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Cycling and Active Transportation in Edmonton

Gronk! said:
How's the attendance at the Winter Cycling Conference? Think it will be an annual event?
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220 registered delegates but more are coming for tonight's event to hear live podcast with The War on Cars and adon Iveson. It's $25 for tonight and people can still register I believe. (War on Cars name is tongue and cheek because it's what Doug Ford said in previous election - not letting this war on Cars (such a false narrative) from happening.

Today I'm looking to hearing more from Utae from About Here.

Conference changes locations each year. I'm not sure if local organizers (Ever Active Schools).
 
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I did the conference walking tour yesterday afternoon with about 25 delegates around downtown to hear their comments. People loved the Art Gallery the most. City Hall was well liked as well as Ice District.

People thought the ice district pop up space (by the casino) was really cool - that there was a dt space that could be transitioned to so many uses, ice climbing, volleyball, basketball, Octoberfest etc.

I heard comments - "the city is sure clean."
 
TAS said:
Edmonton hosting Winter Cycling Conference today and tomorrow at Westin. Met officials from Finland as well as US (Anchorage, Minneapolis Boston) and Canada (Toronto, Montreal).

There was interesting presentation by officials from Canmore.

In 2015, they had a mode share of 15% for walking, biking, transit and in 2023 that increased to 32%.

Key things they did were adding new multi use paths and bike lanes, remodel some intersections, reduce some traffic lanes, and reduce speed limits to 30Km/hr on collector roads and some other locations.

One of the bolder moves however was eliminating free parking and instead offering free transit. The new parking revenue covers about 50% of what was lost from transit revenue.

Canmore residents do still get up to 3 hours of free parking per day in the main dt parking area using an app, but people can't just park their vehicles all day like previously.

Impressive to see increase in mode share for active transportation.

Also impressive was the story of Montreal's Bixi bike share program - 3rd largest in North America (NY is #1). Montreal's bike share is now all year round and in 2023 they achieved 11.5 million rides. They have 800 docking stations and average trip length is 3km and often coincides with other means of travel such as transit or walking to get to final destination.

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to hearing from Don Iveson. Sohi provided opening remarks today and shared funny story of growing up Alin India and riding his dad's bike that was way too big for him. Councillors Janz and Salvador were there all day.
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I really hope we see more things being designed like the Dutch-style Hwy 1A & Benchlands Trail /Railway Ave intersection in Canmore (their long term plans seem to call for a few more intersections heading west on Railway ave to be designed in a similar manner - https://www.canmore.ca/your-government/projects/transportation).

One thing I especially like is the traffic light positioning to be at the stop lines rather than the other side of the intersection - not sure if there are laws and regulations around that in the city (there probably are) but even a small change like that can make crosswalks much safer as more people actually stop at the stop line.
 
102ave in glenora continues to not get cleared… they’ll do 124th street to 130th st. Then randomly stop instead of finishing to the logical end of the bike path at 136st. It’s infuriating.

This is the main bike route from the west end to downtown.

Can anyone the rides this area please join me in submitting 311 complaints and calling in to ask for the system/designation to be changed? Makes 0 sense to not go 5 more blocks for 10mins and just finish the route!!
 
thommyjo said:
102ave in glenora continues to not get cleared… they’ll do 124th street to 130th st. Then randomly stop instead of finishing to the logical end of the bike path at 136st. It’s infuriating.

This is the main bike route from the west end to downtown.

Can anyone the rides this area please join me in submitting 311 complaints and calling in to ask for the system/designation to be changed? Makes 0 sense to not go 5 more blocks for 10mins and just finish the route!!
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Could it be boundaries of separate contractors they use to clear the routes? Very frustrating. On the south side it's the same, certain portions of the same (mostly) continuous route get plowed at different time intervals.
 
ntt1 said:
Could it be boundaries of separate contractors they use to clear the routes? Very frustrating. On the south side it's the same, certain portions of the same (mostly) continuous route get plowed at different time intervals.
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I’ve chatted with city staff before on it. It’s because most of the path is considered priority 1. But the last like 5 blocks got designated the same as all other MUPs.

Which is just illogical to me because

1) 98% of users on that path are connecting to it west of where they stop snow clearing. Glenora residents aren’t making up the couple hundred of daily users ahha. Most are coming from west of 136st and connecting to that path right at its terminus

2) it’s literally just a few more blocks of the route already being cleared. The cost to, at a separate time, send a crew and vehicle back to do the 5 blocks they leave is such a waste. Take just 10 more minutes to finish the path when you’re doing the first section. IT MAKES NO SENSE.

Great example of bureaucracy and decision makers not being users…or listening to users that call and email every year 🙄
 
In mostly better news, the 95ave design just got released: https://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/on_your_streets/95-avenue-renewal

This has been a real fight sadly. Residents on the southside were unsupportive to any changes that would impact their free street parking. Bike infrastructure was the tradeoff. Intersections were also completed unchanged and slip lanes persisted at 170st and 163st. (In original designs).

Not all the issues have been fixed, but some improvements were made. A raised crossing at 165st. Removal of slip lanes at 163st. Removal of the service road for a MUP and boulevard trees on the southside.

It’s not perfect, but an improvement from what was potentially going to be a massively permanent and bad design along a route that’s supposedly a “District Connector” in the Bike Plan.

The fact that it’s a MUP and not a bike path + sidewalk is still super frustrating though. Especially when this is an area with 6 schools and a future LRT stop. Separating modes should have been a higher priority.
 
thommyjo said:
In mostly better news, the 95ave design just got released: https://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/on_your_streets/95-avenue-renewal

This has been a real fight sadly. Residents on the southside were unsupportive to any changes that would impact their free street parking. Bike infrastructure was the tradeoff. Intersections were also completed unchanged and slip lanes persisted at 170st and 163st. (In original designs).

Not all the issues have been fixed, but some improvements were made. A raised crossing at 165st. Removal of slip lanes at 163st. Removal of the service road for a MUP and boulevard trees on the southside.

It’s not perfect, but an improvement from what was potentially going to be a massively permanent and bad design along a route that’s supposedly a “District Connector” in the Bike Plan.

The fact that it’s a MUP and not a bike path + sidewalk is still super frustrating though. Especially when this is an area with 6 schools and a future LRT stop. Separating modes should have been a higher priority.
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Would have been nice if it had received the same treatment as 132 Ave.

It frustrates me to no end how parked cars on streets like this have greater priority than providing a safer, viable option to move people around via active transportation since the city target is 50% mode share for active/public transportation.
 
Agree with the sentiments here, it's an improvement but also a disappointment. Also such a small segment of MUP that still don't connect with the rest of the network

Also just wanted to remind that this was also the community that fought painted bike lanes in 2014.


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Was there a worse building period in Edmonton than the "service road" era? So much space is used and it seems to resilient to retro fitting to any other purpose. 75th street, 90th ave - all terrible biking experiences
 
They're keeping only the one crosswalk at the 167 St intersection and not adding another on the west side? Unfortunate.
 
On the memo website, there's a memo from Jan 22, 2024 regarding the active transportation acceleration plan. The memo website won't let me copy the document url annoyingly, and I can't figure out how to attach the PDF files that I uploaded here. That being said, here are some highlights.

Screenshot_20240313-185216_Drive.jpg
Screenshot_20240313-185414_Drive.jpg
Screenshot_20240313-185421_Drive.jpg
 
CplKlinger said:
On the memo website, there's a memo from Jan 22, 2024 regarding the active transportation acceleration plan. The memo website won't let me copy the document url annoyingly, and I can't figure out how to attach the PDF files that I uploaded here. That being said, here are some highlights.

View attachment 547963View attachment 547965View attachment 547964
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This is great. Do you have a URL for the Memo Website so I can access the document? Hoping to download the PDF myself if possible.

(Although as someone who lives in Hazeldean, I hope greatly that they upgrade the 97th St District Connector. It says it is currently existing, but there is no dedicated infrastructure.)
 
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