The Trillium pathway is finally finished. The third stage was landscaped and finished in September/October 2018 (project OTT-046) and completes a wonderful and safe cycling loop along the canal, the Trillium railway tracks and the Ottawa River. A cycling tourist’s dream.
No refuge
The original project envisioned crossing Prince of Wales via a refuge. I like refuges very much because unlike at a traffic light, you don’t have to wait in the middle of the night for traffic that isn’t there.
Back in the Netherlands in the 1980’s, many lights were switched to amber after a certain hour (perhaps 10 pm), so you can just roll through the intersection and keep your eyes open. But that is a concept that has not arrived here and fear for litigation makes me think it will never happen.
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Two courtesy crossings of Prince of Wales Drive with central median refuge will facilitate connections along pedestrian and cyclist desire lines while eliminating the need for cyclist dismounts. These crossings will not be signalized. (Spring 2017)
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The original plan was downsized to just a path towards PoW and then to the intersection at Dow’s Lake. A total of 300 meters. I don’t think that was the best solution but it is what it is. Note that none of the bike infrastructure on the south side was implemented.
Budget
The budget for the pathway was $275,000 or around $900 per meter. By comparison, the Laurier bike lane project was in 2011 -if I remember correctly- about $700,000 for 1.3 km or around $540 dollars per meter.
Safety issues
The path is maintained in winter, and provides residents with a great route to bypass Preston St. Unfortunately it doesn’t connect well for cycle traffic approaching from the south. Most of the time I cut across at the bottom of the hill to get to the trail head; the one time I actually tried to do a proper left turn and waited in the EB PoW bike lane, a driver veered into the bike lane and nearly hit me from behind. There is no safe place to wait for traffic to pass basically.
Some construction photos
But this is not a blog post about a complaint, I just want to show how incredibly basic the construction of a multi use pathway is. We should roll out as much as possible during the start of this term of council and enjoy it. To set the stage, here are the photos of the construction.
I would have loved to see the MUP stay at its raised sidewalk level when crossing the entrance to the parking lot. This would have slowed down traffic turning into the parking lot. But alas, we are not there yet. We will see at next year’s tulip festival how this is going to work out. I expect a number of tweets.
In the photo above you can see the curb cut between two cast iron Tactile Walking Surface Indicator (TWSI). If you ever go to a road redesign open house, ask about the ‘Twizzies’, which is the more popular acronym for those rusty iron knobbed sheets of iron. It will make you sound like a true expert and they might listen to you.
The left hand Twizzy is a bit of a mystery to me. The only reason to cross there is to go to the curling rink of the Navy Curling club; there are safer ways then cross PoW at the bottom of a hill without a cross walk. But perhaps there is more to come?
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