Raise the Hammer

Buddy I own a car. I understand, but that doesn't mean we can't improve bike infrastructure a bit. When I drive, in the middle of a dense one-way platoon surge, I totally agree with you, but when you ride a bike the whole James-to-Sherman length in a direction opposing the end of a stadium event, you realize how empty the space between the car platoons are!!!

Buddy, myself, others, are taxpayers, homeowners, who have moved to Lower city over the years. We became so progressive that we voted Matthew Green, into our ward, and he's been working to help improve bike infrastructure in the Lower City, one step at a time (e.g.

Because of fellow car owners like you (I own a car too), I have started installing a dashcam (er, horizontal outwards-facing iPhone holder) and started collecting footage of all my Cannon car drives. I may put together an article based on this video footage, eventually.

I drive during offpeak moments where I consistently see 10 bikes from James to Sherman, while passing only ~20-50 cars.

So on that math, we only need a 3:1 ratio to deem success.

• One lane is bikes, and 3 lanes are cars.
• We only need 1 bike for every 3 cars to deem success

So failure only occurs when there are less than 30 cars per 10 bike. I do not drive on Cannon during peak moemnts.

Sir, as a fellow driver, I want to point out the obvious, you cannot drive a car westwards on Cannon, and when driving eastwards, you're usually stuck inside a platoon cycle of cars so it looks denser than it really is (when offpeak, 80-90% of the space between platoons can become empty) -- the platoons are often more than 5-7 blocks apart in some sections -- and the low-density bikes on a 5-to-7-block-span can sometimes outnumber a dense half-block-long offpeak car platoon. A single bike in one block, zero bikes for one block, four clustered bikes next block, one bike next block, then a cluster of two bikes, then zero bikes for a block, then a surge of 5 bikes next block. It's sporadic and low density. But car platoons are often 10cars-0cars-0cars-0cars-0cars-0cars-0cars for a multi-block span during the rare really low-car-traffic quiet moments. Massive emptiness between Cannon car platoons when locomoting yourself westwards (foot or bike) on Cannon. Especially offpeak. See? It looks crowded when you're boxed in the middle of a 10-car offpeak Cannon car platoon, three cars ahead in all lanes, a car to your left/right, and four cars behind you in all lanes. And, sir, as it stands now, I drive Cannon versus bike Cannon 50%:50% ratio, and while I agree cars on a daily basis outnumber bikes as a Grand Daily Total, this isn't true for select half-hour periods on specific days on select exact moments of specific months. If you drive Cannon once a day, you have a 95% chance of missing these special event-surge-assisted occasional Cannon bike moments where for a full solid moment like 15-minutes to 30-minutes, total bike can traffic (and just did 22h48/2015-07-14) outnumber car traffic.

I've now seen major ratio shifts (car:bike, even if cars still outnumber) during specific massive Gage Park events, and some other event-assisted surges.

Also, bike peak occurs at a different time than automobile peak. The cannon bike lanes aren't mature yet, but far more users have been using it (during offpeak moments) at between 10 to 30 bikes per 15 minute drive Sherman-to-James on a good summer weekend. On that basis, the ratio exceeds the 1:3 necessary (bikelane:carlane) to call it a success at least at those times. Indisputably, in the winter, it's not reaching that at all, but this summer during offpeak, on good weather days, there are now moments where total bikes even exceeds total cars, for a sustained 15 minute to 30 minute time period.

Hamilton will always be fairly automobile-optimized in many parts, but we as property tax payers, including our neighbours, who have voted for a bike-friendly city councillor, deserve improved bike lane infrastructure in the Lower City to more safely get crosstown.

True, on a telemetry measuring perspective, it has NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL ON AVERAGE yet year-wide on average, but there are now moments of successes during offpeaks where the bikeratio consistencly shines (bikes exceeds 0.25x cars, on the 1:3 ratio bikelane:carlane ratio, using 25%:75% as the measuring stick of success, on road-surface-share basis) and therefore CANNON BIKE LANES HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL on good summer weekends. Don't forget the bikes don't clump like car platoons, and that there are often SEVEN EMPTY BLOCKS BETWEEN CAR PLATOONS. I ride cannon versus drive cannon 50%:50%.

Minneapolis is a car owner paradise. But study Minneapolis sometime. It's a very car-crazy city. But they've shoehorned a nice bikelanes system anyway. Minneapolis is EVEN MORE CAR-HAPPY than Hamilton yet they've SUCCEEDED in bike lane expansion in the last 20 years, see this animation: http://streets.mn/2014/06/16/chart-of-th... .... How did Minneapolis, car-happy city, get better bike infrastructure that's loved by their users, than Hamilton did???

Some other RTH people give up writing to people like you, but I won't. I will write long replies, as a property taxpayer, as I believe in explaining a perspective as a CAROWNER and BIKEOWNER and BIKESHARE user -- so that you can understand what "Cannon success" means. I will never give up writing long messages to explain simple common sense mathematics of success, as I am here for the long haul and our progressive percentage in our ward has been steadily rising, as new homeowners like me move here for the long haul.

Even as a fellow car owner, you should be able to understand that. I vote with my taxpayer money, sir. Former Torontoian who's retiring to a nice Hamilton Lower City house for the long haul. How did such an unusual guy, Matthew Green, get voted into office, if there is not enough taxpayers like me in Ward 3 !?!?

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-08-03 17:39:11