I've been grumpy on here lately so allow me to sing the praises of the first snow.
This past week, the snow came down to (more or less) stay. My studded tires went on Wednesday night, on an evening I suddenly had free from judo class because the storm was too bad. Thursday, I went out for groceries in steadily falling small icy snow. Studded tires are the absolute greatest. My car's winter tires weren't on yet (because I keep forgetting about my car) so there was something very freeing about riding along unconcerned, sure of the footing of my bike.
Saturday night I was at a friend's until really late. It was snowing when I set out for his place at something like 6:30 pm, and already dark, of course. But the fresh snow was very sharp, icy, and sparkly in the light from my headlamp. It was a very pretty ride. And I knew several more centimetres were due down that night.
Somewhere between 1:30 and 2:00 am, I left. The driveway was 10 centimeters deep or so. My friend said if the roads were really bad I could always crash in his spare room, but I figured it was only a matter of about seven kilometres home and I'd be fine.
I was only really bothered by the suburban street immediately outside his place, as it turned out. When cars have been through even a few centimetres of snow, it compacts it in weird, unpredictable ways that twist your front tire and mess up your steering. I was getting a little annoyed with it after a block, but then I turned off the street to join the network of asphalt pedestrian paths that run through his neighbourhood. And for a bit at least, they'd even been plowed within the last couple of hours. I left happy, zoomy tire tracks in a thin layer of fluffy snow while more flakes fell around me.
Stepping out of my friend's place, the whole neighbourhood had seemed lit up. Almost twilight. I guess the falling snow, and the snow on the ground, were just bouncing the available light around. It was nearly two in the morning and felt like day.
A little further on, the path looked like it hadn't been plowed in a while, and it was a good thing I'm very familiar with it and knew where all the turns were. The snow was several centimetres deep, but fluffy, so although it was a little harder to pedal than usual, it didn't cause any steering problems. I just left deeper tracks behind me in the snow.
Turning onto the cycletrack along Conroy Road, the plow had returned within the last couple of hours, and here I really zoomed. Everything was quiet. There were only a few cars on Conroy, which is a four-lane arterial, and the ones there were had been muted by the snow. I could see really well in the bright, weirdly lit up night, I felt visible with my lights and my dark jacket against the white snow, and my tires were muffled by the thin layer of snow on the path.
This is what I love about that first snowfall. Especially at night. In November it's cold and very dark and often rainy, and the cars have winter tires on so they make more noise, and it's honestly not that much fun. But then that first snow happens, and you're bombing along through the snowflakes on quiet paths, and the cars are silenced, and the nights are bright, and the chill in the air wakes your cheeks up.
People will say you're "brave" for riding in the winter. I suppose I should tell them how nice it can be.
Building intersections that are a pain in the ass to maintain in winter: I highlighted here all the curbs waiting to be smashed into by a plow blade and piled over with snow, including two pointless little concrete pads that are, I guess, supposed to act as "separation" for the cycle track?
In Ottawa, the snow usually falls to stay around the beginning of December. It melts, generally, toward the end of March. A third of the year, it's snowy here.
We do not adequately fund snow clearing for the streets. We blow through the budgetconstantly.
We do not maintain pedestrian paths, bridges, stairs, or bike lanes. (Oh, sorry: there are 980+ kilometres of bike infrastructure; 60 of them are cleared of snow.)
We have a train system that breaks down when it's cold, icy, or snowy. Sensor switches on the tracks shut the system down because they mistook snow on the tracks for a person in the first winter.
The bus stations have heaters - nominally. When pushing the button does anything, it turns on a glowing electric coil that is mounted up on the glass ceiling, for 15 minutes.
Time and time again I look at the design drawings when the City proposes some new feature, and it's a drawing of green grass and blue skies and people sitting on big concrete blocks and steps, sipping their ice coffee, and strolling along the wide pavement. Ottawa, it seems, is constantly looking for the door into summer. And at the same time we get all the people who comment on every design yelling "it's winter eight months out of the year here! Why are we building this bike lane?"
It's winter for about four months of the year, to be honest, but still, that's four months of the year that are left out of our plans, left out of our budget, and left out of our networks. Come that first snowfall, it's like the City of Ottawa says, "Well, that's it, wasn't that a nice run, everyone inside now. Get inside. Get in your cars. Public spaces are closed now; we will reopen in April."
I mean, come on. Ottawa is a winter city. It's the seventh coldest national capital in the world, behind places like Talinn and Helsinki and Ulaanbataar. It's a place where, theoretically, we celebrate winter. We have Winterlude! We have the Skateway! We have the Rink of Dreams outside City Hall! There are pop-up skating ovals in all the city parks! We are Canadians and we love the winter! Right?
Apparently not. We close major, beloved pedestrian bridges because of concerns about salt and safety. The Commanda Bridge was "not designed for winter use." Well, why the fuck not? This is a winter city, after all. So, can we groom it for skiing? It connects right up with the Kichi Sibi Winter Trail (a really great amenity that only exists because of grassroots volunteers). . . but nah, the City's not going to do that either.
An actual winter city would recognize that, for one thing, people might visit in the winter for the experience - maybe even for Winterlude? - and, for another, the people that live here need to continue to live our lives, even if it snows. That people need sidewalks and bike paths and cool places to congregate and enjoy the winter. Imagine strolling across the river on the Commanda Bridge with a hot chocolate, enjoying the views of the islands and Parliament Hill up on its escarpment. Imagine a student spending their first winter at Carleton walking across the bridge to go sledding in Vincent Massey Park. Imagine people walking along the canal pathways to the Beaver Tail stand at Dows Lake and then going skating. Imagine people being able to bike to work or school all year - because I can tell you, riding a bike in the snow can be really fun and connect you to your neighbourhood and environment. Imagine an urban ski and snowshoe network that really celebrates that snowy Canadian self-image.
Someone else replied with a gif of Donald Trump dancing with the text "TRUMP WON 2024."
The original poster replied with "I don't get it." As far as I know the Trumper didn't answer.
I mean, we do get it, nonsensical though it is. The guy I follow was just trying to get the Trumper to make it explicit. On the face of it all he can say is, "I posted a gloating gif celebrating the victory, in an election held in another country from yours, of someone who I believe will make progressives suffer, and I did that because you want people not to die in traffic crashes."
In what (alternate from ours) universe does that string of logic make any sense? Taken at face value, he seems to be saying that a Trump administration will result in more people getting killed on the road. Ha ha, suck it, libs! Our loved ones will be mangled by cars! MAGA!
But in fact the guy probably didn't answer because he just wanted to hurt someone. He saw someone who he assumes rides a bicycle because they were at an event against traffic violence. He decided that that person must be a woke snowflake, who must be crying into their spirulina shots over the American election, so har har, Trump won, cry harder about. . . . road deaths.
It is so exhausting. Why does a mode of transportation, or a tasty chickpea and tahini spread. . . mm, hummus. . . I should make some hummus. . .
Why does that stuff have to have anything to do with this bullshit MAGA cult? At least on this one front - transportation - just leave us out of it. Deciding that riding a bike is "left wing" is just chowderheaded at best, and downright dangerous at worst. How many MAGA-heads in trucks have deliberately threatened bikers with their vehicles because of their weird political rhetoric?
Rob Ford called us "bike riding pinkos." Doug Ford definitely thinks there's "Ford Nation" and then there's "those cyclists making the roads worse for everyday Ontarians." Meanwhile people on bicycles are just trying to get around. They're going to school or work or heading out to pick up milk or drop the kids off at daycare or whatever. You don't have to sign up for the Communist Party's newsletters to do that shit.
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but also I am very, very, very tired of it. Hey, here's a meme.
So, the stupid gridlock law is in the legislature now, and the one thing that gives me a flicker of hope is that there are a lot of people out there pointing out all the reasons it is a dumb law that won't fix gridlock. The CBC posted an article summarizing studies from around the world that show safe biking infrastructure does not impact traffic negatively, improves business on main streets, and improves emissions levels. Toronto Today just posted an article quoting the Bloor Street BIA (Bloor being one of the places Doug Ford definitely wants to rip bike lanes out of) as saying that removing the lanes would be "disastrous" for business.
There have been rallies in Toronto and Ottawa so far, the latter organized by my favorite Ottawa councillor Jeff Leiper. Here's CTV News Ottawa on that:
But that's not what I came to talk to you about.
Came to talk to you about the anecdata.
I am glad, I guess, though it makes my blood boil, that they included streeters in that video with people who are against bike lanes, just because, just vibes, just - agin' em. They give Dave Roberton (vice president of Bike Ottawa) and Jeff a lot more time to talk, and they show the two anti-bike people saying, eloquently: "I think it's great, rip them all out so there's more room for us," and "I just hate bike lanes and they shouldn't be in the downtown, which is where they are."
Razor sharp reasoning and logic there, kids.
So in the interest of catharsis, here's some stupid shit I've heard anti-bike-lane people say in the last week or so and my simplest answers.
"I am a tradesperson and I need my car to get around town."
Okay. No one is stopping you.
"What about diabled people and the elderly?"
Leaving aside the fact that plenty of disabled and elderly people can and do ride bikes or otherwise use bike lanes (like, with wheelchairs and scooters and trikes and whatever), no one said everyone has to ride a bike just because there is a bike lane. We're not going to build a bike lane and then outlaw driving. And not for nothing, but just about everyone I hear make that argument is able-bodied.
"We want drivers to be able to get around our cities."
Okay - do you also want me to be able to get around my city? And if not, why not? I work. I shop. I go out. I participate in our economy. So, shouldn't I also be able to get around?
"What if the bike lane runs in front of a church, and there is a funeral, and they need to bring the coffin out of the church and into the hearse, which is parked in the bike lane?" (I am not kidding, I heard this one.)
Look, if I'm riding along in a bike lane and there is a funeral cortege lined up along the curb, I will stop. send up a thought for the departed and their family and friends, and if they are actively loading the coffin I'll probably wait till they're done? Maybe walk on the sidewalk? Weird fringe reason to object to the lane just generally being there though.
"But that bike lane is taking up a lane that could be used for us!"
That bike lane has a whole bunch of people on bikes in it who would be in the traffic lane with you if it wasn't there, and I know you wouldn't be sanguine about that. Also, this isn't "my simplest answer" but if you would like, read up on induced demand.
"We just have too many people moving into the city and we need to build more roads."
Maybe you're trying to pretend your problem isn't with immigration. But okay, fair. If we've got a booming population we don't need to build more roads, we need to build denser housing that people can afford closer to the middle of the city. Kills two expensive birds with one stone: we already need the housing, why also build the roads? Also, see above about induced demand.
"Bike lanes cause pollution because cars are backed up!"
No, cars cause pollution because they burn fossil fuels. And a whole lot of people IN those cars chose to be there. Sure, some people actually can't walk or bike or take transit. But the vast majority of people stuck in that traffic jam had the choice to be there. I have watched friends choose not to. A good friend just got an e-conversion for his bike because his mental health demanded he not sit in that traffic jam or wait for that delayed or cancelled O-Train.
"Bike lanes shouldn't be downtown."
Why not? That's where the people and the shops and the jobs are.
"I just hate bike lanes."
. . . Um, okay I guess? Can you explain why? Because that's a really weird attitude when you think about it. And you might find yourself coming down to something kind of embarassing if you really sat with why you feel that way. Something like "I think people on bikes are a threat to my manhood" or "I don't want anyone else to have something that I don't use" or "People who aren't stuck in traffic like me make me jealous." And all of those kind of sound like a you problem, something you should maybe work on within yourself.
Anyway, all that said, I'm off to write to my MP and try to say all this a bit less snarkily. And leave some pointed comments on the Environmental Registry of Ontario's website.
Doug Ford hates bikes. Same as his brother did. It's apparently just an unreasoning, gut-based loathing. It's got the same vibes-based feel as the comment section of the Post whenever there's a story that involves cycling. Problem is, the people in the comment section aren't the premier of the country's most populous and urbanized province.
Next week, the Ontario government is tabling the childishly named Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act in the legislature. (Seriously, these people can't even name their laws as if they were grownups.) This staggeringly dumb law will require municipalities to seek the provincial government's approval to build new bike facilities if they might have "a negative impact on vehicle traffic."
(don't mind me, just adding a screenshot from the ontario.ca website)
Based on gut feeling, they have decided (according to Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria), that bike lanes installed during the pandemic, when "fewer vehicles were on the road and their impacts on traffic were unclear," are causing gridlock. Because of course they must be. Do they have data? Of course not. Would they listen to data? Continue dreaming. Sakaria's making this announcement in fucking Etobicoke. People in the godforsaken suburbs of Toronto will clap like seals for this.
I keep having to stop while writing this to take a breath and calm down. It's not particularly helpful just to rage at stupidity.
But the whole pausing-for-a-breath thing doesn't really work, if I'm being honest. Not when the next thing Sarkaria said was "This is why our government is bringing informed decision-making and oversight to bike lanes as well as taking steps to increase speed limits safely [you bet those italics are mine]."
Oh, and they're also requesting a review of every bike lane built in the last five years, to see if they can maybe strip those out as well. The "built during the pandemic when there were fewer cars" thing is window dressing. You know what dropped during the pandemic and never recovered? Public transit ridership. You know what had bounced back to 2016 levels by May of 2022? Car commuting. So unless we bolted off to design, approve, implement and construct thousands of kilometres of bike infrastructure between March of 2020 and about a year to a year and a half later, your argument is invalid. Your gridlock - inasmuch as it has increased since 2020 - is being caused by people not taking transit.
Yet we're going to ban most new bike lanes, rip out some existing ones maybe, maintain road widths, and increase speed limits, all to save drivers time. And people are going to die. And no driver's time will actually be saved.
If you're reading this you probably don't need me re-litigating the data on induced demand, actual causes of gridlock, correlation of increased speed limits and pedestrian deaths, actual impact of bike lanes on traffic speeds, etc., etc. I just want us to sit for a moment with the sheer carbrained, knee-jerk hatefulness of this.
You can't fix gridlock by making it easier to drive. The data are in on that. Every time you disincentivise transit and cycling (and scooters, and walking) you push another person into a single-occupancy car choking out fumes on a bumper-to-bumper commute to Barrie or Scarborough. All you can do with this bullshit law - and all they want to do, really - is get more votes from their SUV-driving suburban base, which is ironic, given the Conservatives are supposed to be all about small government and now every municipality in Ontario is going to have to come to Queen's Park with their proposals for bike lanes for approval. The paperwork will pile up. The bureaucracy will pile up. Projects will stall out. Car traffic will continue to clog the roads. And - again - people on bikes and on foot will die.
But they said this law would Save You Time (where "You" is understood to mean "drivers/Conservative voters/suburban Torontonians," not, you know, all the rest of us). And to a whole lot of people that'll sound real truthy. And the facts do not matter as long as they're sticking it to those bike riding pinkos.
Every so often it comes up in bike conversations online: people share their exasperation with how drivers behave when there's a bike in the mix at an all-way stop. They'll tell stories about drivers who try to wave them through when the driver has the right of way, or drivers who assume the cyclist is required to yield so they roll right through, or drivers who slow down to let you go ahead when they have the right of way, messing up the timing of the whole interaction and confusing other drivers: in general, drivers being unpredictable.
When people say, "what's wrong with drivers waving you through, they're being polite," I tend to reply that I would much rather people be consistent than polite. I'd like to be able to predict what they'll do.
Generally, the assumption among Online Bike People seems to be that people don't know or remember what the rules are at an all-way stop. We learned it for the written test whenever we took it, then forgot, and our behaviour at stops became more or less vibes-based. In the most recent discussion about this, I suggested that cyclists (particularly cycling advocates) probably know the rules more often than people who only drive, because we are invested in this shit.
And I went off to look at the Highway Traffic Act for Ontario to confirm the rules. And I found out I was wrong. We all were.
At a stop, most bikers I know (that is, the ones who talk to each other about it online and attend city consultations) apply the rules for drivers. It's, like, the only time most of them become sticklers for vehicular cycling principles.
If the intersection is empty, stop, look, and proceed (yeah yeah yeah I know, Idaho stops, I do them.)
If two or more vehicles arrive at the stop at the same time, the one to the right goes first.
If the vehicles are facing each other, the one going straight goes first.
Turns out, according to the Act, cyclists and pedestrians have the right of way first, before all motor traffic. Cyclists, who are in the street with the motor traffic, and who are usually told they have to obey all the rules that drivers do, get ROW at a stop sign. Every time I've stopped because a driver got to the intersection at the same time as me, and I've shouted, "you've got the right of way!" at them while they waved for me to go, I was technically wrong.
But I ask you. On a bike, am I going to think, "okay, I have the right of way so I'm just going to proceed through the intersection first"? HELL no, Again, I'd rather things be predictable. And I know that no one remembers - probably very few were taught - that bikes have the right of way first. Am I going to put my safety on the line because in this one case, the rules are different for me? Nope.
Since we can't re-educate an entire population, I'd argue this rule should go. Don't make the calculations at all-way stops any more complicated than they need to be. Pedestrians should absolutely have the right of way first, yes. They're on sidewalks. They're not using the street. Cyclists should, in this case, just follow the same turn-taking as everyone else. That way there's just one set of rules to follow. There's one less opportunity for a misunderstanding that could result in someone getting hurt. Just this once - this once - I actually agree with John Forester.
As I was heading to the office yesterday, I spotted a bunch of new mounting points for flex posts on Kilborn west of Alta Vista. (There are already a bunch of these things east of Alta Vista, occasionally getting whacked by delivery vans and lying across the bike lane.)
Look, I get it. People speed and the cheapest thing the city can do about it (because they won't do the math on speed camera revenue) is put up hundreds and hundreds of these flexible wickets, so that the drivers will slow up a bit: not because they're afraid they'll hit a person, but because they're afraid something will hit their car.
But as a bike rider I really dislike these things. This latest set, I discovered as I almost hit one of the mount points while going upwards of 40 km/h down the hill at the bottom of the road. Those bolts aren't really noticeable to a car tire: I definitely don't want to hit one at speed on a bike though.
And once the posts go up, they'll be one more thing I have to navigate and calculate for. Do I have room to pass that post on the right? Or do I have to take the lane for a second to pass it on the left, so that a driver doesn't try to go through the (usually about 3.5-m) space alongside me? Are there also parked cars to weave around and work into the equation? (There aren't any bike lanes on this part of Kilborn: the painted lines delineate a parking zone.) And in the winter, when they take them down, I'll need to watch for the little plates, which are permanent.
At least here, they don't appear to be putting in centre posts. The centre posts just create artificial pinch points where drivers unconsciously squeeze further over toward me because they don't want to hit the poles - all the while having their attention pulled to the pole they're passing, not the person on a bike. And on Pleasant Park, another street near me, there are centre posts flanked by side posts, where the side posts aren't far enough from the curb for a bike to get through. So about twice a block I have to shoulder check and move out to take the lane through the gap, or slam on the brakes to let cars past me because there's no room.
Is speeding a problem? Sure. Are these things more hazardous than speeding? I don't know. Do these things slow people down? Sure - by, apparently, as much as 5 km/h! (Wow! Such much?) But it sure feels like trading one set of cycling hazards for another, without much of an upside for the cyclists.
Last weekend they finally opened the new ped/bike bridge over the Rideau River at Carleton University, linking the campus to Vincent Massey Park. It's about time: this bridge has been in place for two freaking years. It opened for a single solitary day this spring, apparently by accident when the contractor took down a barricade, and was then thoroughly barricaded and bolted shut for months. Apparently some smoothbrain thought we should all wait to use the bridge until the LRT line next to it was complete, which is infuriatingly on brand for this city.
Whatever: it's open now. Sound the trumpets!
I'd been watching for it to open because, ever since last summer, I'd wanted to use it to get to Carleton on Saturdays for a martial arts class. It would allow me to skip having to cross Billings Bridge, ever the bane of my existence (see many, many posts on here for why) and ride through Old Ottawa South (another bane) to get to campus. Now, I can take my usual quiet neighbourhood streets to the Rideau River Path, ride along that to the park, cut across the bridge, and know that it's likely that the only violence I have to deal with that morning will be consensual.
But I hadn't realized, until yesterday, that it has also cut the amount of on-road riding I have to do to get to work down to practically nothing. I headed out of the office yesterday evening and decided to see how little on-road riding I could manage. If I stay on the Rideau River path till I get to the connection to the Hospital ring road, which has a separated path, I can literally travel 13 km and spend only 1 km total on a shared road or street. (Assuming you don't consider the Experimental Farm roads "roads," which I don't: they have virtually no cars, are slowed to 30km, have no lane lines, and are pedestrian- and farm-equipment priority.) And even then, none of the "streets" I'm on are in any way busy. They're the sorts of streets people walk and play road hockey in.
Even if I get off the river path at Pleasant Park, which shortens my trip by 3 km, I only spend 2.25 km more on streets. And again, really quiet and pleasant streets.
Contrast with how things were before this bridge existed. I had three main (non-winter) routes: the first two took either the Rideau River path through Vincent Massey Park or the Brookfield underpass, both of which link up to Hog's Back Falls, where I crossed the river and connected with Prince of Wales Drive. I would then have to merge onto this thing.
I would also have to cut through the Worst Parking Lot In Nepean as the last step of my trip to work: a grim and lawless hellscape with a wide area where there are no lanes, no rules, and drivers crisscrossing from one side to the next to get to the right or left turn lanes. It sucks.
I need to get from, more or less, lower right to upper left here. It's . . . an adventure.
OR: I could cut onto Bank Street at Riverside, go over Billings Bridge and through Old Ottawa South to Cameron, then through Brewer Park and Carleton campus to the Experimental Farm roads, and through the farm to the office. This, however, involves the part of the city (the bridge and OOS) where I have probably had the greatest number of adverse interactions with drivers, from punishment passing to tailgating to bullying, shouting, honking, and, at least once, me crying on the sidewalk for a minute.
Now, though, I don't have to decide of a morning whether I'd rather face Prince of Wales or Billings Bridge. They've both been cleared off my list of problems: at least until there's too much snow down to use the river path, which isn't winter maintained.
This tiny little link - one 60m long bridge! - is an absolute game changer.
