Biking an exercise in frustration

In an attempt to see what all the fuss was about, my wife and I decided to try the new cycle track. What we saw is a near disaster for all forms of transportation.

The track along Stephen Avenue, even though there are wide pedestrian sidewalks on both sides, is overwhelmed with pedestrian traffic on the cycle track in the middle. The track along 12th Avenue is simply an exercise in frustration. To a new user, the lights at first can be confusing. In fact, even though we safely crossed an intersection on a walk sign, inadvertently missing the new stop light, the police were right there to threaten us with nearly $ 800 in fines. I suppose he is only doing his job.

However, we did cross when safe and such fines for lowincome people are way out of proportion. To make things worse, because of the turns for cars, we were stopped at nearly every intersection. On other streets, the city has reclaimed entire lanes from traffic to hand over to already generous sidewalks and then installed bike lanes in the remainder, again, reducing traffic capacity by at least half.

Clearly, with all the changes to downtown, including the widespread elimination of right- turn lanes and the addition of scramble crosswalks, there is a broadly punitive objective directed at motorists which has succeeded in making downtown Calgary into a commuter’s hell for all forms of traffic. Kerry Kaminski, Calgary