Infrastructure

A complete separate pathway s the right solution for Maitland

The Maitland Overpass: the cycling issue with on ramps and slip lanes

March 6, 2018 Hansonthebike 8

Reading Time: 6 minutesLast week I spent some time at the Maitland overpass open house at the most unknown arena in Ottawa, the J. Alph Dulude arena. When you Google his name, nothing but arena results come up, plus 48 restaurants ‘near JA Dulude arena’. So if you know more, let me know. Update: Christopher send me this information when I put this blog out: It was a small and quiet open house, with only a handful of panels. However, I did manage to talk to a few staff, councillor Jeff Leiper and Giacomo Panico (not in function, he stressed), as well as [Read more…]

What to do With the Double Bass on the LRT?

February 19, 2018 Hansonthebike 4

Reading Time: 3 minutesCity staff last week recommended that no bicycle should be allowed on the new LRT during the peak transit hours. The rush hour has been defined as 6-9 am and 3-6 pm. I find that a pretty broad definition of rush hour. It boils down to 50% of the time people travel to and from work (6-6). Yes the public service is at the bus stop at 3 pm sharp, but I doubt that the trains are so packed at 3 pm that you can’t fit 2-4 bikes in a train. I also don’t believe the trains are packed to [Read more…]

Heron pathways

Heron Road Bike Infrastructure at Transitway

November 30, 2017 Hansonthebike 4

Reading Time: 4 minutesThis week, I was at an open house for new bike infrastructure on Heron, between Bank and Data Centre Road. At that stretch, Heron is a wide arterial with 60 kph speed limits but where it is easy to roll at least 70 kph. It is a spaghetti of roads and railway tracks in that area, and after 19 years in Ottawa I still have a hard time to orient myself if I don’t drive on Heron Rd. There is LRT, VIARail, the Transitway, Heron Rd and the Airport Parkway/Bronson and its on and off ramps. Data centre road winds [Read more…]

parking lot Mill St brewery

When MUP’s Run Along Parking Lots

November 28, 2017 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 4 minutesIt’s one of those design flaws that you don’t see coming. But once you know it, we should incorporate it in the manual for proper bike infrastructure: never run a bike path right next to parking. This is what you get: drivers rolling their car against the curb. Obviously drivers don’t realise what they are doing, so you have to design in a different way. Do we? A few years ago, residents complained that the cars were sticking over the pathway in the half circle at the Mill Street Brewery in Ottawa. Especially bigger cars such as trucks, usually backed [Read more…]

Open: Ottawa River Pathway Behind Parliament Hill

November 21, 2017 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 5 minutes2024 update: the pathway is closed. It should open again in the Fall. There is work being done near the Supreme Court. There is a cliff where some rock came down several years ago. This is being worked on. More here: https://ncc-ccn.gc.ca/projects/parliament-hill-escarpment-rehabilitation Just before the first snow came down in the weekend of November 18-19 I thought I’d go for a bike ride to check out the repaired Ottawa River multi use pathway behind Parliament Hill and the Supreme Court. Shoreline and pathway washed out As you remember, the path was closed since the heavy rain in spring and had [Read more…]

Raised Bike Tracks on Ottawa’s Richmond Road

November 7, 2017 Hansonthebike 3

Reading Time: 7 minutesLast week I went to Lee Valley to buy a new shovel. The wooden stem was broken and even though the shovel itself is made of heavy duty metal, the stem could not be replaced. So far for buying quality products. Luckily Lee Valley gives lifelong warranty, but as the shovel was about 10 years old, it had become 14 dollars more expensive, so I paid extra for the shovel. Still it was painful to hand over the otherwise perfectly fine old tool. Richmond Road bike tracks The next stop was National Capital Freenet on Richmond Road to drop of [Read more…]

Brookfield MUP Update

October 11, 2017 Hansonthebike 2

Reading Time: 5 minutesLast night I attended the open house for the bidirectional MUP on Brookfield in the Brookfield High school cafeteria. Some of my friends went to this 1962 school in the seventies and eighties and it was interesting for me to see this heritage school from the inside. Here are a few pics for the fun of it including the heritage bike rack I tweeted out earlier. Itsy bitsy teeny weenie very much preliminary The City of Ottawa plan was shown on one board. It is a very preliminary plan and the city is open to all suggestions. Sam Roberts collected [Read more…]

New Multi Use Pathway on Brookfield Road Planned

October 9, 2017 Hansonthebike 9

Reading Time: 7 minutesThis Tuesday, October 10, you should go to Riley Brockington’s Open House at Brookfield High on Brookfield. For many years, better cycling infra is planned for the route between Hog’s Back Falls and Saw Mill Creek and on Tuesday, you will have a preview of what the plan is about. Councillor Brockington’s invitation already mentions that this is going to be a bidirectional multi use pathway link.  Initially I thought it wasn’t a good idea to design a  bidirectional solution until I realized that it is part of a larger network and then it does make sense. Prince of Wales [Read more…]

A collage of 8 photos of traffic signs on Fairmont on a 150 meter strip

Sign Feld on Fairmont

September 21, 2017 Hansonthebike 2

Reading Time: 2 minutesSigns are a never ending form of entertainment. My cycling route to Hintonburg follows the Experimental Farm, crossing 6 lanes of Carling into Irving (with a light soooo slow, even pedestrians walk through red), into Sherwood and then down Fairmont Ave. It appears that every month I pass Fairmont another sign pops up in an already busy field of signs along the park. Let’s take a look what is there along a 150 meter stretch: I wonder if all signs were removed, people would behave fundamentally different. I think they wouldn’t. I wrote about signs before in a more extensive [Read more…]

Not sure why I choose for red, I guess I was brainwashed by the many Dutch images I studied. Looking northbound.

Could Ottawa’s Percy Street Become a Bicycle Street?

August 1, 2017 Hansonthebike 1

Reading Time: 6 minutesPercy Street In the previous post, we read about the Dutch bicycle streets and the Dutch quest to design guide lines based on best practices. With the information under our belt we can take a look at Percy street in downtown Ottawa. Percy is a north-sound street that runs through residential areas. It is a desirable route for cycling in the west side of downtown because it crosses underneath the 417 Queensway highway, which runs east-west through downtown; it is mostly an elevated highway. North of the Queensway, Percy is a one way south bound street of about 1200 metres, [Read more…]