A recent survey conducted by Ipsos Reid shows that 81% of Canadians think that Canadian cities don’t have enough bike lanes, and that 73% believe that cyclists are right to ask for more respect from motorists.
The survey also showed that 58% of respondents support mandatory side-guards on transport trucks, but that 60% said that the cost was too high while the economy is at risk.
Hopefully evidence of support for bike lanes will help our city council support more bike lanes as well, leading to increased funding for this necessary infrastructure.
One of the main complaints I have is that there is still no safe way to ride from the east end to the west end, between locations where bike lanes/paths end. Like at George and Wyandotte, and near Saint Rose and Wyandotte. There’s great bike lanes and paths on either side of this wasteland in-between. Riding on Wyandotte isn’t as bad as riding on Riverside Drive since there is more room, but also more traffic. I know there are plans to put bike lanes/path on Riverside Drive though from the RDVIP plans. That will help connect these wonderful paths/lanes we have leading up to Strabane and Riverside in the central area and Saint Rose and Wyandotte in the east. After riding on that stretch of Wyandotte with a friend several times this summer I was told he is afraid for his life. Not a good way to feel while riding on the streets of Windsor.
I can follow safe trails/paths and roads all the way to St. Clair Beach and beyond in the far east and depending on how far I want to go in the west I can comfortably ride to La Salle. But there is still this stretch of Wyandotte inbetween, where either it or Riverside Drive doesn’t really allow safe passage for cyclists. Once this area has been completed then we will really have a wonderful system in place in at least one part of the city to travel safety from far reaches of the east and west. Something that is truly needed in order for people to feel that they can commute by bicycle safely. The more the city can connect and expand its network of bike lanes and paths, the more people will use them.
Unfortunately nearly every study completed in the past 10 or 20 years have all said the same thing. “We need more bike lanes”.
I’ve come to notice that in theory people want bike lanes, but when push comes to shove? No, they are more then happy with more roads and/or the status quo.
The same study said most support side guards for transport trucks. At the same time people said ‘do to economic tough times’, it is the wrong time to put them on.
A city needs to have a bicycle master plan though and should be working to create safe bicycle routes that allow people to commute by bicycle across the city. I understand things like bike lanes won’t always be possible, but our bicycle use master plan (BUMP) has been laid out and slowly the city has been trying to fill in the gaps. I just wish more focus was spent on trying to connect and create critical routes that are needed for commuting in Windsor.
There are recreational riders but also people who commute to work and those numbers are rising. We need to encourage other people to ride as well since the health of this city is quite poor. “Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both males and females. The Windsor-Essex County rate for coronary heart disease in men is 28% higher than the provincial average and it is 29% higher for women.”
As a cyclist, I will always try to find the safest route, I take a lot of side streets and back roads, like I had to while the riverfront trail was closed. In the east end of the city though where the bike lanes end at George/Strabane there really is no other option other than riding on Riverside Drive or Wyandotte. It’s one of those cases where choices are limited and either one isn’t that safe to ride on. So I hope that the RDVIP will eventually fix that problem. The city doesn’t seem to want to put bike lanes on Wyandotte in that stretch even though there is a median in most of that stretch of road between George and St. Rose. I don’t remember seeing bike lanes in the BUMP though on Wyandotte. Yet it didn’t stop them from putting them in at Walker and Wyandotte recently.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that bike lanes or not, we still need safe routes to commute across this city. If a person continually has to fight with the stress and danger of their commute due to no safe option, its likely they might give up and stop riding, or even become a fatality. It reminds me of the Greenway here and how I would ride out to it this summer, but quicky found that just trying to ride to the trailhead of the Greenway left me feeling so mentally exhausted at times, I couldn’t enjoy the ride on the trail. It’s another one of those cases of having a great system in place like the Greenway, but no easy way to reach it from the city.