Going the wrong way the right way
Ottawa 3 Speed #3: Contra-flow lanes, the end of the NCC pilot, bike parking and more!
Welcome to the third instalment of Ottawa 3 Speed! In this week’s first gear story, we’ll look at how the City can capitalize on quick and cheap opportunities to make riding a bike more appealing. Later on, we’ll see some new public consultation opportunities, and get a hint that it’s time to start thinking about the winter cycling season.
Before we jump in, here’s an opportunity to subscribe if you haven’t already. I’m really happy so far with the amount of people that are getting this newsletter in their inboxes every Thursday, and I hope to see even more! Thanks for the support, subscribers.
First Gear: Easy way to make cycling more convenient? Add more contra-flow lanes
Cameron Avenue is a one-way street, but cyclists are allowed to ride both ways.
There’s a small change in direction coming soon for Ottawa cyclists: Bay Street, a one-way, is about to become a two-way if you’re on your bike. When a street turns from a one-way into a two-way for cyclists, it makes riding more convenient and appealing—a better option for short trips, making a network of one-way streets into a network of shortcuts that drivers can’t use.
This approach on narrow, one-lane one-way streets just makes practical sense. These one-way streets have a direction restriction mainly because there isn’t enough room for two cars to pass each other. Bicycles, while being vehicles, aren’t cars—and we shouldn’t pretend they’re cars either. A bike is smaller and slower than a car. If two cyclists can fit on a street passing each other, then that should be allowed and encouraged. Contra-flow lanes fit. And because of that fit, they’re a cheap and easy way to rapidly expand the cycling network.
That rapid expansion has been happening slowly. Of the many single-lane one way streets in Ottawa, there are only a few contra-flow lanes: Cameron Avenue, Gladstone (between Elgin and Cartier), O’Connor/Holmwood (between Fifth and Bank), Garland Street (between Armstrong and Wellington), Stewart Street (between Walmer and Nicholas), Graham Avenue (between Colonel By and Main) and a handful of others. The NCC just added a contra-flow lane in Rockcliffe Park this summer. The newest City of Ottawa contra-flow lane is on the freshly-repaved McLeod Street (between Lyon and Percy).
The City often uses contra-flows as short connections between busy bike routes or destinations; a good way to know if a given one-way street should legalize and formalize wrong-way cycling (or “salmoning”) is if you see lots of cyclists doing it already on an unsanctioned street. But those doing that are putting themselves in danger because it’s not formalized or legalized. Existing contra-flows lanes are popular, useful, and safe—and there should be much more of them.
The new contra-flow lane on McLeod, linking Lyon and Percy
Back to Bay Street. There’s a problem with the new two-way cycling provision: it ends at Laurier. While this helps make the connection between Wellington Street and Laurier, it doesn’t help if you were planning on continuing further south on Bay (for example, if you lived on Bay).
At the end of the new southbound cycletrack, cyclists will be allowed to hop on the sidewalk and continue riding, but that’s not an ideal solution. This sidewalk is narrow, and it won’t feel comfortable for pedestrians to share it with cyclists. Drivers, not expecting sidewalk bike riding, will have a higher chance of backing up into a cyclist. There’s also the confusion around this one sign telling you this one sidewalk is shared. Onlookers may not have seen the sign, and may just see another cyclist breaking the law. A police officer may also not know that Bay has a shared sidewalk (and is it shared the entire length of Bay?) The police unfairly target people of colour and marginalized people for minor infractions like this. Clear rules and consistent infrastructure prevents needless stops and reduces conflict between pedestrians, vehicles, and cyclists. It makes for a safer, better-used street.
When two-way cycling on Bay ends at Laurier, cyclists are told they can ride on this 1.5m sidewalk to continue south, sharing the space with pedestrians. This solution doesn’t work well for anyone.
There is a better solution. Bay Street south of Laurier—the single-lane, one-way street—already has a bike lane. It just happens to be northbound, the same direction of general traffic. If that bike lane is “flipped” into a contra-flow lane, then Bay Street can continue to have two-way cycling south of Laurier. A person riding a bike southbound would ride in the contra-flow lane; a person riding north would ride with traffic (since this is a low-volume, low-speed, traffic-calmed narrow street, shared cycling is acceptable here).
This approach—flipping a with-traffic bike lane into a contra-flow bike lane—has been done before in a few of the examples I mentioned earlier, such as on Gladstone. All you do is move the bike lane to the other side of the street and give it a yellow line instead of a white line. Flexi-posts or physical barriers make it even sweeter. That’s all it takes to double the cycling capacity of a street like this.
Gladstone Avenue with-traffic bike lane on left (left); contra-flow bike lane on right (right)
So the simple rule I propose is this: If a single-lane one-way street in Ottawa can only fit one traffic lane, one parking lane, and one bike lane, then that bike lane should go in the opposite direction of traffic.
This rule can be applied on more than just Bay Street. Percy Street, one block over from Bay, has a similar problem: it’s two-way for cyclists south of Flora before abruptly becoming one-way north of it (with a bike lane that goes in the same direction of traffic). If you flip the bike lane north of Flora into a contra-flow lane, then Percy becomes a two-way cycling street—making a key low-stress connection from Fifth Street in the Glebe to Laurier in Centretown.
Or how about Gilmour? While it doesn’t have a bike lane currently, there’s clearly room for one given that there are road-narrowing flexi-posts installed about a metre from the curb. If Gilmour—the only east/west neighbourhood street in Centretown with signalized crossings at all five of Elgin, Metcalfe, O’Connor, Bank, and Kent—had a westbound contra-flow lane it would become a far more pleasant and direct route than Gladstone or Somerset for many trips. This application could work on all of the one-lane one-way streets in neighbourhoods with a lot of them (like the Glebe, Sandy Hill, Lowertown, Hintonburg, and Centretown)—effectively doubling the cycling network in these areas.
Making one-way streets two-way for cyclists is an inexpensive and easy solution to make cycling safer and more appealing, especially for local trips. If you don’t believe me, try walking down one-way streets only in the direction cars are allowed to go. That would seem silly and impractical, wouldn't it?
Second gear: Around the City
City Hall
Mayor Jim Watson, Transportation Committee Chair Tim Tierney, and Transportation Committee Vice-Chair Jeff Leiper sent a letter to the the NCC asking them to help implement a few of the safe intersections identified in the “Cycling Safety Review of High-Volume Intersections” report from last week on intersections where there is shared NCC ownership (such as Prince of Wales/Queen Elizabeth Drive and Preston)—and to independently look at how to improve intersections that are solely NCC responsibility (such as Queen Elizabeth Drive and Elgin/Pretoria). Hopefully this letter will have an effect!
NCC
The pilot projects are over! After several extensions, the parkways are once again open to drivers and closed for active transportation/recreation. NCC estimates there were over 600,000 visits to the active parkways, which is a lot.
So if it’s working, why shut it down? NCC says they “foresee a lesser need for this additional space” as the temperature drops. But we are still social distancing and still need places to do it. I’d be interested in seeing how the NCC can do more experiments this winter to activate outdoor use of their spaces, and the parkways could be part of that. It could be a long winter! But if this truly is the end of the road, hopefully the NCC has learned some lessons that will steer them to making these pilots permanent, and to make more creative experiments with the use of their public assets.
Public Consultation
The Active Transportation Plan is being updated (as mentioned last week) and the City wants to hear from you to help guide the high-level direction. Take the surveys here.
The City is creating a new Bike Parking Strategy and there are upcoming consultation opportunities for it! The new strategy will aim to provide better bike parking and spend some of the money raised from general parking services (maybe even on a city-run bike share program). There are three consultations that you can sign up for here, until October 16th (tomorrow!):
Tuesday, October 20th – 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
Thursday, October 22nd – 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM (French Session)
Thursday, October 22nd – 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Better traffic calming might be coming to Sherwood Drive. The easy, low-cost, obvious solution: turn the seldom-used curbside parking lanes into bike lanes. They look like bike lanes already, after all. Take their survey here.
These bike lanes on Sherwood Drive are actually parking lanes, and cyclists aren’t supposed to ride in them; they’re supposed to ride in single file. Take the survey and help make this easy correction.
Third gear: What’s new on #ottbike
Well that famous pole from last week (stuck in the middle of a cycletrack in construction) has gained even more popularity—now christened “Joel LePole”, it’s a bona fide selfie destination. A representative working with Zibi (coordinating this project as part of their work in the area) confirmed that the pole will be removed as soon. (Importantly, the pole was never supposed to stay there—they are in the middle of construction, which makes it hard to judge. But this type of thing has been found in completed projects too, so it’s worth following up with.) I wish Joel LePole a friendly retirement, and hope this is the last we hear of him.
Councillor Shawn Menard tweets that there is a new thermoplast treatment for designated 30 km/hr zones in the city. 30 km/hr residential streets are a great way to encourage more cycling, since most trips start or end at home. Hopefully this thermoplast, along with other traffic calming, brings residential speeds down to levels that make riding in a shared space with cars safe.
@fborgal tweeted about the inadequacy of the Hartwell Locks infrastructure to accommodate its high volume of pedestrian and cyclist crossings. This is a very busy crossing for #ottbike—but it’s a bottleneck at best and a barrier at worst. Anecdotally, I’ve found myself waiting a few minutes to cross and have been on bike rides with people were either nervous to cross or found it physically challenging. I don’t know what the solution here is—maybe something like the temporary detour that at Hog’s Back last year, or maybe something like @toon_dreesen proposed—but an accessible, higher-volume crossing for pedestrians and cyclists is overdue and possible.
There is an ongoing petition to save the Prescott-Russell Recreational Trail. The trail, built over a former rail line, is in danger after the United Counties of Prescott and Russell (UCPR) council opted not to renew its lease with VIA Rail. Lots of Ottawans use this to connect to other rural and small-town destinations east of here, and it would be a shame to lose it. Please sign the petition to get this thing funded again! As of this writing, it has over 5,000 signatures.
Events
The City of Calgary and Two Wheel View are putting on a free event to prepare cyclists for upcoming winter—tonight! RSVP for the 4th annual “Shift Into Winter—a celebration of winter cycling” here. (It’s open to people in Ottawa, too.) 6 pm MST, 8 pm EST.
Thanks for joining me again this week! Next week we’re going to take a look at the City of Ottawa’s wayfinding and signage for cycling infrastructure—and see how it can be improved. Then at the end of October it’ll be the winter cycling preview newsletter. It seems too soon, but it really is time to get ready. So get your mitts on and subscribe to have these instalments and more delivered to your inboxes on Thursday mornings!