Thread by @LdnOntBikeCafe

Tonight is the regular meeting of the @CityofLdnOnt Cycling Advisory Committee. Here's the agenda:
1 - Accessibility. Have many thoughts here about our transportation system.
2- Dundas Place connection to TVP. How do we connect a street so anti-bike to our best path?
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@CityofLdnOnt 3 - Dundas St Bikeway Comments from Committee (Wellington to Ontario)
4 - Development Charges (why they don't fund bike infrastructure)
5 - Autonomous Vehicle Strategy Review
6 - E-bike discussion (absent provincial legislation, we took this on)
7 - Commuter Survey (ugh)
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@CityofLdnOnt Full agenda available here, recap on this thread later this evening as usual.
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pub-london.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?I…

@CityofLdnOnt OK back at it. Here's the rundown. Will try to be quick, but it involves "Dundas Place as bike infrastructure" so it probably won't be...
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@CityofLdnOnt 1 - accessibility session. @CityofLdnOnt has Accessibility Office to make sure city services are available for people of all ages and abilities. We received great tips on how to be more accessible, and we already think about accessibility a lot. london.ca/city-hall/acce…
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@CityofLdnOnt Question arising from the session from Ben Hill: how do we get bike lanes designed for people of all ages and abilities instead of stereotypical "cyclist". Hand cycles, cycles, trikes, & tandems are all essential tools, should design for them, too. theguardian.com/cities/2018/ja…
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@CityofLdnOnt 2 - IBI Group Presentation from Sandra Hayman regarding TVP-Dundas Place link designs. These were part of the package sent for provincial funding on the tail end of BRT.
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@CityofLdnOnt Dundas Place is a terrible environment for people cycling. It's 50 km/h mixed traffic, with lots of trucks, impatient drivers, and illegally parked cars. Bollards are placed like they they are designed to take away your defensive cycling moves. Filtered permeability needed
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@CityofLdnOnt Also no mention of what happens to the continuous River to Fairgrounds cycling route when Dundas Place is closed for events. Hint: it just *disappears.* However, the consultant was just doing what the city asked. Here are the project objectives, w/focus on *recreation*:
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@CityofLdnOnt So besides the obvious challenges of what to do when one gets to downtown on a bike, it's a little dodgy even getting up the hill. This project is supposed to fix that. Here are three of five project designs presented (others weren't in our pre-meeting package).
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@CityofLdnOnt Concept 2a was (unanimously, I think) favoured by the committee. Its intuitive unidirectional design, and potential for protected intersection at Ridout Street was a clear winner. It wins at accessibility (see earlier in thread), family-friendliness, and best-practices.
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@CityofLdnOnt Here's an important bike lane design tip: if you're adding a bidirectional cycletrack on a one-way street that has intersections (e.g. not just an MUP), it *HAS* to go on the left side of the street to keep oncoming traffic (e.g. bikes) on your left.
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@CityofLdnOnt Say it with me: *bike lanes are travel lanes*, and a bidirectional cycletrack turns a one way street into a two way street. If you were converting Kensington Bridge into two way street for cars, you would *NEVER* sandwich the westbound lane in between two eastbound lanes.
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@CityofLdnOnt Here are the @NACTO guidelines for bidirectional cycletracks on a one-way street. Notice how oncoming bike traffic is on the left for *everybody*. Tom Thivener (then #yycbike planner) explained this to me one time and my mind was blown, too. Bike lanes are travel lanes.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO Concept 2a decreases the number of lanes crossing the bridge to one, vs two. This is AOK for volume because the pinch point is actually across the bridge at Ridout where there are both straight and right lanes available.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO Concept 2b (not shown here) eliminated the north sidewalk on Kensington Bridge to keep two car lanes. Committee was quick to say no to this, for two reasons: 1) taking pedestrian space away from the forks is undesirable, & 2) people will just walk in the bike lane anyway.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO The other thing that was revealed tonight was a real disappointment. The original Dundas Place / Back To The River plans called for an urban park space to cross the forks at Kensington Bridge, and for the Queens bridge to become two-way traffic. That's dead. Fully dead.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO Want to comment on any/all of the above, plus the OEV Bikeway (for what feels like the 50th consultation). Next Thursday, February 27, 4:30-6:30 drop in at CCH. Secure bike parking.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO Some consent items followed, feedback letter from council, an approval of a budget item to present #ReadTheReportLdn at @STRCycling's Ontario Bike Summit in April 👍🌎🔥 (so come to our session).
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling Next up, our feedback mechanism to give people/groups presenting at our committee written responses was formalized, and our first two recommendation letters were sent through the process to provide feedback to consultants, Civic Works Committee, and staff.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling There was a brief discussion re: development charges. More questions than answers here, so we'll come back to it another month. Many many questions, like why the DC bylaw can be changed on the fly to allow half a BRT to be nixed, but we can't do the same for road widening
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp followed up from last month's discussion re: autonomous vehicles. City staff were looking for feedback / concerns from CAC, so we will provide a list. Chris and @JamiesonRoberts did an excellent job compiling/summarizing concerns, will see this next month.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts I had been tasked with a review of e-bikes and how they apply to the city. Basically Ontario is the wild west, and every pedal-assisted e-bike is technically illegal (seriously). We were set up to modernize these rules in 2018, and then the government changed. Sigh.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts Ontario law makes no distinction between the two vehicles below, and that's obviously a problem. I won't get into details, but we decided it's far too big an issue for municipalities to handle on their own. Three class system used elsewhere: bosch-ebike.com/us/everything-…
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts One point that our @lpsmediaoffice rep Sgt Harding made was that electric kick scooters are now legal to pilot in Ontario. These have been problematic in other cities because they're only ridden on the sidewalk. Except in jurisdictions with lots of protected bike lanes.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice It's instructive to see these things in action. They're super fun, super fast, and definitely don't mix with pedestrian traffic. But they mix just fine in bike lanes, so to do "micromobility" right, protected bike lane networks are necessary to prevent sidewalk riding.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice The shared scooter apps have the same startup problems as Uber and Lyft: they're all funded by venture capital, and are losing money like crazy. gizmodo.com/you-lost-how-m…
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice In other cities, these pilots have been troubling, too. Edmonton does have a few protected bike lanes, but they're not everywhere, so everyone rides on the sidewalk, predictably. edmonton.ctvnews.ca/it-s-not-going…
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice Finally (last item, doing well for time!) we discussed the City's latest commuter survey which was widely panned for being just awful. Kudos to them, however, for revising and recognizing some of the challenges.

https://twitter.com/WrayAJ/status/1228333835982643201?s=20

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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice Basically the whole survey boiled down to: asking people nicely about ways they'd leave their car at home without providing fast, frequent transit, or protected bike lanes as an option... but there was more to it than that.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice The actual purpose was to gauge interest in setting up Transportation Management Associations in the stated areas in the survey. I'm skeptical of TMA's: asking people nicely to do things that are inconvenient generally doesn't work, but I'm open to learning more.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice My core issue with the survey is its windshield bias. Along the lines of #CrashNotAccident, calling a survey aimed exclusively at motorists a "commuter survey" reinforces the cultural point that "cars are important for work" and if you ride a bike it must be frivolous.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice In North America, bikes are seen broadly as 1) a child's toy, 2) a rich man's hobby, or 3) a poor man's last resort. "Man" use intentional. To normalize utility cycling, it has to be present as an option when talking about work and commuting. As does transit.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice The best story I've read all week is @luis_patricio's personal story about our city's car-work culture, so I'm going to re-post it now. His writing basically outlines everything I've said above in a way more readable way. luispatricio.ca/2020/02/15/the…
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @STRCycling @london_chrisp @JamiesonRoberts @lpsmediaoffice @luis_patricio That's all I've got for tonight, so here's a picture of Hector to cap it off. I think he has the right idea for the rest of the night's Zzzz's. Thanks for being engaged #LdnOntBike, see ya next month.
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@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO Sidebar: Bidirectional lanes are less safe than unidirectional lanes. usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/16/stu…

@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO "In Denmark, on-street, bi-directional facility was removed from best practice infrastructure over two decades ago. Traffic users know which way to look when moving about the city. Having bicycles coming from two directions at once was an inferior design."
copenhagenize.com/2014/06/explai…

@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO Here's @ottawacity entering the competition for #ZeroestVision with bidirectional bike lanes (left side): "Everything is trade-offs, even safety is a trade-off from time to time." No. Safety is not a trade you're allowed to make in a @VisionZeroCA city.
cbc.ca/news/canada/ot…

@CityofLdnOnt @NACTO @ottawacity @VisionZeroCA Finally, the CROW manual (bible of Dutch bicycling) allows for some 2-ways, but requires 1m separation between a bidirectional cycletrack and car lanes, w/few intersections . At this point, it's basically just an off-street pathway. bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/fro…