Bacon and Biking

I thought I would share some observations from my first week and into this week. I've put in 81 km total up to Tuesday.

My infrastructure observations :

• Lancaster St. is in desperate need of cycling lanes. I see at least 5-10 people each day riding on that road with another 4 or 5 riding on the sidewalk. Cars tend to speed down that road and even though the majority of it is extra wide, they don’t always leave tons of room. There is really no reason I can see that bikes lanes couldn’t be placed there tomorrow, at least from the Hwy through Victoria St.. 
•  Another main thoroughfare that really needs a re-think is Victoria Street. I could probably rant on this street for several paragraphs, but suffice to say that this is one of those streets that can bring people in from all parts of Kitchener East and West and would be a game changer for pushing cycling to the forefront if it were given cycling lanes. I don’t ride it much, mainly for the narrowness and speed factors. 
• Railway crossings are often not designed with bikes in mind. The Iron Horse trail aside (though the cyclist whacking “safety” bars should be removed asap), many train tracks are angled and can easily catch a bike tire and twist someone to the ground. I have seen it happen and it has happened to me a couple of times in the past 2 years. I don’t know how you fix this, but there has to be a solution.

Also, it is highly unfair to have to ride past the Lancaster Smokehouse first thing in the morning with the waft of slow cooked bacon and other assorted meats in the air!

That’s all for now. Plenty more to come, including a look via video at what it is like to ride in on the some of the busiest streets in the region. Stay tuned.

- Brendan L. from Communitech.