here is a picture i took of 26 ave sw looking east towards crowchild trail a few weeks ago.
over the last 3 years, the city spent $5million dollars on pathway and bikeway improvements - including fixing a vital pathway link to the south near southland and realignment of the vehicle lanes and addition of bike lanes to 26 ave sw. there was a article in the calgary herald last week touting the improvements and hoping the improvements will draw more people out of their cars and onto bikes.
this is all well and good - however - if the roadway pictured is to be considered an improvement, who is the improvement for? cars? people? bikes? none of the above?
the paint is gone after one winter - all the paint. yellow centre line gone. bike lanes gone. bike sharrows gone. cars have reverted back to their original "lanes". cars are parking in the bike lanes. there is no indication whatsoever that any amount of money has been spent here on improvments in the last 10 years, let alone last year. even the calgary herald has seen this situation to be bad enough to write another article.
i think this is just a "symptom" of a transportation department that does not have enough resources to do the job right the first time. it is also a symptom of a city administration that seems to throw just enough money at alt-transport projects to keep people quiet and to check off their projects as being completed - when they clearly are not!
i say bullshit. do it right the first time. give the transportation solutions people more money and more staff.
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