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My office is on 102 Avenue and I spend a lot of time along there now. Some observations:

-A surprising amount of winter bikers
-A surprising lack of pedestrians
-A continued confusion of which lane to drive in
-Many using the bike lane as dropoff/loading zones
-That it is generally desolate from an urban design standpoint, especially given the mall, Manu and former bank site.
 
It’s hard to articulate how unpleasant downtown 102 ave is. Nothing but sanitized architecture contrasting urban decay. Feels like somebody’s memory of a street.
 
No street facing retail for the most part, the bunker of City Centre Mall and the fact that it's going to get ripped up for construction make it desolate tbh. It's great as a cycling highway for now, but there's nothing to stop by besides Okinawa Onigiri imo.

Once VLW it's probably going to get better just from train presence, but a huge chunk of 102 Ave's vibrancy east of 104 St depends on City Centre Mall not being the fuhrerbunker (and the Tower 101 spot)
 
I was walking in a bike lane yesterday because the sidewalks are in such a bad condition. Some self righteous cyclists called “this is a bike lane”. Told him to F off
 
A great video was presented at that council committee meeting of a cyclist with his video footage riding along 102 Ave - I wish I had it to share.

Council was quite shocked actually to witness the close calls or driver lack of awareness or disregard - especially turning in front of pedestrians or cyclists at very close proximity.

Seems like admin is going to be reviewing design if I understand correctly.
 
TAS said:
A great video was presented at that council committee meeting of a cyclist with his video footage riding along 102 Ave - I wish I had it to share.

Council was quite shocked actually to witness the close calls or driver lack of awareness or disregard - especially turning in front of pedestrians or cyclists at very close proximity.

Seems like admin is going to be reviewing design if I understand correctly.
Click to expand...
I do laugh when people are presented with evidence of how bad it can be and act surprised. Like sure, some cyclist exaggerate. But I legitimately have a driver do something illegal, that without my intervention would cause an accident, 50% of my trips. No exaggeration. Often multiple times a trip too. The most common of course being right hand turns across MUPs, either blowing through a stop sign when exiting an area, or failing to yield as they turn right off a main road into a neighbourhood. The latter I have more empathy for....sight-lines can be hard, speed is a factor for bikers vs pedestrians, and low volume of cyclists mean drivers get used to usually not yielding. Continuous crossings would help this.

102ave's lack of greenery is criminal.

103st-109st is soooo rough. LRT can't come soon enough. So many "breaks" in the street wall along that stretch.
 
I recall early in Valley Line LRT design along 102 Avenue was supposed to have a strip of green with trees. I don't know what happened the final result is very not green.

Reminder that LRT turns north at 107 Street, so there's no contemplation of streetscape renewal along 102 Avenue from 107 to 109 Streets. I think this should be all on our radar for next fall Capital Budget to get done, as Westrich, Maclab and Norquest contemplate making investments there.
 
For anyone who is curious, here is the excellent presentation by M. Amerongen to the Urban Planning Committee on Nov. 26. He's well spoken, measured, and his video tell the story. It's five minutes and I'm sorry about the terrible audio, but it's worth the watch.

 
BrettB said:
For anyone who is curious, here is the excellent presentation by M. Amerongen to the Urban Planning Committee on Nov. 26. He's well spoken, measured, and his video tell the story. It's five minutes and I'm sorry about the terrible audio, but it's worth the watch.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing this. Agreed, great presentation.
 
Yes thanks for sharing. Easily at least half the rides. We could add do not enter signs to prevent traffic from going westbound on 102 Ave but do we need diagonal directional arrows on either side of the road lanes to tell drivers where to go eastbound?

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Do not enter signs with bicycles only for the bike lanes?

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The snow removal guys love the lanes on 102 Ave though. Easy to park their trailers to clear sites.
 
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