Just to let everyone know, the Joseph Howe Century is going down this weekend thanks to a partnership with MEC and Velo Halifax. Having done this ride a few years ago, I gotta say it's worth signing-up and giving a try. It'll push your limits for sure, but it follows a great route around some picturesque areas of North-East HRM.
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Moving right along, it's been a busy month for cycle-planning in HRM! On a micro-level, Dalhousie has recently released plans to convert half of university avenue to a cycle-track, much to the chagrin of cellists and brass players that frequent the Rebecca Cohen Auditorium. Backing-up to the macro-level, HRM is moving a new Active Transportation Priorities Plan along the bureaucratic chain for approval. This will see a bit more focus on certain bike projects --as well as ped and greenway projects-- gleaned from the 2006 AT Plan. It also updates road candidacy for on-street bike lanes, either by removing a few from the 2006 list for various reasons or suggesting where bike lanes can be replaced by multi-use pathways/greenways. To see a list of changes, see page 90.
The real meat-and-potatoes of the document revolves around which projects actually have a funding estimate tacked on. Dartmouth-Halifax commuters should be heartened to see that a $2.05-million price-tag has been earmarked for figuring out how the hell to solve the MacDonald Bridge Bike lane access problem (both sides). Another notable goal is the creation of a protected bike lane pilot project within the regional centre --part of a 5k target of on-street bike infra expansion within Halifax and Dartmouth proper (total expansion costs estimated at $2.5-million). Although having a simple, specific five-year target is great to incorporate into this AT planning document, I'm not particularly impressed with the 5k goal that is divided between Halifax and Dartmouth. Each side of the harbour certainly deserves 5k each judging by the increase in cyclists on both sides of the bridge over the past five to seven years. For more cycling-specific plans, see pages 67-71.
If you're from outside the city centre, there's good news in this plan for you too! Lots of shoulder expansions on some routes that are more or less integral to access either the city centre or longer touring routes to other parts of the province. Trail folks: lots of funding out there for you! Main focus is on expansion of a lot of existing trails like the Dartmouth Waterfront Greenway (great ride!), the Halifax Urban Greenway (another great ride!), the Barrington St. Greenway (the one that loops under the bridge access ramp), and several more that I didn't know existed. For any randonneurs out there, there is mention of a Windsor-Hansport trail that might be designed and/or developed over the next five years. Having done Hali-to-Valley rides semi-regularly over the past five years, this is pretty exciting! See pages 72-74 for a better breakdown.
I'm still reading over this plan and having some brain difficulties lately so I might have more to say in the future. I'm not particularly let-down by this priorities plan, but I'm not sure how I feel about Local Street Bikeways yet. There's no real blueprint on how they'll look, but I would assume speed-bumps and chicanes will be prevalent techniques in the traffic calming process. Tell me what you think in the comments: do local bikeways add needed variety to the bike-network, or just water it down?
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