Raise the Hammer

Thanks for your detailed reply Sean. Let me respond to some of your points in order.

I find it fascinating that you would criticize some of us for proposing a half-measure, adding a bike lane to King St. from the Delta to Wellington when you yourself, who is arguing for "incremental change", would instead have us fight for a full length bike lane?

This was not my point. In fact, in the article I said that I liked the King Street proposal that Jason made. My point was that it is contradictory for those of you who criticize the city for half-measures to then turn around and propose what some would also describe as a half-measure. It is an inconsistent position to take and smacks of cherry picking to score points. In subsequent comments others have suggested that the King proposal was not a half-measure at all and they made some excellent points about connecting communities etc. All of which I agree with. But a bike lane with no connections of any sort at either end is the sort of project that typically gets lampooned here. I also think the LRT plan supercedes any other proposals for King, which deserves some due respect and attention from contributors here considering RTH has been such a strong proponent of the LRT plans. (Sidenote, my first involvement in matters transportation in Hamilton was to attend Hamilton LRT meetings back in the day, where I first met Ryan, Nicholas etc).

As I said, I am fully supportive of the Canon lanes, but I'm not likely to use then and nor, I bet, are most of the cyclists currently using King and Main.

You hit on something here which I don't think you intended. You are already riding on King and Main! So frankly, it sounds as if you fall into the "Strong and Fearless" category of cyclists. I give props to anyone who has or is cycling in conditions which are unfavourable, ie in mixed traffic on a street like King or Main. But folks in the "Strong and Fearless" category are not my target demographic, as I mentioned in the article. I want to provide facilities that will encourage folks in the "Interested but Concerned" crowd. Lines on the pavement on King or Main would not be enough to get folks to consider cycling regularly. Separated two way cycle tracks on Cannon just might. Which leads to my next point.

Ryan has often made the effort on this site to impart the idea that we should plan and design for what people do rather than what we'd like them to do. And people cycle on Main and King because, just like for automobiles, it is often the most direct route to wherever they are going. Too much planning for cyclists is to push them out of the way.

A point that Ryan has also made on several occasions in the past is that when modelling or anticipating travel behaviour, there is much more to consider than just the most direct route. Indeed, auto trips appear and disappear depending on the network characteristics of the roadway. New freeways generate new trips which were not previously seen in the network through latent demand. In much the same way, a separated two-way cycle track on Cannon will most likely a) generate new trips, and b) steal trips from other less favourable routes. While you state your belief that cyclists currently using King and Main will continue to do so, I do not think that will be the case if the Cannon proposal goes through.

I am sorry if that offends you

I am not offended at all. I simply felt as though there were inconsistencies in message emerging and wanted to chip in my two cents. I have enjoyed every moment of the debate that the article has generated.

As far as Longwood, the Transit Only lane, and other projects go, I have thoughts on all of those but I have gone on long enough in one reply.