I used to ride up and down Spring Garden and Quinpool regularly and they were both terrifying. I agree, the bus drivers are some of the worst offenders. I recall having a bus pass me on Herring Cove Road, pull in quickly in front of me and then come to a dead stop to pick someone up. I had to swerve out into traffic to avoid running into it. You can bet that Metro Transit got a nasty letter about that one.
Early yesterday morning or the night before the lanes were painted through Bedford. There’s more work to be done, but they look pretty sharp. There is even an independent lane for about 50 meters separated from the road with grass and trees. That in itself is a huge leap forward to the city. It’s even easy to rid onto and off with painted lanes to keep the cars off the merge where you come back onto the road. It may be nice to see a curb instead at this location.Some of the lanes are a bit narrow, but comfortable for me to ride anyway. One day in the future when the curb is crumbling and needs replacement, I hope the lanes can be widened and added at another area of the road(near Bicycles Plus). Having said that, there is not a lot of room there anyway with the sidewalk, and very small grassy area.The biggest problem I found which I consider fairly serious are some of the grates or man hole covers. At a couple spot on the narrow bike lane there are man hole covers or grates that are lower than the pavement. We all know about these as they are not ones people can comfortably ride through with a ridged bike. Ya have to swing around them, bringing the cyclists closer to the traffic.Thanks HRM for the lanes. I hope the city can keep this up. It’s slowly getting better for us on two wheels.That’s my 2 cents.
Hear Hear! It’s nice to get new bike lanes in my ‘Hood!’
Now for that nasty last section between the old Bedford Firehall and Bicycles Plus! I’ll be emailing our councillor to see what’s in the works for next year.
Incidentally, I plan to email Mr. Outhit to thank him for his efforts and/or support for these bike lanes. I’m sure he gets lots of email asking for things, but not much that expresses thanks. I encourage everyone to make use of their elected officials and let them know how you feel about the cycling scene in Metro.
Find your councillor here: http://www.halifax.ca/districts/index.html
Done.
The Fairview overpass now has enough room for a bike lane to be added to the shoulders. This has been done by the province, but it is up to the city to actually paint and designate the shoulders as bike lanes.
The loop around the harbor is slowly closing… sweeeeet!
Bring on the safer road riding in the HRM. Now the only question is this: Who’s going to teach drivers in Halifax that bike lanes aren’t just margins of tolerance for their sloppy driving (and parking) habits?
Bring on the safer road riding in the HRM. Now the only question is this: Who’s going to teach drivers in Halifax that bike lanes aren’t just margins of tolerance for their sloppy driving (and parking) habits?
I do the sambro loop quite a bit and cars are always parked in the bike lanes… they’re full if debris and I’ve even had pedestirians walking opposing traffic in the bike lanes
I bike around Spring Garden quite a bit. While there are bike lanes in some spots, which is great, I’ve had a lot of challenges with taxis pulling over right in front of me into the bike lane and parking. Or cars pulling over to pick someone up and jumping out of the driver’s side to meet them. I’ve also been cut off by buses that pull into the bike lanes to get around cars without checking to see if there are any cyclists in the bike lanes. I’ve never had to use any emergency bike maneuvers to date, but I’ve been pretty darn close. Please be careful. Don’t want to get smushed. http://resource.pedaltrout.com/old_site_images/c676407db519bdf42481870746f097d8.gif
