The snow cyclist meets a messy end

The photo was taken by Shelly, Miss Scarlett's owner.

The helmet's name is, I believe, Helmut.

The snow cyclist was, alas, never heard from again.

My first piece on Spacing Ottawa!

I'm pretty chuffed: Spacing Ottawa just posted a piece I wrote about abandoned bikes. It was a followup to a short musing I posted here back in December, when I spotted a bike on the Mackenzie King Bridge that had clearly been sitting there since before the snow fell (and this year the snow really did just come down in a 'thwump' like a Terry Gilliam cartoon and stay there.)

I didn't really think, when I started this blog, that I would find so much to say about cycling. I didn't start out as a cycling activist or a 'bike geek' or anything like that: I started biking because it was a lot easier and cheaper and more convenient than taking the bus (and a great excuse to spend more of my day outside.) But it's shaped my interests, my causes, my convictions, in major ways, and it seems I keep finding more interesting things about biking, bike culture, biking infrastructure, and bike activism, the longer I do it.

-27

That's what it got down to today, counting in the wind chill - my record low cycling temperature! It was about -27 on my way to the rock gym about noon: I didn't really think for long about taking the bus. It's just faster and easier to bike. And then when I got back to my place tonight after an evening at a friend's, a little after midnight, it was -23 (so sayeth the Weather Network). I didn't notice till I was getting out my keys that some of my hair was sticking out above my collar, and it and the collar were white with frost from my breath, as was the strap on my helmet. It was actually pretty spectacular: I don't think I've seen anything like that since I was in high school and used to cross-country ski regularly with my parents.

Awesome. The crazy thing is that I wouldn't have thought, a few months ago, that I'd be out there once the mercury dropped this low. But it's actually not that bad, once you're out there and moving (and especially with my wool tights - a thousand thanks to my parents again for those!) In fact, coming up Heron toward my place I was actually working up a sweat - the only thing cold was my cheeks. It felt really good. Cold, dark, quiet, clean, the streets nearly empty, nothing but me and Mike whizzing along through the night.

More wayfinding

Ah, a new year. Back to Ottawa and back on the bike this week, all kitted up in the new merino base layer and with the pant legs tucked into the boots... and still struggling to find a route to work.

Back in December when the snow first flew I found myself trapped on the back roads of the Cyrville Industrial Park and swore I would never try that again. I had talked over possible routes with other friends of mine who have a decent Area Knowledge modifier (to use gamerspeak) and worked out how many points there are where you can safely or sanely get across the highway. (Bank Street, where you can go under it at Catherine; Lees Avenue, where you can go over it at the Nicholas/Mann snarl; Riverside Drive just before Coventry, which is unpleasant.) So yesterday morning I set off down Heron, re-acclimatizing myself to the slush after a couple of weeks off the roads while I was visiting my family.

I decided to try Lees. So I took my usual route down Alta Vista to Hurdman, only to discover that when I'd walked the bike the length of the Transitway station, the pathway to and from the cluster of apartment buildings at Lees was uncleared: a foot-worn track that you couldn't bike along. I stopped for a moment, and an OC Transpo employee came out to say, "You look a little bewildered." I explained that I was trying to get to Lees Avenue, and she told me, not unsympathetically, that the only way was to walk the bike along the path. So I walked it back along the station to the path entrance, and shoved Mike, clogged with snow, from the station to Lees Avenue: the picture here highlights the amount of my trip that was spent trudging through deep snow. (Good lord, was it really nearly a mile? No wonder I was late for work.)

Lees Avenue was pretty slushy, too, and busy with cars who were all either still in highway mode or about to get into highway mode, since there's an on-and-off-ramp system to the Queensway there. I was happy to get to the other side of Pretoria Bridge, where I could get onto the canal path, and saw that the path had a strip of bare pavement down the middle of it. I  spotted another woman on a bike coming across the intersection. "Is the canal path clear through to downtown?" I asked her.

"I don't know, it's my first time here," she said, "but it's clear all the way back to Lansdowne. From Bank Street to Dows Lake, though, it's blocked off."

"But it's clear to Bank Street?" I said, hopefully, and she told me it was. Oh, happy day: this meant I could take the path home all the way to Old Ottawa South. So I got on the canal path and it was plowed and more or less clear, with little patches of ice or slush, all the way downtown. I crossed the canal at the Laurier Bridge, and took Laurier all the way to where it turns into Charlotte and meets up with Montreal Road. By then I was really tired (snow, deflated tires, and extra trudging took its toll), and the last little slog through Vanier was kind of painful. I was shaky by the time I got to the office, but I can blame some of that on bonking because I hadn't eaten breakfast; I'd gotten into town the night before at 11:30 PM and there hadn't been time to shop for groceries.

But hallelujah, I had finally found a route that I can actually use to get to work! Now, my path looks kind of like this:

 

I have to say, I used to have some real problems with the NCC. But this makes up for any differences we may have had in the past. I don't know what I'd do without the Skateway, and the cleared and salted canalside path it gives rise to. No cars. No buses. No terror. For at least most of my trip.

Tourism to the rescue!

Briefly:

... if you were driving past Billings Bridge Mall this evening around 5:15 or so, and came upon a cyclist at the intersection of Bank and the Billings Transitway exit, holding her bike up with one hand and kicking angrily at a huge ridge of slush and snow that had been thrown out across the bike lane by the plow, breaking it up and shoving the resulting bits of slush to the side of the road with her boot...

... well, that was me. Doing my civic duty.

More about bike lanes

Jonathan, in Montreal, commented on my last post, pointing out that in Montreal where there are segregated bike lanes, the trouble is that they're only separate between intersections: at each intersection you suddenly pop back into traffic, most of which hasn't noticed you because you were off in your own lane, possibly even behind parked cars. (That and where the bike lanes are blocked by something, you have to haul your bike up and over curbs and into traffic that's not used to seeing you there, or get on the sidewalk, neither of which is good.)

I can see that: and a lot of people have been mentioning that the real danger in bike lanes is when they end abruptly, shoving you unexpectedly into traffic. Did anyone see Giacomo Panico's video from last summer of commuting down Albert Street? Where the 'posted bike route' ends, Albert goes from a one-way street to a two-way. Dropping Giacomo, who's been traveling on the left side to stay away from the bus lane, right on the yellow line in two-way traffic with no way off the road. Scary.

Something to remember when designing the bike lanes: making them as continuous as possible. Keeping intersections in mind. Maybe signposting them, too, so cyclists have a sense of where they run, and how to get from point A to point B using safer streets... I know I would happily avoid major arteries if I knew how. One of the problems is all the waterways in Ottawa: bridges concentrate traffic, and so far are prioritized for cars. I see that part of the plan is a bike lane across the Pretoria Bridge, to which I say hallelujah. Especially since cyclists converge in that area to get onto the Canal bike path.

Jonathan's suggestion was to create bike-only streets in places: surprisingly, that's the other motion the transportation committee approved yesterday! There's a proposal to close a few streets leading off Montreal Road in the Vanier area to motor traffic. Wow. Here's hoping.

I'm also just happy to see attention being drawn to increased safety for cyclists in the city. It's too bad it took a year of terrible fatalities to make it happen. I've come across this interactive map of the seven most dangerous intersections in Ottawa for cyclist/car collisions: I use most of these intersections regularly. Elgin and Laurier is a nasty one; Vanier Parkway and Montreal is pretty unpleasant too, although I usually just go straight through it on Montreal, so I don't have to turn. Both of those are scary because there are multiple lanes on both roads, and because cars just don't expect us to merge into left-turn lanes and don't know what to do with us when we do. Notice, too, how many of these dangerous spots are in the general vicinity of bridges: where traffic concentrates. The three or so that aren't are near highway ramps, or on major arteries in suburban areas where the multilane street is the only direct route in a tangle of crescents and residential drives. The bikes wouldn't be there if they had a choice, for the most part: but it's just the easiest, or only, way from point to point. Bike lanes here, separate enough to keep us out of traffic and away from the buses plying those major streets, would be welcome: as long as they don't suddenly end, dropping us in some truly scary situation, which is all too often the case.

Doucet's segregated lanes

Well, Councillor Clive Doucet's been proposing segregated bike lanes for Ottawa (a la many European cities, or, say, parts of New York.) Having had a pretty rough ride to work this morning down Alta Vista, where the bike lane at the side of the road is unplowed and occluded by snow and slush that forced me a couple of feet into the traffic lane in places, I have to say that even if there were separate lanes with their own traffic signals and a concrete barrier, I have little faith that they'd be cleared and useable through the winter... but let that be. In principle, I'm for it.

And this morning the city approved the plan! With luck, we'll eventually have east-west dedicated lanes running from Preston to Elgin. Not having the city's posted bike route direct me down Albert Street, where I have to share the right-hand lane with the Transitway of all things, would be terrific.

I'm interested, though, in the opposition coming from some cyclists. I agree, the bike lanes I use here in Ottawa collect debris (I've seen everything from carriage bolts, branches, and pop cans to dead animals), are usually studded with drain covers and manholes, and are often potholed and cracked. But just to have that extra breathing room at the side of the road is welcome, as far as I'm concerned: if nothing else, the bike lane widens the street. And I cheered when the bike lane was put in at Saint Patrick and King Edward, leading cyclists across the two right-turn lanes so they can go straight through and up Saint Patrick. Suddenly it was so much easier to get across King Edward.

For some cyclists, the experienced and confident ones, bike lanes may be restrictive. But I think that they're invaluable for getting people out onto the streets who would not otherwise take their bikes: new cyclists, less experienced or more cautious ones. Parents towing their kids. I will bike down South Bank Street: I have friends who will not. If we want to encourage more people to leave their cars at home, we have to help them feel that it's a reasonable and sane thing to do. That it's not just for "road-warriors and bike couriers."

Cyclists objecting to bike lanes usually point out that the lanes create a false sense of security, that motorists don't see cyclists until the last minute at intersections, and that it's aggressive driving from cars that makes cycling dangerous so we should be re-educating motorists. (But face it. Some motorists will not be re-educated: you only have to read the comments below cycling-related news articles to see that. Nor will some cyclists learn to stop at red lights and obey traffic laws.) But I do, really, feel safer on a bike lane, and that translates to being less jumpy, less nervous, less unpredictable.

And it seems unclear from the news whether everyone's talking about the same thing - is this about painted lines at the edge of the road, or physically separated lanes with barriers and their own lights? I don't see how those concerns really fit in the latter case. We wouldn't be able to speed along through downtown, no, but then neither can the cars. So the question is, is that what Doucet's suggesting? Or more pertinent, is that what the city planners will decide is feasible?

Here, I'll add a little video. You know. Not that I imagine City Hall will be holding these cities up as a model while they think about this... but a girl can dream: