Comment 107481

By jason (registered) | Posted January 02, 2015 at 11:31:50 in reply to Comment 107478

the good news, and at the same time most frustrating, is that we have ample road space to work with to add these simple raised bike lanes like they use in Denmark/Holland etc.....

I sent a suggestion way back when St Joes was building the West 5th hospital to put a sidewalk level two-way bike path around the entire property from the Mountain Brow around to the stoplight on Fennell halfway to Garth. There, we could work with Mohawk and Hillfiled to continue the bike path to Garth and south to the end of Hillfield's property.

What does St Joes (and the city) do instead? Add a new sidewalk around the entire hospital site with no biking provisions, then widen West 5th to 5 massive lanes with still no bike lanes. Thankfully there is still ample space for such an endeavour due to the large, useless grassy areas around the perimeter of the site.

Anywhere we can add these sidewalk-level bike lanes we should be. Some other perfect candidates for such bike infrastructure:

  • south side of Main St from Longwood to Haddon. Not a completely wide open green space, but there are no buildings. It's mostly empty green space or surface parking lots that the city could shave 8-10 feet from for a bike path. At Haddon it could transition to N side of Main which is literally a wide open corridor of institutional lawns and greenspace all the way to the Cootes Dr crossing where the off road cycle track begins. At Haddon, one of the two 1-way lanes connecting to Westdale could become a 2-way cycle track. We've now connected the Cootes Dr path with new off-road paths all the way to Main/Longwood.

  • Upper Wentworth from roughly Franklin Rd to the southern end of Upp Wentworth. A two-way off-road cycle track can be housed on the west side of Upp Wentworth along the edge of the large city park all the way to Mohawk. At Mohawk the lanes separate and can be accommodated on each side of Upp Wentworth. A few light poles may have to be moved closer to Mohawk, but much of the portion between here and the Linc has ample grassy space for bike lanes on both sides. Over the Linc, the new 3rd lane that appears as an entry to the Linc can be shortened to allow bike lanes to cross the Linc. Then the entry ramp lane can begin and bike lanes veered out where bridge meets the grassy 'other side' of the bridge:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.213514,-79.8661587,3a,75y,246.32h,76.3t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sso_RSj58gPVEozYTguBkmQ!2e0!6m1!1e1

South of the Linc there is a massive empty grassy right of way all the way to the end of Upper Wentworth. A connecting trail along the edge of the Hydro Corridor at the end of Upp Wentworth could connect to Turner Park, the YMCA and Library.

This is a massive, long Copenhagen style bike path through the heart of the Mountain where most young people travel. It encompasses schools, Limeridge Mall, Turner Park and tons of residential neighbourhoods and parks.

  • Garth Street from Twenty Road to Limeridge Road can have the same treatment due to it's huge empty grassy space on both sides of Garth.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.2196382,-79.9066879,3a,75y,208.53h,98.74t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1swDujJKINDjOJs5X7GygQLw!2e0!6m1!1e1

  • Limeridge Road itself is way overbuilt from back when it was a busy 4-lane road. It can be rebuilt with elevated bike lanes each direction.

  • Rymal Road is slated to be 'urbanized' in the near future and should include bus lanes both ways and sidewalk level bike lanes across it's entire length. The space is there.

We published a piece with further ideas along the hydro corridor that the city should actively explore. Again, this is common in Dutch cities: https://raisethehammer.org/article/2108/... A few examples of how these bike facilities would look:

Garth/Upp Wentworth/Main/Fennell example:
http://hembrowcyclingholidays.com/dscf42...

https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com...

Hydro Corridor: http://i2.wp.com/westsideaction.files.wo...

http://urbancommuter.files.wordpress.com...

EDIT: I was recently in Toronto and saw an entire new bike path network through a hydro corridor in the east end. I did some reading online and found out they are in the process of looking to establish multi-use pathways like this through all hydro corridors. Just adding this to the discussion as I know the automatic response to anything in Hamilton is "we won't be allowed to do that".

Ottawa is also now looking at possibly doing the same on hydro lands.

Comment edited by jason on 2015-01-02 11:37:02

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