Thank you for giving the…

Thank you for giving the public the opportunity to comment on the proposed Province-wide Cycling Network. First of all I would like to say that I wholeheartedly support the proposal to develop a network. However, I do have a concern with the use of so many off road routes to link the on-road routes, especially in eastern Ontario. The off-road routes are not dedicated cycling infrastructure. They are multi-use trails with speed limits of 20 km/h. This speed limit is generally too slow for serious cyclists and would reduce the attractiveness of the network to serious cycling tourists and those who may wish to commute significant distances to work via the network. I believe that more emphasis should be given to the development of on-road routes or dedicated cycling paths which can have higher speed limits. To put this into perspective, I can provide results from the 2015 Grand Prix Cyclist Gatineau Gran Fondo event (https://www.sportstats.ca/display-results.xhtml?raceid=29782&status=results). This is an event for amateur cyclists held in Gatineau, QC, each year. In 2015, the average speed of the 222 participants in the 111.8 km ride was 30 km/h. The speed for the top finishers was 38 km/h. Even for the Medio Fondo event which is 69 km long and targeted at less serious amateurs the average speed for the 126 participants was 28 km/h. These are the types of individuals who would be interested in using long distance cycling routes, but they cannot legally travel at those speeds on multi-use pathways. Not to mention that many of the multi-use pathways are gravel trails and not suitable for road bicycles. I think more focus on on-road routes would greatly improve the attractiveness to the network to end users. I've often been puzzled why the province does not increase the width of a network of secondary highways when they require repaving. It seems it would result in an incremental cost to add a couple more feet of asphalt on each side of the road to give space for both cars and cyclists and greatly enhance the provincial cycling network. Keeping the weight of the heavier vehicle traffic and snow clearing equipment farther away from the edges of the asphalt should also increase the life of the roads, which tend to crumble along the edges first.

[Original Comment ID: 209331]