sit out on the step at all. I get what they're trying to do but I still find this surprising..
 
As someone who walks and bikes Stephen Ave regularly, I think we need to relocate the bike lane to 6th or 9th Ave. There are a lot of near miss pedestrian-bicycle collisions. Why not open up Stephen Ave to pedestrians and large street style patios, similar to what you'd see in Europe?

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Urb said:
As someone who walks and bikes Stephen Ave regularly, I think we need to relocate the bike lane to 6th or 9th Ave. There are a lot of near miss pedestrian-bicycle collisions. Why not open up Stephen Ave to pedestrians and large street style patios, similar to what you'd see in Europe?

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I completely agree. I just saw so many near misses from above. It was a cheap idea if you ask me to mix the bikes with pedestrians to begin with.
 
Urb said:
As someone who walks and bikes Stephen Ave regularly, I think we need to relocate the bike lane to 6th or 9th Ave. There are a lot of near miss pedestrian-bicycle collisions. Why not open up Stephen Ave to pedestrians and large street style patios, similar to what you'd see in Europe?
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I completely agree. When I was working downtown I was year round daily bike commuter and a big proponent of bike lanes, but Stephen Ave was a terrible idea. Stampede/Canada Day crowds and bikes do not mix. It's not much better on a typical summer lunch hour.

9th Ave has more lanes than anything it connects to, seems like a good candidate.
 
GoVertical said:
I completely agree. I just saw so many near misses from above. It was a cheap idea if you ask me to mix the bikes with pedestrians to begin with.
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I don't think bicycles on Stephen is an issue in itself.

I remember the cycletrack debate back in the early 2010s and some people freaked out at the concept of bicycle on Stephen being "added" when anyone with any regular experience there knew they have always been part of the street activity for decades. The way people talked about their concerns of bicycles being added was completely divorced from reality of where the real risks to pedestrians are in the city centre. Many failed to consider that no matter how busy Stephen is, no matter how many "no cycling" signs you put up, it's always a safer route than 9th and 6th to use, especially for less intense riders - exactly why it had bicycle traffic before the cycletracks and continues to today.

It's another one of those weird things we do to cater to car hegemony in the public realm. We spent a ton of energy and time debating the merits and minutiae of two modes - pedestrians and cyclists - sharing Stephen Ave, forgetting that we only are asking for this so we don't take any more space from vehicles. Vehicles obviously are the the actual dangerous mode in the inner city and they have the most surplus infrastructure that isn't needed that can be repurpsed. 9th Ave has spent decades as an overbuilt car sewer, antithetical to an urban condition literally right there. So if we want to talk about near misses for pedestrians on Stephen we should be removing all cars after 6pm as well given the amount of vehicle/person collisions I have seen over the years (not to mention every other intersection of our major downtown roads).

With all that said, I totally agree we need parallel cycling routes, likely one on 9th and 6th. That would be awesome! Wherever possible we should separate cyclist and pedestrian traffic formally. It would be great if they could close Stephen and still provide a reasonable and safe alternative route for cyclists to allow for full-street patios, events etc.

Of course, the merits for or against maintain a cycling route is not the real reason we would struggle to implement a full street patio. Vehicle/taxi circulation and delivery vehicle assumptions by businesses, planners and transportation engineers would be the actual barrier to implementing this.
 
Bikes have no place on Stephen Ave, it's 100% up to the bikes to avoid collisions since people aren't usually paying much attention and are completely unpredictable in how they move around. The point of bike lanes is to accommodate commuters and encourage people to get out of their cars. If you have to go walking speed to avoid collisions, then it pretty much defeats that purpose. That being said, there will always be people who ride down that road, same as how some people will always ride on the sidewalk, that's doesn't mean that we shouldn't build better infrastructure for those who aren't interested in navigating the pedestrian realm on 2 wheels.
 
CBBarnett said:
I don't think bicycles on Stephen is an issue in itself.

I remember the cycletrack debate back in the early 2010s and some people freaked out at the concept of bicycle on Stephen being "added" when anyone with any regular experience there knew they have always been part of the street activity for decades. The way people talked about their concerns of bicycles being added was completely divorced from reality of where the real risks to pedestrians are in the city centre. Many failed to consider that no matter how busy Stephen is, no matter how many "no cycling" signs you put up, it's always a safer route than 9th and 6th to use, especially for less intense riders - exactly why it had bicycle traffic before the cycletracks and continues to today.

It's another one of those weird things we do to cater to car hegemony in the public realm. We spent a ton of energy and time debating the merits and minutiae of two modes - pedestrians and cyclists - sharing Stephen Ave, forgetting that we only are asking for this so we don't take any more space from vehicles. Vehicles obviously are the the actual dangerous mode in the inner city and they have the most surplus infrastructure that isn't needed that can be repurpsed. 9th Ave has spent decades as an overbuilt car sewer, antithetical to an urban condition literally right there. So if we want to talk about near misses for pedestrians on Stephen we should be removing all cars after 6pm as well given the amount of vehicle/person collisions I have seen over the years (not to mention every other intersection of our major downtown roads).

With all that said, I totally agree we need parallel cycling routes, likely one on 9th and 6th. That would be awesome! Wherever possible we should separate cyclist and pedestrian traffic formally. It would be great if they could close Stephen and still provide a reasonable and safe alternative route for cyclists to allow for full-street patios, events etc.

Of course, the merits for or against maintain a cycling route is not the real reason we would struggle to implement a full street patio. Vehicle/taxi circulation and delivery vehicle assumptions by businesses, planners and transportation engineers would be the actual barrier to implementing this.
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In 2014, before the cycle track program, the block of Stephen Ave between 2nd and 1st Sts SW had 80 bikes over 16 hours; in 2015 after the cycle track program, it had 810 -- a tenfold increase. It's disingenuous to say that bikes "have always been there", yeah, at less than 10% the rate that they currently are.

9th Ave is overbuilt; cyclists like protected spaces; this isn't rocket science to figure out the optimal solution is take a lane from 9th and make a protected cycletrack.
 
Mountain Man said:
Bikes have no place on Stephen Ave, it's 100% up to the bikes to avoid collisions since people aren't usually paying much attention and are completely unpredictable in how they move around. The point of bike lanes is to accommodate commuters and encourage people to get out of their cars. If you have to go walking speed to avoid collisions, then it pretty much defeats that purpose. That being said, there will always be people who ride down that road, same as how some people will always ride on the sidewalk, that's doesn't mean that we shouldn't build better infrastructure for those who aren't interested in navigating the pedestrian realm on 2 wheels.
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Diversity of modes of transportation on all streetscapes is what we should aim for. It's pretty hard to argue for the elimination of bike lanes on 8th when they're not accessible or protected on (most) other roadways.

If we had really good cycling/scooter infrastructure everywhere else I'd be on board with a pedestrian only Stephen ave. Until then, I'd sooner pick a battle with the excessive vehicle lanes.
 
ByeByeBaby said:
In 2014, before the cycle track program, the block of Stephen Ave between 2nd and 1st Sts SW had 80 bikes over 16 hours; in 2015 after the cycle track program, it had 810 -- a tenfold increase. It's disingenuous to say that bikes "have always been there", yeah, at less than 10% the rate that they currently are.

9th Ave is overbuilt; cyclists like protected spaces; this isn't rocket science to figure out the optimal solution is take a lane from 9th and make a protected cycletrack.
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Agree on 9th as I said. There should have been a cycle track there from the beginning.

No doubt bicycles have increased on Stephen Ave, but I wouldn't hold much faith in estimates prior to the automatic counters that went in as part of the cycletrack implementation. The vast majority of all traffic counts in Calgary's history didn't bother counting pedestrians, let alone bicycles prior to about 2010. Just because bicycles and pedestrians weren't counted doesn't mean they aren't there.

Near misses are rarely reported or tracked, so it's all anecdotal - but I find it extremely hard to believe that 810 bicycles a day are a bigger issue in causing near-misses and pedestrian injuries than however many vehicles drive down Stephen daily. Take this data with a grain of salt, but the only two accidents I can find online in recent years on Stephen are car-vs-pedestrian.
 
Urb said:
As someone who walks and bikes Stephen Ave regularly, I think we need to relocate the bike lane to 6th or 9th Ave. There are a lot of near miss pedestrian-bicycle collisions. Why not open up Stephen Ave to pedestrians and large street style patios, similar to what you'd see in Europe?

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I would agree. As someone who cycles around downtown a fair bit, I avoid Stephen Ave anyway as it's too busy to cycle through, so not having bikes cycling through (unless dismounted and walking with the bike) is fine by me. I'd probably rather see more patio space, and a bike lane along 9th or 6th.
 
There was most definitely an invasion of scooters on Stephen last year. People are so thoughtless and careless with those things. I mean, I rode them almost daily but always parked them in a sensible location. Dipshits leaving them in the middle of the street or sidewalk gets my blood boiling, entitlement just makes me 🤬🤬🤬. I yelled at a couple groups last year for doing it.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
There was most definitely an invasion of scooters on Stephen last year. People are so thoughtless and careless with those things. I mean, I rode them almost daily but always parked them in a sensible location. Dipshits leaving them in the middle of the street or sidewalk gets my blood boiling, entitlement just makes me 🤬🤬🤬. I yelled at a couple groups last year for doing it.
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We have a long way to go on our public realm infrastructure and attitudes to improve physical accessibility.

Our sidewalks in walkable areas are narrow, uneven and often in poor condition for a wheelchair, mobility device or a stroller to have a reasonable experience. Most blocks in the inner city would require one user to leave the sidewalk if two wheelchairs had to pass each other. All that is before we started throwing scooters randomly across the sidewalks.

At first I carefully repositioned the scooters I came across that were blocking sidewalks for mobility devices. But it would happen so regular, it became easier to just toss them over onto a nearby lawn or curb.
 
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