New Arena for Downtown Edmonton

[ExcaliburKid]

Besides the river valley gondola, bike lanes are the bane of my existence. The idea of my tax money going towards bike lanes is giving me angina. To me, removing the crumbling Coliseum is a no brainer. So I did a hard eye-roll when I read that Mayor Sohi had an issue with the cost to demolish it, considering he didn't bat an eye pissing away 100 mil on f-ing bike lanes that nobody is asking for. His (and some of councils) priorities seem way out of touch with what the city actually needs

Sorry to derail

[MattBerryOfficial]

Originally Posted by ExcaliburKid

Besides the river valley gondola, bike lanes are the bane of my existence. The idea of my tax money going towards bike lanes is giving me angina. To me, removing the crumbling Coliseum is a no brainer. So I did a hard eye-roll when I read that Mayor Sohi had an issue with the cost to demolish it, considering he didn't bat an eye pissing away 100 mil on f-ing bike lanes that nobody is asking for. His (and some of councils) priorities seem way out of touch with what the city actually needs

Sorry to derail

If bike lanes are the bane of your existence, you must have a very sheltered life. And how do you know on one is asking for bike lanes? Did you conduct a survey?

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by ExcaliburKid

Besides the river valley gondola, bike lanes are the bane of my existence. The idea of my tax money going towards bike lanes is giving me angina. To me, removing the crumbling Coliseum is a no brainer. So I did a hard eye-roll when I read that Mayor Sohi had an issue with the cost to demolish it, considering he didn't bat an eye pissing away 100 mil on f-ing bike lanes that nobody is asking for. His (and some of councils) priorities seem way out of touch with what the city actually needs

Sorry to derail

I hate my tax dollars going to the 50 Street overpass that I will never use, but others will use it.

I hate my tax dollars going to the Yellowhead Trail freeway project that does not impact my life much at all, but it will impact some peoples' lives.

I do like my tax dollars going to a City-wide bike lane network as I will use it, but others will not.

See a trend?

[Hallsy's Toupee]

I'm so glad for the $100M bike plan. Just about every major city is building bike lanes for environmental, medical, financial/economical purposes and other factors. Why is there this pressing need for Edmonton to be left behind? Why do Edmontonians insist on being stuck in a car-centric rut from the 20th century?

[Hardhatdan]

The bike lanes is ridiculous for one reason, 100 million for 100km is a thousand dollars per meter.

These are on existing infrastructure, what in the heck are we building for $1000/m?

[MattBerryOfficial]

Originally Posted by Hardhatdan

The bike lanes is ridiculous for one reason, 100 million for 100km is a thousand dollars per meter.

These are on existing infrastructure, what in the heck are we building for $1000/m?

Altering existing infrastructure isn't necessarily cheap either. Roadway alignments will be altered, C&G changed, manholes, CB's, etc. Also certain traffic signals will be changed to accommodate bike traffic. Its more than just new paint on the road thankfully.

100 million may sound like alot, but it really isn't. I wonder how much it cost to build a free flow access from Calgary trail into South Edmonton Common? 50 million at minimum. And that is for free flow access into a large strip mall.

[EdmTrekker]

Originally Posted by MattBerryOfficial

Altering existing infrastructure isn't necessarily cheap either. Roadway alignments will be altered, C&G changed, manholes, CB's, etc. Also certain traffic signals will be changed to accommodate bike traffic. Its more than just new paint on the road thankfully.

100 million may sound like alot, but it really isn't. I wonder how much it cost to build a free flow access from Calgary trail into South Edmonton Common? 50 million at minimum. And that is for free flow access into a large strip mall.

The analogy is the perfect example of why $100M is appropriate and long overdue.

[ExcaliburKid]

Originally Posted by MattBerryOfficial

If bike lanes are the bane of your existence, you must have a very sheltered life. And how do you know on one is asking for bike lanes? Did you conduct a survey?

Maybe a touch dramatic on the "bane of my existence" comment. My point is, is that council seems to be out of touch with the actual issues this city is facing. Public transit is in shambles, homelessness is out of control with people experiencing third world conditions (shigella), but hey, a handful of people want to ride their bikes from the southside into downtown, let's get on that!

Here's a survey for you
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/...roads-expanding-public-transit-1.6051984

From the survey:
A new CBC Edmonton poll on municipal issues revealed strong support for road maintenance and expanding public transit and weak support for adding more bike lanes.

Eighty-two per cent of respondents said maintaining the city's roads was highly important, while expanding public transit was deemed highly important by 61 per cent of respondents.

Enthusiasm for expanding bike lanes was much lower, with only 26 per cent of respondents calling it highly important and 42 per cent saying it was not important.

[ExcaliburKid]

Originally Posted by Harrison

I hate my tax dollars going to the 50 Street overpass that I will never use, but others will use it.

I hate my tax dollars going to the Yellowhead Trail freeway project that does not impact my life much at all, but it will impact some peoples' lives.

I do like my tax dollars going to a City-wide bike lane network as I will use it, but others will not.

See a trend?

On the flip side of that, my office is on the east end of the city and I'm overjoyed that this overpass is being constructed to help alleviate the logjams that occur every rush hour.

The Yellowhead upgrade is long overdue, I use it occasionally and welcome the future ease of access and movement it will provide.

I own a bike, my wife and kids also own bikes. We love riding them on shared use paths and maintained trails. I'll never use the bike lanes because the city is sprawled out, I have kids to shuttle around and the convenience of a vehicle is too great.

It's great that a few of you are going to use these bike lanes, worth every penny for that group. Worthless for me

[MattBerryOfficial]

Originally Posted by ExcaliburKid

On the flip side of that, my office is on the east end of the city and I'm overjoyed that this overpass is being constructed to help alleviate the logjams that occur every rush hour.

The Yellowhead upgrade is long overdue, I use it occasionally and welcome the future ease of access and movement it will provide.

I own a bike, my wife and kids also own bikes. We love riding them on shared use paths and maintained trails. I'll never use the bike lanes because the city is sprawled out, I have kids to shuttle around and the convenience of a vehicle is too great.

It's great that a few of you are going to use these bike lanes, worth every penny for that group. Worthless for me

Ah so the city should only fund things you want? The spoiled self centered attitude of car drivers never ceases to amuse me (speaking as a car driver).

[MattBerryOfficial]

Originally Posted by ExcaliburKid

Maybe a touch dramatic on the "bane of my existence" comment. My point is, is that council seems to be out of touch with the actual issues this city is facing. Public transit is in shambles, homelessness is out of control with people experiencing third world conditions (shigella), but hey, a handful of people want to ride their bikes from the southside into downtown, let's get on that!

Here's a survey for you
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/...roads-expanding-public-transit-1.6051984

From the survey:
A new CBC Edmonton poll on municipal issues revealed strong support for road maintenance and expanding public transit and weak support for adding more bike lanes.

Eighty-two per cent of respondents said maintaining the city's roads was highly important, while expanding public transit was deemed highly important by 61 per cent of respondents.

Enthusiasm for expanding bike lanes was much lower, with only 26 per cent of respondents calling it highly important and 42 per cent saying it was not important.

That is an example of a false dilemma. A city government can focus on multiple issues.

A notable data point is that bike injuries/fatalities are down significantly since the bike lane network began to be built out. Do you consider this good or bad?

To the people concerned with the state of our roads, sprawling out with more car centric development only makes this issue worse. Providing alternate ways for people to move around, such as bike lanes, helps this issue along with other issues.

In regards to the poll. Seems about 1/3 of the amount of support for bike lanes as opposed to road maintenance. I wonder if this bike lane expenditure reflects 1/3 the cost of road maintenance/construction in Edmonton?

[Hallsy's Toupee]

Polls don't really mean anything. It's only a small sample of the population, and I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the majority of the pollsters are lonely and embittered old grumps.

[ExcaliburKid]

I only posted the link to the poll because MBO asked for it, but even though it's just a snapshot, it's still relevant to the discussion. My opinion was that bike lanes are not a priority and the poll results reflected that

[ExcaliburKid]

Originally Posted by MattBerryOfficial

Ah so the city should only fund things you want? The spoiled self centered attitude of car drivers never ceases to amuse me (speaking as a car driver).

I didn't say that. We elected these members of council, it's up to them to represent the citizens best interests as they see fit. As someone who voted in the past election, I have the right to an opinion as to how my tax dollars are spent, do I not? I'm not pissed at the idea of bike lanes, I'm pissed at the cost/meter as HHD has pointed out.

I'm not advocating for cars, my comments were a counter to Harrison, who rightly pointed out that what's beneficial for him or I isn't the same for everyone

[MattBerryOfficial]

Originally Posted by ExcaliburKid

I only posted the link to the poll because MBO asked for it, but even though it's just a snapshot, it's still relevant to the discussion. My opinion was that bike lanes are not a priority and the poll results reflected that

In regards to the poll you linked, do you think a city budget should directly correlate to what the public deems most important in a 2 year old poll? I personally feel that would be a foolish way to fund a city but lets run through the exercise. According to that poll bike infrastructure had about 1/3 the support as road maintenance in terms of citizens thinking it is of high priority. So you think bike infrastructure should receive 1/3 the money that road maintenance gets?

This would result in a significant bump to the current funding.

Keep in mind 100 million over 4 years is not much. 25 million is equivalent to rebuilding a single arterial road intersection.

[MattBerryOfficial]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/znt0xa/re_bike_lanes_and_winter_took_this_on_my_ride/


Bike lanes getting plenty of used even during a snowfall.

The city building out the bike lane network will induce more users across the city. Will lead to less people driving. Therefore less car traffic (the most inefficient way to move people around a city).

[Hardhatdan]

Originally Posted by MattBerryOfficial

https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/znt0xa/re_bike_lanes_and_winter_took_this_on_my_ride/


Bike lanes getting plenty of used even during a snowfall.

The city building out the bike lane network will induce more users across the city. Will lead to less people driving. Therefore less car traffic (the most inefficient way to move people around a city).

Yes, there's a place where they are meaningful and useful year round.
Then there's spending $1000/m to push them to the far flung suburbs.
Different use case, using the 102ave or 83 Ave corridor for an entire network that leaves the core and the river valley is the definition of cherry picking.

[feepa]

I know plenty of people that commute via bike from the 'far-flung' suburbs to downtown or the uofa.


1000$/km is a bit much though, but I think people are not gathering the full details and doing simple paper-napkin math and jump to conclusions.

[MattBerryOfficial]

Originally Posted by Hardhatdan

Yes, there's a place where they are meaningful and useful year round.
Then there's spending $1000/m to push them to the far flung suburbs.
Different use case, using the 102ave or 83 Ave corridor for an entire network that leaves the core and the river valley is the definition of cherry picking.

This isn't cherry picking.

Its an example of one the few areas of the city with a decently developed bike network showing it gets use even during the winter months. Building out the network to less central areas will get more people biking. People across the city like to bike but often lake the infrastructure to do so.

Either way 100 million over several years to build out a larger network isn't much, especially when you consider how much is spent on car infrastructure every year.

[Hardhatdan]

Originally Posted by MattBerryOfficial

This isn't cherry picking.

Its an example of one the few areas of the city with a decently developed bike network showing it gets use even during the winter months. Building out the network to less central areas will get more people biking. People across the city like to bike but often lake the infrastructure to do so.

Either way 100 million over several years to build out a larger network isn't much, especially when you consider how much is spent on car infrastructure every year.

Taking example x and applying it to case y is a false equivalency. It is cherry picking. If the conversation was, hey this works really well in the core, we should look at increasing this within similar core areas, then other than price, I would have no issue.

$1000/m for installing infrastructure on existing infrastructure is a ludicrous sum.