Mark Connolly moved to @“The dedicated cycling infrastructure installed by the municipal and regional governments should get the credit, she said. ‘It is starting to feel like a real network, and you can get to a lot of places without relying on a vehicle,’ said Bowman. 'In Kitchener we are seeing the benefits of all those investments.’ She hopes city councillors will formally oppose any move by the province to restrict more bike lanes on city streets.”
Shantell Powell@uxmark I hope more safe bike lanes are installed. The amount of hatred towards cyclists in this region is staggering. I've been assaulted by drivers before and even had an onlooker volunteer to be my witness, but when I called it in, the cops did not give a shit and refused to do anything. I've even had drivers tell me I deserved to die for being a cyclist. What is wrong with people?
@Shanmonster I do think it’s getting better, with Kitchener, Waterloo, and the Region rolling out more safe cycling infrastructure. Still plenty of room for improvement, but it’s something.
@uxmark I have a particular hatred of traffic-activated lights. Unless a vehicle comes along at a fortuitous time, I have to treat red lights as stop signs.
@Shanmonster Yeah, I despise those too. At least pedestrians get a “beg button”. As a cyclist, I’ve learned to treat a signalled intersection as a stop sign as well. Region of Waterloo, which looks after all the signalled intersections, needs to do much better.
@uxmark I've been to a few places where those beg buttons don't work. I call them placebo buttons. I've also been to a few places where I didn't realize it was a traffic activated light and waited and waited and waited before cluing in.
@Shanmonster Yeah, at this point I just assume that they’re *all* traffic-activated, especially for crossing King. Also when I’m out walking, I’ll press the buttons whether I need to cross or not.
@uxmark I'm a pretty fast walker and a lot of those pedestrian traffic lights start flashing when I'm only partway across the road. They don't stay on nearly long enough for seniors or people with mobility issues or small children.
I used to be on the cycling and trails advisory committee a few years ago, but I honestly think they only had me there because I ticked off a diversity checkbox. I stopped going because I don't think they were actually listening to what I had to say. No one contacted me when I stopped going to the meetings.
Third spruce tree on the leftI've never understood that hatred. I'm a driver.
But how fragile do you have to be to get angry a a cyclist? or a bike lane? They should join me in the 85 northbound collectors where they merge from 4 down to 2 between Wellington and Lancaster and Ill give them something to really get angry about... as I slowly match speed but don't merge in until the end of the lane preventing them from blowing by, 100+ just to get six cars ahead. Its my new passtime.
Bob JonkmanMostly I've had good experiences cycling, with "incidents" attributable to driver error.
But today I was subjected to a punishment pass on Sawmill Road between Jerusalem Road and Conestogo by a black pickup truck with "Fuck Trudeau" prominently stencilled on the side.
Sawmill Road is 80km/hr; most traffic is faster. There's a painted line and a strip of asphalt beside a gravel shoulder. Enough room on the asphalt for a bike; the gravel is too loose for a road bike.
@bobjonkman @uxmark I don't know why I've had so many bad experiences, but it's really bad. An old lady threatened to run me over while I crossed at a crosswalk. She kept edging her car closer to me in little revs all while giving me stinkeye. A guy told me I deserved to die when I crossed on a red on a traffic-activated light. A driver tried to run me down on a sidewalk while I was out walking. A truck backed up into me suddenly while I was waiting behind him at a stop sign. I was clocked in the back by the side view mirror of a moving van. A bus driver swore and honked at me while I was signaling to turn left at an intersection. It just goes on and on.
I was once interviewed on tv about cycling, and they edited my interview to take out all of the things I'd said about drivers hitting me, but kept the instance where I said I'd been hit by another cyclist. And then they followed that up with footage of a cop saying almost every accident involving a cyclist is the cyclist's fault.
They really don't like people with bikes here.
Mike Boos@uxmark when did @dtkmelissa become a councillor?
@uxmark @dtkmelissa (great news, if true!)
@mikeboos @dtkmelissa It’s a rare slip-up from Terry Pender, though agreed it would be good news 😀
Melissa Bowman@uxmark @mikeboos Looks like it's now been corrected. Maybe I need to go back to using the #NotaCouncillor hashtag again ;)
Jasmine Mangalaseril 🧁@dtkmelissa @uxmark @mikeboos Ya know...for years people called me a journalist and I wasn't...and now I am (maybe? idk)...
Just sayin'
Laurel L Russwurm@uxmark
Despite the positive framing of the article, the cycling infrastructure is nothing to write home about. Waterloo makes a lot of noise claiming to be cycle friendly, but has yet to mandate physically separated bike lanes on every new road.
The most horrible place to walk in Waterloo is the relatively new hunk of real estate laughably named "the Boardwalk," which is clearly designed to make walking near impossible, and cycling even worse.
@laurelrusswurm @Ryan Yeah, the Boardwalk is a particularly bad place. But I’m happy to have seen progress, imperfect unequally distributed, and slow though it may have been.