Not There Yet...

Some observations based on the "Bike Friendly" article from the Hamilton Spectator, January 9, 2012 (copied below).

"delayed" - while it's understandable that delays with specific projects will occur, the big delay not mentioned is the potential 40-year timeline to implement the cycling network based on city council spending.
"$300,000 per year" has been the amount annually budgeted for cycling since well before the updated Shifting Gears Cycling Plan, and has had years where this amount was cancelled (most notably in 2003 during World Cycling Championship in Hamilton). This rate would mean the cycling network would have trouble being completed even in the long 40 year time frame quoted. The city would need to spend $1.25 million a year to complete only the urban portion, or $2.5 million to complete the urban and rural plan in 40 years.
"Patchwork, disconnected" is an ongoing complaint with bike lanes ending abruptly and leaving cyclists to contend with multiple lanes of vehicles including transport trucks.
"high speed traffic" is one of the unaddressed problems in the city, and traffic calming, like two-way traffic on what are now fast and wide one way streets, should be implemented sooner rather than later to make streets safer for all users.
"better parking facilities" - nothing says you're not welcome like a lack of bike parking at key destinations.
"separated infrastructure...along major roads" - while other cities like Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto are moving toward physically separated lanes to encourage more people to cycle, there is nothing in Hamilton's cycling plan acknowledging this latest innovation. Major roads have not been included in the Shifting Gears cycling plan and cyclists feel this is to keep cars moving as fast as possible while relegating bicycles to back streets along disjointed routes.
"new lanes currently planned" - the list given here are lower city streets primarily west of downtown; are other city wards getting lanes, or are they getting cancelled?

bollards and barriers - the case for physically separated bicycle lanes

http://streetswiki.wikispaces.com/Physically+Separated+Bike+Lanes

get it on!

Is anyone else getting tired of people coming from other jurisdictions and telling us how to build a more liveable city?: of course Olsen (and others before him) is right on all counts about what it takes to make a city safe and convenient to cycle. Hamilton's lags behind due to an inertia around the council table.

TLC has been pushing the city for 10 years to get the Shifting Gears Cycling Plan implemented, so hopefully we are nearing a tipping point that will see the job get done in (at most) 20 years, rather than 40 or 50 (or 100) years that the current council seems content with. 

Here's the article from the Spec (so you can skip the angry anti-cycling comments section)

U.S. biking 'guru' offers city advice on cycling transition

Jeremy Grimaldi
September 22, 2010

THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
BURLINGTON - A biking 'guru' who helped transform Portland into a cycling oasis has offered his expertise to Hamilton, a city he believes has "progressive potential."
Jeff Olson, partner at Alta Planning and Design and a speaker at yesterday's Ontario Bike Summit 2010 in Burlington, said a number of U.S. cities are using bicycles as a central theme in their shift from manufacturing hubs to modern urban centres. Included in that list are Buffalo, Dayton, Detroit and Cleveland.
And now Olson is interested in speaking with Hamilton.
He says that one great example is Portland, Oregon, which has managed to encourage its population to ride more bikes -- boosting ridership from less than 1 per cent in the 1990s, to about 8 per cent today.
The city, led by Mayor Sam Adams, who also spoke at the event on Monday, is aiming for 25 per cent ridership by 2030.
As part of that transition, the city of about 500,000 people has developed a biking industry worth $100 million. And now some streets, formerly used by 4,000 cars, are being utilized by 4,000 bikes daily.
"If Hamilton sets its sights on 2030, there is no doubt it can be done," said the architect and planner. "If someone from the city wants to chat to us we would be happy to talk. We have already worked in Vancouver, Halifax and York Region.
"In the U.S. we are working in many places with transitional economies, it's just a matter of having a vision."
Olson says the Portland project cost the city about $150 million over two decades, but insists that that price tag equals the cost of one mile of urban highway.
"If it's a matter of not enough money, then you have to look at everything that can be saved when people start biking, then it not only becomes affordable, but rational."
Olson says Hamilton needs to work on its biking infrastructure and must convince its population biking is safe and the rest will fall into place.
During the conference, organized by Share the Road Cycling Coalition, Toronto MPP Cheri DiNovo spoke about her hopes to make into law a private member's bill that would force motorists to give cyclists a one-metre berth when passing.
Attendees were also urged to encourage all municipal election candidates to sign the Active Communities Pledge, which ensures all signatories will promote and support cycling initiatives.
The Active Communities Pledge can be signed at sharetheroad.ca.

too little for too long

CATCH News – June 11, 2010

Cycling interest and spending

The city’s first car-free cycling and pedestrian street fair brought on Sunday was a success despite iffy weather and little media attention. Coincidentally, a report released this week calculates that city spending on expanding cycling has been only a tiny fraction of the roads allocation over the last decade.

Sunday’s Open Streets event won praise from Mayor Eisenberger who opened Monday’s meeting of committee of the whole by telling councillors that it was “really a spectacular effort in giving people the opportunity to enjoy the street.” Bob Bratina followed up at Wednesday’s council meeting on a “delightful afternoon” where “4500 people walked, biked and wandered down James Street North”.

The event repeats on Sunday September 26 when cars will again be barred from James North between Cannon Street and Burlington Street.

The cycling infrastructure report, asked for a year ago by councillors, says $7.1 million was spent from 2001 to 2008. Multi-use trails, such as those reconstructed in Red Hill Valley post-expressway, accounted for the majority of the spending at $4.4 million. Fifty percent of monies uses for this work is allocated to cycling in the report.

Special bike lane projects, such as those on York Boulevard and Sterling Street, added $1.7 million to the spending, while $1 million was the estimated allocation as part of road reconstruction work “based on the proportion of the surface area of each project that was dedicated for bike lanes” on those roads.

“The $890,000 average annual expenditure provides a comparison to what is recommended in Shifting Gears 2009 which suggests cycling investment of $2.5 million annually to complete the full network in 20 years, or $1.25 million each year, if system development is focused only urban infrastructure,” explains the report.

The totals don’t include 2009 outlays, or projects now underway including the multi-use bridges over the QEW and the Lincoln Alexander Parkway that are being funded by the provincial government. Bus bike racks and secure bike parking financed by Metrolinx are also excluded.

The city’s capital budget for 2010 is $275 million, with roads accounting for a little over $75 million, of which about half is being funded by development charges or other non-tax sources.

For cycling, the city allocated spending of $1.3 million this year to complete eight bike lane projects. But the projected expenditures over the rest of the decade average just $950,000 a year for new cycling infrastructure.

CATCH (Citizens at City Hall) updates use transcripts and/or public documents to highlight information about Hamilton civic affairs that is not generally available in the mass media. Detailed reports of City Hall meetings can be reviewed at www.hamiltoncatch.org. You can receive all CATCH free updates by sending an email to info@HamiltonCATCH.org.

First Bicycle Casualty of ward politics

"Queensdale Avenue - between Upper Wellington Street & Upper Ottawa Street.  This project is not proceeding."

As TLC feared, a comprehensive cycling network is subject to parochialism, and any gains from good planning are in jeopardy.

This kind of political interference does not support provincial planning objectives around transportation. What good is a city-wide cycling plan if it can be broken by bad arguements from nervous or misinformed councillors. 


Is there a role for the province here?


Read the exclusive interview with Councillor Jackson about this at Raise the Hammer

the booze lane?

The newly installed bike lanes on Dundurn South continue to attract law breaking drivers who consider their personal convenience before any civic duty (civility). So far, every time I've passed this spot there are cars blocking the bike lane. Next door at the beer store:

This gentleman was told by a beer store employee not to park in the bike lane, which he ignored and went to get his case regardless. The employee told me that by-law had handed out some tickets today (Saturday), but in my short visit there were five different vehicles using the bike lane in front of the LCBO and Beer store. Perhaps installing some bollards will be necessary to prevent these ongoing violations.

Dundurn between Main and Aberdeen

Bike lanes, finally! Plenty of bike action on the new lanes, hopefully the world will still revolve and we can all learn to get along. Thanks to Councillor McHattie for holding the line as some local business people tried to kill the bike lanes over the loss of some on street parking.

Somebody needs to tell people who think it is VIP parking in front of the beer store now. Here's Ancaster Taxi blocking this afternoon.

Crowning Queensdale with Bicycle Lanes?

FYI :
1) The public meeting for the bike facility on Queensdale is TONIGHT. Residents are being shown a plan that proposes to consolidate all parking to one side of the street. The two area Councillors are hopefully going to attend as well.

Please share this info with others.

A community meeting (drop-in format) has been arranged to present more details and answer any questions. The meeting details are as follows:

Monday November 16, 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm

Eastmount Community Centre (on East 26th Street, just north of Queensdale, beside Eastmount Park Elementary School)

Should you have any questions regarding these plans, please contact Daryl Bender, Project Manager of Alternative Transportation (Daryl.Bender@hamilton.ca or 905.546.2424 x 2066


2) I understand the Alternative Transportation job position has been approved by Council.
The minutes from the meeting are not posted yet - only the agenda:
http://www.hamilton.ca/CityDepartments/CorporateServices/Clerks/AgendaMinutes/Council/2009/November11CouncilAgenda.htm

Cycling Progress on Dundurn

Dundurn construction begins today
Dundurn construction begins today
Resurfacing, bike lanes cause delays through October

John Burman, Hamilton Spectator

Construction crews are scheduled to begin resurfacing Dundurn Street South today.

The work – between Hill Street a block south of Main Street West and Aberdeen Avenue – includes removal of all parking on the east side of Dundurn for bicycle lanes.

The work should be completed by the end of October.

City council approved an updated cycling master plan for Hamilton in June. And that includes the bike lanes on Dundurn.

Ward one Councillor Brian McHattie says it may be possible to add three or four parking spaces on the west side of the street.

In an e-mail to area residents, McHattie notes there is significant concern from area merchants and some residential property owners who feel the loss of parking will “result in decreased business, cause more disruption around an already congested area around Earl Kitchener School, and disadvantage motorists with mobility issues who benefit from parking closer to their destination; whether it be church, doctor’s office or business.”

“While I agree that these impacts will occur, I also believe that we need to encourage a cultural shift away from dependency on the private automobile towards cycling as a different mode of transportation,” McHattie said.

The city’s cycling master plan notes bike lanes are a good thing for Dundurn because they will provide connection to the new CP rail trail via Glenside Avenue planned early next year, link to the existing Chedoke rail trail up the escarpment, and provide connections to the downtown via Herkimer Street, Charlton Avenue and Jackson Street.

The plan also says the bike lanes will connect to the McMaster Innovation Park on Longwood Road via the extension of Frid Street via the west end of Charlton Avenue and link to the waterfront over King Street and Longwood Road in 2010.

ROOM FOR BIKES ON YORK BLVD

Cyclists cheer plan for bike lanes on York Boulevard

By Dana Borcea, The Hamilton Spectator (Dec 5, 2005)

Cyclists will have a little more space on the road thanks to a city proposal to put bike lanes on York Boulevard.
 
Commuters on two wheels currently share the busy road linking Hamilton and Burlington with four lanes of speeding traffic.

Peddling down the street next to vehicles driving more than 60 km/h can be daunting, said Matt Thompson, a spokesperson for MACycle, a campus community bicycle co-op. "As a cyclist, I'd feel a lot better having a white line there."

But while the city's plan to reserve lanes for bicycles may soothe the nerves of cyclists, the prospect of reducing car traffic to two lanes may have drivers grumbling.

Cycling advocate Randy Kay said even if they are outnumbered by drivers, cyclists deserve some infrastructure of their own. Kay is spokesperson for the group Transportation for Livable Communities.


The creation of on-street bike lanes is well worth a little rush-hour congestion, he added, even if drivers do outnumber cyclists. "If you build it, they will come," he said. "Hopefully fewer people would want to drive and more people would start to ride."

Kay would like to see the proposed bike lane stretch past Dundurn Street and well into the city's core.

"Why stop there? There should be dedicated bike lanes running to the library, the market and the galleries and not just for commuters between Burlington and Hamilton but for the city itself."

Advocates say that an off-street trail that currently runs along a stretch of York Boulevard is well suited for leisure riders, joggers and pedestrians. But to avoid collisions, commuter or "transportation" cyclists are better off on the street with a lane of their own, they say.

Both Kay and Thompson praised recent efforts by the city to enhance cycling infrastructure, but insist it has a lot of catching up to do.

Supporters and opponents of the proposed bike lanes can weigh in at a public meeting on Dec. 8 at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School, 130 York Blvd. between 6 and 8 p.m. The city will unveil several options for the lanes.

Mary Lou Tanner, strategic planning manager with the city's public works department, described York Boulevard as "an important access point in and out of the city" that takes Hamiltonians past the waterfront and into the Royal Botanical Gardens.

She said the move would help fulfill the city's commitment to building 13.5 kilometres of new bike lanes a year and further its plans for "balanced transportation networks."

"We will not build a road system that simply services cars. We are going to build a transportation system for all users."