Raise the Hammer

There's actually a pleasant route from King/Dundurn. You turn left at the Basilica ramp with the faded "bike" paint marking into the Basilica driveway, then turn left onto Breadalbane (I guess they thought contra-flow bike riders turning left directly onto Breadalbane would be too confusing). Then turn right onto Hunt, and then briefly onto Dundurn and then Head street up to (and through) Victoria Park's bike-road over to Napier. Then take Napier down to Queen (where you illegally go straight through instead of turning right like they want you to but nobody does that ever) and on to Hess, where you turn left over to the Cannon Track.

It's a bit wordy and the city has put up some green bike signs to help, but it's not enough. It's more straightforward than it sounds. That's my daily commute.

Of course, the city could do a lot to make it better:

1) 2-way Hess North. There's no good way to return via the above route.

2) Some means to allow straight-through traffic at Queen and Napier.

3) Road markings and signage King and Breadalbane to avoid that ridiculous little Basilica turn.

4) More signs along every turn and interruption on the route explaining "Bike Route to McMaster/Downtown". Some of the signs are just a green Bike symbol with no explanation of "bike to where". It's better than it used to be, but still not there yet.

I don't go to Durand very much, but I could definitely see a 2nd Cannon-Track on Main working well. Realistically though, it's politically impossible until we see a lot more ridership on Cannon.

My zany design:

1) Lighted crossings on King and Main at the unnamed Cathedral Park road. This would provide safe crossings into Fortinos Plaza for people coming from the West on the bridges, safe access to Frid Street for drivers (holy crap getting over sucks) and a safe intersection for some of the ramps.

2) Bike path across Cathedral Park connecting these two intersections together.

3) Main Bike Track starts here.

Of course, half of this is just meant to circumvent the fact that Dundurn's bike lanes are killed between King and Main.