Bicycle Scenes from Calgary
In Calgary for our (ISL) staff conference on what I think was one of the first hot days of the year, many people were out enjoying the weather on two wheels. Like any time I ride around a city, there’s always some interesting new things to see, and on this occasion, that included interesting lane width observations, intersection treatments, traffic calming, and tactile surfaces amongst other things…
I love photos like the one above, a beam of light just catching this guy and the tree, something hits right to my eye… This is the 8th Avenue bike lane leading to the Stephen Avenue pedestrian area, but it’s more about the light than the infrastructure in this first one. I had about half an hour to kill before grabbing lunch with colleagues so headed down to the river… Do you identify as a sidewalk citizen? Love the repurposed old buildings…
The East Village, despite the social issues that persist, is a pretty neat place to hang out, with interesting surfaces and a variety of places to sit, a bike shop, a coffee shop, a bakery…
Leading into that area, there are separate walking and biking paths and one of several bridges over the Bow River…
After lunch, Jack Mason and Jiwanjot Bariyar from our Calgary office took myself and Dan Zeggelaar from our Edmonton office on a bit of a tour of some recent projects in the City. Stopping on the Bow River Pathway Bridge at Memorial Dr with it’s interesting iron deck…
We looked down on the new flood defences with a bike and walking path on top… Guess you need to be travelling actively to get a view of the river in this section at least… Fewer distractions for drivers is probably safer though…
North of the river we rode the new 2nd Ave NW protected bike lanes. Maybe not quite finished, this island platform bus stop is still waiting on pavement markings. It’s good to see what the City is doing for tactile treatments, a bit different than what we’re doing in BC where we’d likely only provide tactile wayfinding to the front doors…
Further to my last blog post on bike lane widths, this bike lane is on the narrower side, we estimated about 1.7m from curb to curb, enough to ride side-by-side with your buddy, but less easy to pass a stranger in front. Where a quick-build bike lane is parking protected, it’s not always essential to put in the concrete curb, as the cars are providing protection if it’s consistently utilized. Leaving a hatched buffer removes a trip hazard for people parking, reduces the chance of pedal strikes for people riding while making passing a little easier, and less concrete can save on some of the construction costs…
We came back into downtown across the Peace Bridge as is mandatory when in town… Already reaching capacity…
Smile for a photo guys…
We headed south to 15th Ave SW and the TWSI treatments are again catching my attention. This is something we’ve been striving to add into more projects so good to see it here. It’s the norm in many other places around the world, and good to see it catching on…
I love these little scooter corrals too… They brighten up the street and make it obvious where to leave your shared scooter…
The intersection treatments are different relative to most places, moving from a quick-build on-street bike lane to raised mixing area through the intersection. It’s safe from traffic, but perhaps adds conflict between people rolling and walking… I’m curious of the rationale behind it… That shared space sign should probably be one-sided too…
Truly a shared area… Thinking about loading zones is important where curb space is being reallocated…
Woah… Not sponsored…
We have these coming on a couple of projects in BC, but this is my first time seeing a trapezoidal TWSI in-person. These raised trapezoid-shaped surface indicators are used to better guide pedestrians with visual impairments by creating a more easily detected separation between the pedestrian space and bike lane…
This is the Victoria Park/Stampede Station, a project I didn’t know much about, but cool to learn the is an ISL project…
Just around the corner from the station, we pass by the other side of the BMO Centre and what I think is a sculpture of a raindrop in front of the Saddledome, home to the Calgary Flames…
We jump across the Elbow River to 12th Street SE, and what was a four lane road, being reduced to two, while adding on-street parking and active transportation improvements. While I love a continuous sidewalk, probably more than most, this one also features a signal on a relatively low volume one-lane side road. As we wrote in the TAC Synthesis of Emerging Practice on the subject, these two elements used together send mixed messages… I think this signal is to accommodate the pathway switching sides, but I wonder if there’s a better way, maybe just a pedestrian signal?
Back on the Riverwalk with a bit more time to kill on my own… People hanging out…
When do they close the underpasses? If flooded, or at other times too?
There’s a few low bridges to ride under where you feel like you need to duck…
The pathway has a maximum speed, but my bike has no speedometer…
The Riverwalk is a great amenity to walk, run, and ride along though… Note the flood defence on the left that makes for good bike path protection…
Another underpass… Note the walkway underneath, a common feature to save people having to get up to the road deck to cross the river…
But that walkway also features these bolts hanging down that freaked me out a bit… This one is higher than the last, but still has a low clearance sign… Perhaps a skid plate of sorts would remove the images in my head of my head hitting those…
Shared scooter…
Love this little urban beach… More of these please…
Back at the Peace Bridge…
Trying to take a different shot of it…
Heading back into downtown on the 7th Street SW protected bike lane…
Even a relatively narrow bi-directional lane is good for social cycling…
The use of bike signals has come up a lot recently. This is interesting as there is a sign to note that the signal with a bike symbol on it is a bike signal… I wonder if it once just used a conventional signal head…
This is back on the same street as that initial image… 8th Ave SW, again just enjoying the contrast between light and dark…
Interesting shadows framing someone on a cargo bike and a small German hatchback…
8th Ave SW leads into Stephen Ave, the pedestrianized street that is a hub of activity. Maybe not the quickest to navigate through by bike, but every city needs a street like this… I probably should have taken more photos of all the patios that people were enjoying in the good weather, but i’m usually focussed on shots with people rolling. Maybe I need to diversify a little…
That was all day 1… After our staff conference, Dan and I hung around town and explored some different areas to the north of town. Climbing up for a view of Downtown on the ISL Brompton…
Speed cushions… in Calgary! 1st Street NW…
Bikeway wayfinding as we turn onto 11th Ave NW…
Even the hare was making use of the gap in the speed cushions…
Island curb extensions, a quick and cheap way to narrow the road without having to add catch basins… It does create a maintenance need though…
Taking the bikeway further north along 2nd Street NW, a quick build cul-de-sac of sorts with cut throughs for people rolling…
A sign to wait on the symbol that you can almost see. We were detected it seems, but I do like when there is a “Bicycle detected when illuminated’ sign to let us know. These bollards doing their job in stopping something encroaching too far onto the sidewalk. We sometimes hear pushback if proposing bollards because they might get hit, but that is kind of their job…
Another cul-de-sac further north, but this time creating a park amenity for the neighbourhood…
The park looked like it might even be an ice rink in the winter… Such closures must help get neighbourhood buy-in… What if our bikeway projects became neighbourhood park projects with something like this every few blocks… A closure that provides something rather than a closure for the perceived sake of inconveniencing people…
Further north still, a diagonal diverter…
More people rolling…
A 30km/h posted speed, but only by the park and only certain hours of the day. A local street bikeway should be 30 km/h 24/7, but having said that, at least when we rode along on a Saturday afternoon, we did not encounter many vehicles and even those we did were driving slowly…
Directional arrows on the bike pavement markings to aid wayfinding…
Fake drone shot as we head back south west…
A pathway through a graveyard… Or maybe on the edge of it…
Dan always follows the rules…
And while I stop every five minutes to take photos…
Dan works on his hill climbs…
Slow for the intersection…
But not that slow Dan… Happens to the best of us…
Final park scene…
Before we head to the other side…
Heading west on 24 Ave NW and an interesting raised protected bike lane, and another example of relevance to my previous post on bike lane widths. This estimated 1.5m wide raised bike lane was more comfortable to ride side-by-side than the earlier 1.7m lane with curbs at either side. If you go this narrow, raise it up for a better experience…
Calgary realtors, don’t put signs in the bike lane… Maybe one sign is enough…
The bike lane reduces to about 1.1m below here. Far below recommended, but with favourable edge conditions, I was still happy to have it, and still felt safer compared with a painted lane…
However, we watched as the guy with the bike trailer navigated an intersection ahead using the pedestrian curb ramps. He could technically fit between the curbs for the bike lane, but he can’t see his back trailer wheels and it requires precision to thread that needle… I’m guessing he’s done this before and has learned from experience. Curbs on each side… Make it wider!
Arghhh! Again!
Back down by the river on the north side…
Crossing over to the south side. I do like how many bridges have these lower walking and biking bridges under them, saving the need to climb up to the road deck…
Back in Downtown, just another example of ways to signal to people biking. This time just instructing them to use the pedestrian signal which I assume is on recall…
Well done if you made it this far… Overall, it was an interesting, safe, and comfortable ride around many parts of the city…