Re: City champions Laurier bike lane despite opposition, Dec. 10
I am a cyclist with 30 years cycling experience in this city; I now live in a large condo complex on Laurier Avenue West but have lived 15 years in the south end and have cycled and driven and walked and skated to work downtown, down Bronson Avenue, through the Glebe and Centretown anddown the canal.
Please do not remove the parking spaces along Laurier Avenue in order to please commuter cyclists who don't likely even live on my street and to answer to the opinion of consultants from Velo Quebec and Denmark with a new showcase project. Here's why:
1. The present parking spaces on Laurier are the only ones left for people to use on evenings and weekends to visit my, and other, huge residential complexes along Laurier. There is nowhere else to park. Check it out – the street is now chock full on weekends and on many evenings with visitor vehicles. Where will they go? What are the "other options" for parking mentioned by the city? Replaced with spots on Gloucester ? Where? There's nowhere close to the same number of lost spots.
2. As a cyclist I see Gloucester and Nepean streets as much preferable for east-west bike lanes as they are residential and have way fewer trucks and deliveries. The argument that they have fewer lights is a non-starter. They have stop signs; responsible cyclists obey them, like any car or pedestrian in the city centre.
3. Laurier car traffic will not just go away with new bike lanes. You will simply be squeezing more bikes in among the same number of cars, which are themselves forced into only two lanes.
Also, there are too many condos and office buildings requiring truck services here. I walk down Laurier often four times a day and I can imagine the commuter car line-up stretching down the one-lane street to get into the new Minto building car park, with bikes dodging turning vehicles. .
I'm not against bike lanes, I want them. But why would they be placed in the busiest section of east-west vehicular traffic?
Listen to Ottawa first, not experts from far away. We live here.
The prepared arguments show that the city bureacracy already supports Laurier as the remaining option. This is a strange way to do public consultations, i.e., establish an internal opinion based on input from consultants and then go ask the local public afterward.
Obviously you need to present options to council, but public servants should present those options as equals.
No to the Laurier bike lane. Put the east-west corridor on Gloucester and Nepean. Or let's see the strong arguments against this option, if there are any.
George Harris,
Laurier Avenue