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The city’s plan to replace the Harmer Avenue footbridge over Highway 417 with thoughts and prayers for two years could yet be fixed, depending on how a meeting Coun. Jeff Leiper has on Thursday turns out.
While the rundown footbridge west of downtown is rebuilt over the next two years, the city planned a temporary segregated bike lane on Holland Avenue just to the east. Then 118 people signed a petition objecting to the lost parking. Then 650 people signed a petition asking for the track. Now Leiper is going to try to convince Mayor Jim Watson’s people that keeping cyclists from hitting pedestrians and motorists from hitting cyclists is worth a little trouble.
“I would have preferred a better detour,” Leiper said Tuesday, sticking to the mild tone he’s taken on the issue (there’s no percentage in antagonizing the mayor). “I’m going to raise and discuss the feedback we’ve been getting.”
The pedestrian bridge over the Queensway that connects the ends of Harmer on either side of the highway is being replaced after 55 years, with a new enclosed crossing much like the Max Keeping footbridge near the train station and baseball stadium. The ramps at either end aren’t up to modern standards and need rebuilding, too, which is why it’s going to take so long.
A rendering of the pedestrian and cycling bridge to replace the existing bridge over Highway 417 at Harmer Avenue. Source: City of Ottawa
The sticky thing is that just north of the footbridge are two schools: Elmdale (which has students from kindergarten to Grade 6) and Fisher Park (Grades 7 and 8), which is right in the highway’s shadow. Both schools draw students from south of the 417, as does St. George Catholic Elementary School a little farther north. The Harmer footbridge is the safer way for kids living on the south side to get to them, especially if the students are riding bikes or scooters. Fisher Park’s a community rec centre and, of course, other people use the bridge, too.
“The proposed bridge is part of the active living transportation network and a main spine in the City of Ottawa Master Cycling plan,” the city says in outlining the plans. Which means the current bridge is, too.
While the bridge is out of commission, the logical way to cross the highway will be Holland Avenue. It’s not far from the footbridge but it’s a significant north-south artery instead of a quiet residential street. Traffic lights, OC Transpo buses, speed-limit signs, cars zipping between two lanes of parking. Holland’s not quite Woodroffe or Bronson, but that’s the league it plays in.
Roads like that “naturally attract high levels of vehicular traffic, are often severely constrained in terms of width or right-of-way and therefore provide low levels of service for cyclists and pedestrians,” the city’s master cycling plan says, talking about using those roads to cross highways like the 417. They’re not good enough as they are. “Low levels of service” is the traffic engineer’s way of saying they’re bad.
The city’s plan was to put in a temporary segregated bike lane for a few blocks, to keep bikes away from the buses, trucks and cars. Then residents delivered that 118-name petition to city council asking for the plan to be changed because it would mean less street parking near their houses. The houses of Holland Avenue have driveways, parking on the other side of the street, and more around the corners.
Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper.
The city obliged. Now, instead of the bike lane, the city plans to put up signs telling cyclists they can ride on the sidewalks along a short stretch of Holland and to paint sharrows on the street — those square markings urging motorists not to be goons when they encounter people on bicycles.
Signs and sharrows are nothing pretending to be something. If the city did nothing, kids were going to ride on the Holland sidewalks anyway, so big deal if they put up a sign. Telling cyclists, including grown-ups, that it’s OK to ride on them is asking for conflicts.
What limited evidence there is on sharrows suggests they make streets more dangerous than they’d otherwise be because cyclists take them more seriously than drivers do.
The plan is to claim to be making the route safer while actually making Holland very slightly more dangerous, with a lot more vulnerable people on it, including children.
What’s at stake here is whether city hall believes in any of its pro-bike, pro-walking, active-transportation rhetoric. What we do when we take out a footbridge for two whole years says a lot about what matters to us.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
While the rundown footbridge west of downtown is rebuilt over the next two years, the city planned a temporary segregated bike lane on Holland Avenue just to the east. Then 118 people signed a petition objecting to the lost parking. Then 650 people signed a petition asking for the track. Now Leiper is going to try to convince Mayor Jim Watson’s people that keeping cyclists from hitting pedestrians and motorists from hitting cyclists is worth a little trouble.
“I would have preferred a better detour,” Leiper said Tuesday, sticking to the mild tone he’s taken on the issue (there’s no percentage in antagonizing the mayor). “I’m going to raise and discuss the feedback we’ve been getting.”
The pedestrian bridge over the Queensway that connects the ends of Harmer on either side of the highway is being replaced after 55 years, with a new enclosed crossing much like the Max Keeping footbridge near the train station and baseball stadium. The ramps at either end aren’t up to modern standards and need rebuilding, too, which is why it’s going to take so long.
A rendering of the pedestrian and cycling bridge to replace the existing bridge over Highway 417 at Harmer Avenue. Source: City of Ottawa
The sticky thing is that just north of the footbridge are two schools: Elmdale (which has students from kindergarten to Grade 6) and Fisher Park (Grades 7 and 8), which is right in the highway’s shadow. Both schools draw students from south of the 417, as does St. George Catholic Elementary School a little farther north. The Harmer footbridge is the safer way for kids living on the south side to get to them, especially if the students are riding bikes or scooters. Fisher Park’s a community rec centre and, of course, other people use the bridge, too.
“The proposed bridge is part of the active living transportation network and a main spine in the City of Ottawa Master Cycling plan,” the city says in outlining the plans. Which means the current bridge is, too.
While the bridge is out of commission, the logical way to cross the highway will be Holland Avenue. It’s not far from the footbridge but it’s a significant north-south artery instead of a quiet residential street. Traffic lights, OC Transpo buses, speed-limit signs, cars zipping between two lanes of parking. Holland’s not quite Woodroffe or Bronson, but that’s the league it plays in.
Roads like that “naturally attract high levels of vehicular traffic, are often severely constrained in terms of width or right-of-way and therefore provide low levels of service for cyclists and pedestrians,” the city’s master cycling plan says, talking about using those roads to cross highways like the 417. They’re not good enough as they are. “Low levels of service” is the traffic engineer’s way of saying they’re bad.
The city’s plan was to put in a temporary segregated bike lane for a few blocks, to keep bikes away from the buses, trucks and cars. Then residents delivered that 118-name petition to city council asking for the plan to be changed because it would mean less street parking near their houses. The houses of Holland Avenue have driveways, parking on the other side of the street, and more around the corners.
Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper.
The city obliged. Now, instead of the bike lane, the city plans to put up signs telling cyclists they can ride on the sidewalks along a short stretch of Holland and to paint sharrows on the street — those square markings urging motorists not to be goons when they encounter people on bicycles.
Signs and sharrows are nothing pretending to be something. If the city did nothing, kids were going to ride on the Holland sidewalks anyway, so big deal if they put up a sign. Telling cyclists, including grown-ups, that it’s OK to ride on them is asking for conflicts.
What limited evidence there is on sharrows suggests they make streets more dangerous than they’d otherwise be because cyclists take them more seriously than drivers do.
The plan is to claim to be making the route safer while actually making Holland very slightly more dangerous, with a lot more vulnerable people on it, including children.
What’s at stake here is whether city hall believes in any of its pro-bike, pro-walking, active-transportation rhetoric. What we do when we take out a footbridge for two whole years says a lot about what matters to us.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
