Comment 115458

By Stephen Barath (anonymous) | Posted December 07, 2015 at 08:36:40

Does "delineated" mean painted lines only? Anything is better than nothing, and maybe that would prevent injury to cyclists, which is obviously a good thing.

We should clearly state our goals and then figure out how to meet them. If our goal is to provide increased safety for the one percent of Hamilton commuters who are committed cyclists and bicycle to work in spite of the almost total lack of accommodation for them, I am in favour of that and definitely give them some space on the road to decrease their likelihood of injury or death. No question.

If, however, we want to give more people the option of cycling to a variety of destinations, painted lines aren't going to cut it. I personally am not going to ride my bike up the Claremont Access if all that separates me from vehicles going eighty or ninety kilometres per hour driven by the types of motorists we have in this city, is a painted line. I'm sure many other people would be in the same boat. If it's not protected, it's not going to be enough for most people. I'm still on board with it if it makes it safer for anyone, but it won't be safe enough. You're not really giving people more choice.

The other day, I was walking along Hunter and saw several groups of families using the bike lane there. One struck me because it was a (I presume) mother riding a SoBi bike with her two kids on their own bicycles. I never see this along Dundurn: on that street, if you go out for a nice bike ride with your family, or to work, there's a good chance you'll have to drive into live traffic because someone has left his vehicle blocking the bike lane. That's a non-starter for many, many people.

Again, this shouldn't be misconstrued as opposition to a bike lane on the Claremont Access. But no one should mislead themselves into believing it will create more bicycle commuters- if that is even our intent.

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