Flexibility in Transportation Choice

When transportation is discussed, inevitably the categorizations get made: cyclists are asking for this, that project pits transit riders against drivers, this road widening is good for drivers. But the basic assumption here – namely, that most of us fall neatly into one of those groups – just isn’t true.

Certainly there are people who will drive no matter what, and hardcore cyclists, and so on. I, however, walk, cycle, drive, and take transit. Though I have my preferences for walking and against the stress of traffic, in general I travel by the means that makes the most sense for the trip I’m making. I’m not wedded to my car, or my bike, and certainly not to the bus — and I venture to say that the same is true for you.

There’s a basic finding In social psychology called the fundamental attribution error. It refers to people’s tendency to attribute too much of the behaviour of others to their personal traits. In other words, while you might choose to do X in light of the situation, if others do Y it’s because they’re the kind of people who do Y. So while we aren’t likely to ascribe our choices to our being Car Drivers or Pedestrians or Transit Riders or Cyclists, we eagerly pigeonhole others in this way.

The reality is that our transportation choices depend not only on our personal disposition and financial constraints, but also on the choices available to us. When there are protected bike lanes that get plowed, we’ll cycle. We’ll walk to the corner store. We’ll drive when we need to get to the edge of town. Considering how we’ve built our cities, don’t be surprised to find that most cyclists own a car. Many transit riders use Grand River CarShare to access to a car when needed.

Accepting our transportation flexibility suggests certain approaches. If we want to get people to switch some trips to transit, we need to break down barriers to entry. Already, Google Maps on our smartphones looks through schedules so we don’t have to. A network of frequent express bus routes can make it clear where transit could easily take us.

We should stop implicitly assuming that people must always drive, as exemplified by parking at work being typically paid for. If the cost of that parking is made an explicit choice, some people will forgo the parking and take the cash. Better yet is if we can pay for parking only on the days we need to use it – thereby making each day’s choice of transportation less biased towards clogging the roads.

The situation at the University of Waterloo shows that even this can be improved. Parking there is essentially offered at cost and there are indeed lots for daily parking. But despite the price, demand for parking is still high enough that close short-term spots are difficult to find. Which is a problem if we want people to choose to leave their cars at home more often.

The university ought to provide conveniently placed short-term parking, priced high enough to ensure available spots. People would then be able to easily drive to campus when the convenience is worth it, while typically getting there by other means, such as through the transit pass included in student fees.

The big picture context is that Waterloo Region’s built up areas are growing dramatically, and we don’t have the space or the billions needed for roads to accommodate every trip being made by car twenty years down the road. Planning for effective transportation solutions requires us to understand that our travel habits are more malleable than we think, and depend on the options we face.

TriTAG's map of the LRT (red) and planned express bus routes. The line is more interurban than it is CBD-to-suburb.

My last Record column this year evaluates the idea of the central business district in the context of Waterloo Region, and (of course) again discusses light rail. Hopefully it isn’t too unfocused:

The Future is Multi-Nodal

Commentary on the light rail transit project reveals a common but outdated assumption that a city should have a central business district (CBD) — an area of downtown that no one lives in, but many commute to from the suburbs. A frequent argument against the project is that downtown Kitchener isn’t a large enough CBD and that there aren’t enough people commuting in. But the whole concept of a central business district is a thing of the past, and light rail does not need a large CBD to make sense. The future lies in urban areas composed of multiple dense nodes connected by high-quality transportation — which happens to be exactly what Waterloo Region is planning for.

Cities once contained housing in addition to commerce and industry. When streetcar lines were started, they moved people within the city, but they also opened up the suburbs for residential development that promised tranquility and fresh air. Later, the availability of cars and cheap fuel together with massive post-war highway and road development led to suburban flight on a larger scale. Commerce also followed the highways and set up shop in suburban malls. Only jobs remained, producing the classic CBD — where commuters stay from 9 to 5, leaving an empty city every evening. But those long commutes aren’t healthy for our cities, and an office monoculture is not conducive to urban living.

Most of Waterloo Region’s growth has occurred after the post-war years, and many jobs are located in suburban office parks. So we have no reason to cling to the notion of a CBD — it just doesn’t apply. But that’s not a bad thing. Instead of jobs clustering in any single downtown, many destinations and much employment have fortunately clustered along a reasonably dense linear corridor.

It’s not just jobs, either — many people now want to live in urban places. It turns out that the suburbs with their traffic, limited access, and manufactured sameness aren’t always so great. People don’t want to have to drive everywhere. They want to be able to walk or take the train to work, and walk to a diversity of stores and restaurants. They want lively streets and public spaces. In order to get there, we need complete neighbourhoods — areas that have different land uses in walking distance of each other.

The model is for dense, complete communities along a high-capacity transportation spine, and for buses along cross-corridors to connect lower-density areas with the spine. This is good for the environment, for taxpayers, and for quality of life. People can walk for many of their trips, using less infrastructure and contributing to better health. With people travelling in a multitude of patterns, trains don’t run empty in any direction — especially when downtowns or malls anchor the ends of the line. They have enough demand to run frequently throughout the day and evening, allowing commuters to feel confident leaving their cars at home.

Instead of new growth taking place as further sprawl or as haphazard development throughout the region, planning policy guides it to occur along major transit corridors. The growth takes place where it produces mostly transit riders on a high-capacity train instead of producing more traffic on congested roads, and where it uses existing utilities. Instead of draining the city’s resources on sprawling infrastructure, such growth benefits the city through increased liveliness and economic productivity.

I am proud that Waterloo Region is looking to the future and planning a more sustainable urban form. The Region’s new official plan, new transportation master plan, and the proposed light rail system are the key steps by which we will escape the cul-de-sac of the hollowed-out suburban ideal.

Addendum: This isn’t my last column after all. Turns out I get another column in December!

The new tramway in Nice, France. (Photo: Flickr / Ian Britton)

My Record column today makes the case for light rail in Waterloo Region, with a slightly different approach than last year’s one:

Growing Waterloo Region Up with Transit Infrastructure

A single line of built-up areas is easily seen in Waterloo Region satellite imagery — this is the Central Transit Corridor. The planned light rail line and the express bus line to Cambridge would connect four downtowns, the university district, three major commercial areas, and many corporate and industrial campuses — along with a quickly growing supply of housing. In the context of a redesigned bus network and strong planning policy, LRT (light rail transit) is the infrastructure necessary to manage growth and provide for the region’s economic and environmental health.

Most of the tremendous post-war growth here has been suburban, but the area near the LRT route has still grown by 50% or more since 1955 — the last year of interurban trains. If that was it, light rail wouldn’t make sense. But the plan looks to 2031, and the province projects more than 200,000 new residents by then. The Region’s new Official Plan implements provincial targets of 40% of growth occurring in the urban cores. This will more than double the population and jobs along the Central Transit Corridor. A light rail system will both help attract this development to the downtowns, and handle the resulting demand for transit along the spine of our region. It would also be a more environmentally and financially sound approach than ramming wider roadways and more parking into our downtowns.

Many have called for more buses instead of rail. But this isn’t either-or. In fact, the recently approved Regional Transportation Master Plan calls for a dramatic ramping up of the Grand River Transit budget — tripling per-capita funding within twenty years. The plan calls for five new express bus routes in the next five years to service other major corridors, for more frequent and later service, and a redesign of bus routes to a more grid-like network to connect with the light rail and the express routes.

However, simply more buses won’t work in the Central Transit Corridor. Already, each direction of King Street between Waterloo and Kitchener sees 12-15 iXpress and Route 7 mainline buses an hour. Which is great for riders now. But when the population and jobs more than double, so will transit ridership — or actually more without road expansion. With buses as they are now, 20-30 buses an hour is essentially the limit. Past that point they bunch together and form jams at busy stops. For them to handle the ridership we would need a bus highway through our downtowns, with passing lanes and level platforms. For most of the cost of an LRT system, it would get us dozens more buses per hour polluting our downtowns with diesel fumes and noise, and would only postpone the capacity issues.

LRT, in addition to its smoother ride and quieter and friendlier electric propulsion, has larger vehicles that can be coupled in trains. Less manpower is needed to operate it, and more and bigger doors allow for low dwell times at stations — which are the main capacity bottleneck. And more than just funneling growth into central areas, the inflexibility of light rail will be able to guide development to occur alongside transit and in a way conducive to transit use.

We’re finally realizing that our resources are finite. In the post-war era, anything was possible. Technology would solve all problems, land was plentiful, gas was cheap, and everyone could drive their car from the idyllic suburbs to work downtown. We know now that sprawl comes with costs to the environment, costs to our health, and costs to our wallets — it’s expensive to build streets and lay down infrastructure to serve low densities at the edge of the city. We’ve already chosen to put a limit to sprawl. Now it’s time to follow through with the transit service and infrastructure that will grow our Region up and not out.

Making New Urban Space in Northdale

In the last half-century the Region of Waterloo has seen tremendous growth. We’ve built a university on farmland. Subdivisions upon subdivisions have sprung up at the outskirts of town. Industry has been pushed out to “parks” accessible only by car. We’ve put up office building wastelands and power centres galore. We’ve torn down parts of our downtowns to put up parking lots and inward-facing malls with blank walls facing the street. And we’re still going strong, with plans to demolish industrial buildings in Kitchener’s warehouse district to turn it into a parking district.

At least we’ve decided to somewhat curtail the building of widely spaced houses on inaccessible crescents and cul-de-sacs, and new policies call for intensification and reurbanization. However it seems our thinking stops at a strange one-dimensional notion of density, one of condo towers, parking garages, and monster developments of all kinds. Where are our lively new city streets? Where is our walkable city built for the street level? If we seem constitutionally incapable of building new urban space, one reason is that our planning policy makes it essentially impossible.

The late Jane Jacobs, renowned urban activist and thinker, wrote in The Death and Life of Great American Cities: “There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.”

Northdale is a rapidly growing area in Waterloo adjacent to Wilfrid Laurier University and near the University of Waterloo, Research in Motion, and the Research and Technology Park. Growth of the universities has resulted in a student residential monoculture there, with its attendant problems of overcrowded houses and rowdy students. Waterloo city planners recently completed a report to allow City Council to decide between the staff vision for Northdale and an alternative vision brought forward by community members unsatisfied with the current approach.

That current approach forces high-demand land in the interior of the neighbourhood to remain as low density detached housing (to attract hypothetical families) and allows for only residential use without provision for neighbourhood amenities. There is no liveliness save for keg parties, no public space, and nothing to attract outsiders in. The corridors chosen for higher density are growing duller and drearier with every new student housing building added – either parking-oriented barracks or stucco towers.

The alternative is to allow and encourage the built form of our streets to become urban, and this requires considerable changes to zoning: removing minimum parking requirements, setting minimum densities, limiting heights to street-scale (e.g. six or eight storeys), and – most importantly – permitting mixed uses. The city of Kitchener is implementing new mixed-use zoning, and Waterloo’s planners should take note. For all the housing sprouting up in Northdale, there is no grocery store in sight. City planners require parking so that we can all drive to the mall, but in their infinite wisdom they do not see fit to allow streets where we might have reason or desire to walk. (The only exceptions are grandfathered in.)

Northdale is within walking distance of two universities, many major tech companies, busy transit corridors, future light rail, as well as Uptown Waterloo. Currently it is prime land for students without much choice, but it could easily also be attractive for students with choice, for university faculty and staff, and for RIM employees. Add commerce and a few academic and office buildings to a diverse mix of housing, and you have a great alternative to more suburbs.

We should plan for neighbourhoods in which people enjoy living and enjoy walking – where we not only live, but also work, shop, and play. Neighbourhoods where we have welcoming streetscapes, good transit routes and service, shops on our way, useable public spaces, and a built environment that supports community instead of hindering it. Northdale is a perfect opportunity to create new urban space.

Michael Druker is a graduate student at the University of Waterloo. He is a member of the Tri-Cities Transport Action Group (TriTAG) and of Help Urbanize the Ghetto in Waterloo (HUG Waterloo). See more of his opinions at http://psystenance.com.

UW from a hot air balloon. (Photo: Ann E via Flickr)

In a previous post I described how the University of Waterloo fails its pedestrians. But UW’s problems go deeper. It was built as a suburban campus on farmland in the 1960′s and 1970′s — when it seems planners and architects were intent on planning for the car, even when designing a pedestrian-dominated place. Now that the campus is surrounded by the city on all sides and there is growing recognition that spaces need to be designed for pedestrians, it is important that it integrate well into its environment. However the campus street plan essentially does the opposite.

Currently the main campus road, Ring Road, is accessed by vehicles only through two connector roads on the north and south. There are thus a high number of intersections for vehicles to contend with, and it is a roundabout trip to get in and out of the campus. My estimate is that most of the people travelling by motor vehicle on Ring Road are actually using transit. So the meandering is a waste of time particularly for bus riders and of money for Grand River Transit (as UW is a transit hub). But even though Ring Road is difficult to get to, it is wide open in many parts and even the few speed humps don’t suitably slow down car traffic.

UW can be a pain to get to on foot from some directions, and difficult to navigate once you do. There are barely any pedestrian thoroughfares, mostly just paved paths (if that). In many cases, vehicular access roads serve as makeshift pedestrian corridors. All parking is surface parking, and there are lots right inside the main campus (bounded by Columbia and University).

The current UW campus, based on an official map. Solid lines are roads, many with missing sidewalks. Dashed lines are pedestrian paths that are wide, specially paved, or otherwise deliberate.

I propose a new University of Waterloo street plan. With contribution from Sylvan Mably, I’ve drawn what I think to be a much improved version of UW’s campus. The emphasis is on connectivity, navigability, and a street system that fits its use. This alternative street plan is ambitious but firmly rooted in what is actually feasible to do from the current situation.

There would no longer be a Ring Road, and its east and west segments would be through streets. Moreover, both of these streets would connect with Seagram Drive at the south end of the campus, and part of the current Seagram alignment would be turned into a pedestrian thoroughfare (as it would not be a useful vehicular connection). Other notable road changes are an extension of the current St. Jerome’s access road across Laurel Creek to the extended Seagram Drive, and a street connection for the west end of the student village. Good road connectivity would reduce the distance vehicles (including bicycles) need to travel to reach points of the campus.

My proposed street plan for the University of Waterloo.

The solid lines on the map would be streets with wide sidewalks and perhaps bike lanes. As the design of a road dictates how drivers use it, through streets inside the campus would be designed for low speeds (30 km/h). Where possible, they should have street parking with demand-responsive pricing; this would ensure that short-term parking is available when needed. The dashed lines are what I call pedestrian lanes. These are wide thoroughfares laid out with paving stones and designed for pedestrians, but shared with cyclists and the occasional intruding campus delivery van. These lanes should be named, especially the several that provide east-west routes and the north-south thoroughfare (which splits around the Grad House knoll and the Math & Computer building). With naming and a somewhat grid-like network of lanes and streets, the navigability of the campus would improve dramatically. Wayfinding and campus travel would become easier and more pleasant. Thanks to improved connectivity, the campus would be easier to access by walking, cycling, bus, and light rail (which will stop along the east side of campus).

Most of the lanes follow existing paths, but some would need to be graded first and others would need to be created through current parking lots. A connection would be made between Lester and Phillip Streets to make Hickory Street/Lane a useful corridor across UW, through the Northdale neighbourhood, and past King Street. Two buildings would have to be sacrificed to open up the north and south pedestrian gateways to the campus. The more pressing one is South Campus Hall at the south gateway, and the current campus master plan actually calls for it to be demolished for this very reason.

Endless construction has been steadily devouring what little open space UW’s main campus has left. There are currently grand plans afoot to develop distant parts of the University of Waterloo lands, possibly including academic buildings. My plan would allow well-located possibilities for street- and lane-facing campus buildings to accommodate growth, in particular at the parking wastelands in the north and south ends. UW is actually already haphazardly removing lots to put up new buildings. With my street plan there would be opportunities for well-located parking garages, e.g. by St. Jerome’s, off Seagram Drive, or by Columbia Street. It would also open up important possibilities for public space, such as around the south gateway to campus. Eventual demolition of some of the old three-story buildings in the center of campus (and replacement with taller, more compact ones) would allow for some much-needed central public space.

This is intended to be food for thought, and is neither exhaustive nor definitive. However, I strongly believe that a plan along these lines would dramatically improve the University of Waterloo’s walkability, connectivity, campus experience, and safety, and make it a better university overall.

We Should Curb Parking Requirements

Why do we devote so much land to parking? You might suppose this is purely due to the high demand or the high value of parking, but you’d be wrong. Municipal by-laws have actually been requiring abundant off-street parking across North America since the 1940s — when cities started their decline and modern suburbs their ascent. These requirements pave the way for a spread-out, car-oriented form for cities, to the detriment of the density and foot traffic necessary for vibrant urban areas.

Post-war planners worried that new parking demand together with low curb parking supply would wreak havoc. So they measured the demand generated by various land uses — neatly separated, in the fashion of the time — under the critical but unstated assumption that parking is free. They then required landowners to accommodate that amount of parking on their own lots. As supply goes up, the price goes down. As the price goes down, demand goes up. Supplying enough spaces to satisfy the high demand for free parking has effectively made parking free or close to it.

But there ain’t no such thing as a free parking spot. The cost of parking includes construction, maintenance, and above all the opportunity cost of other uses for that space. These costs are borne by all of us through higher rents, higher prices, and lower wages, as well as through air pollution and congested streets. At no point are we asked whether it’s worth it to us; we’re just given a spot, or more likely several. Whether or not we own cars, we all pay for free parking.

Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, has detailed The High Cost of Free Parking in his eponymous volume. Shoup argues that on-street parking prices should ensure that about 15% of spaces are vacant at any given time, so people can find parking without clogging the streets in the search. He suggests using new technology that dynamically gauges use and updates prices, and easy-to-use multi-space meters that accept multiple payment types. Revenues should be directed to improving the streetscape and public space in the surrounding neighbourhood, deflating tensions with non-resident motorists. With on-street parking under control, off-street parking should be left as a market-driven choice for developers and garage operators.

Required parking gives an advantage to suburban over urban development due to the higher costs of structured parking (a spot can easily cost $30,000). If builders were allowed to determine how much parking to provide, they would be able to choose to locate next to quality transit service to eliminate some parking expense and thus to be more competitive. Suburban development patterns would have a hard time competing against the frequency of transit or the density and diversity of use made possible by parking-optional urban development. This would help urban built form regain its upper hand.

Even without requirements, it’s likely most developers would find benefit in providing off-street parking, for which owners could decide whether to charge. However, it is no business of the city to mandate parking regardless of costs. Many cities actually impose parking caps instead, to encourage density and to ensure space is not reflexively devoted to cars.

Our region seeks to channel growth into urban cores and major transit nodes. To reach a reurbanized Waterloo Region, we must remove the barriers to urban form we have erected. New residents will see a region with light rail and a good bus system, with intercity and commuter rail, with bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly areas. Let’s stop assuming that everyone needs to pay for our collective free parking and let’s empower people to make the parking judgement for themselves. Removing the mandatory parking subsidies will encourage transit-oriented development and allow easier and cheaper urban construction, making it more affordable to live, work, and shop in the region’s urban cores.

Michael Druker is a pedestrian, transit user, driver, and cyclist in Kitchener-Waterloo. He is rarely asked to pay for parking. See more of his opinions at http://psystenance.com.

What the hell am I talking about? Tourist trains, for one. Trains have gone away as transportation in most of North America, but tourist trains abound. When looking up Port Stanley as a possible place to visit a few months ago, I found that there was a tourist train between Port Stanley and St. Thomas along the old London & Port Stanley line. Note that St. Thomas is pretty close to the 401 highway, while Port Stanley is much further south, on Lake Erie. I thought it would be pretty neat — drive to St. Thomas and take the train to Port Stanley and back. Unfortunately, this tourist railway deliberately prevents usefulness, since the only boarding is done at Port Stanley. (In fairness, the Waterloo Central Railway between Waterloo and St. Jacobs does allow one-way trips.)

The bicycle hasn’t been a major mode of transportation in North America for the better part of a century. At the same time that driving has become the predominant way to travel, bicycling has stayed around as child’s play and recreation. Go to any Wal-Mart and you will find a wide selection of mountain bikes with 20+ gears and fancy shocks. At the specialized bike shops you’ll also find ultra-light road bicycles for the spandex-wearers. At neither place are you likely to find many comfortable utility bikes, with fenders, baskets, skirt guards, and lights. And neither mountain bikes nor road bikes are well-suited to being used for utility cycling. Yet when I look at what people use to get around town here in Kitchener-Waterloo, it’s almost always the ubiquitous recreational bicycles.

Walking is no longer considered a serious mode of transportation. Parks, however, abound with all kinds of recreational trails; often you’re supposed to drive to the park so that you can go for a stroll. These paths tend to be under the oversight of parks departments and feature signs saying they are closed at night. And being recreational trails, why would anyone want to use them in foul weather? Presumably this is why the path through Waterloo Park is not paved, despite being extensively used as transportation.

The Iron Horse Trail has its share of irony. It’s a rails-to-trails on the old Grand River Railway right-of-way. Though it is paved and even plowed, it isn’t lit and is “closed” at night. What used to be a passenger railroad was converted into a recreational trail, which incidentally is now used as transportation by many people.

I would suggest that the focus should be more on recreation as an adjoint to utility, not just recreation for its own sake (perhaps with utility as an afterthought). When your regular travel take you through a park, that enriches each trip — as opposed to the few times a year you might get to an out-of-the-way park. Focusing on making a recreational space useful can end up adding more to the quality of life for many more people.

Similarly, downtowns also should be about utility and not just recreation. As Jane Jacobs wrote, “You can’t rely on bringing people downtown; you have to put them there.” After the post-war suburban sprawl took hold, downtowns suffered. Some tried to convince people to come back through demolishing buildings and providing plentiful free parking to compete with the suburbs, to little effect. Others, like Waterloo and Kitchener, built downtown malls in the failed hopes that people would come downtown for them (instead of the suburban ones). Unless your downtown is an amazing tourist spot, it just cannot be sustained as an occasional destination. Downtowns need to be places that are used in a variety of ways on a daily basis — for utility, not just recreation.

Today’s issue of The Record also carries my op-ed in support of light rail for the Region of Waterloo. It mainly focuses on light rail as the natural evolution of the rapidly growing iXpress bus route.

While TriTAG strongly supports the light rail project, it is by no means a single-issue group and is also focusing on issues relating to transit and urban infrastructure in the Region, including ones addressed in this blog.

For a city to be open to pedestrians, there need to be paths between useful destinations, the paths need to be maintained, and pedestrians need to feel safe. Before you can run, you have to walk, and before you can walk, you need a place to do it. In Kitchener-Waterloo there are numerous roads that are missing sidewalks, often on both sides of the street. Sometimes the sidewalks are sporadic: they appear and disappear on a stretch of road. Occasionally one-sided sidewalks even switch sides at intersections. Suburban subdivisions are haphazard, sometimes having full sidewalk coverage, but just as often leaving them out. And sidewalks in industrial areas are simple: there just aren’t any.

I set out to document the state of missing sidewalks in Kitchener and Waterloo. Using Google Maps, I drew red lines for roads missing sidewalks on both sides and blue lines for those missing a sidewalk on just one. I tried to cover everything that is not a suburban subdivision, and I did Eastbridge as an example of a suburban area. There are undoubtedly missing sidewalks that I did not document, and probably some tiny sidewalks that I mistook for curbs. Click on the below map image to see it on Google Maps in more detail. [Update: This is based on 2006 satellite imagery, and a few sidewalks have been put in since then.]

The list of important roads with serious sidewalk absences reads like a who’s who of roads in the region: Fischer-Hallman Rd, Fairway Rd, University Ave, Westmount Rd, Seagram Dr, Victoria St, Homer Watson Blvd, Bleams Rd, Manitou Dr, Lackner Blvd, Bridge St, Northfield Dr, and even King St and Weber St by the St. Jacobs Market. The suburbs are missing many useful sidewalks. And the north Waterloo and south Kitchener industrial parks — while currently devoid of sidewalks — would be quite reasonable places for them, as both are within walking and biking distance of residential areas and transit hubs.

Of course, it isn’t enough for sidewalks to exist. The sidewalks need to be maintained, cleared of snow in the winter, free of standing water, and so on. There need to be walkway connections. There need to be places to walk to. However, sidewalks are a significant step, as they invite people to consider their use and have symbolic value as a commitment by the municipality to its pedestrians.

By the Region of Waterloo’s own estimates, it would cost less than $20 million to add in all the missing sidewalks on regional roads. I would guess it would cost less than $100 million to construct every single missing sidewalk in Kitchener-Waterloo. Considering the region and the two cities can afford to spend around $100 million a year on roads, we can afford this.

What would be the outcome if we added in all the sidewalks? First of all, the people who already walk in these places would now be able to do so safely. Other people will consider walking when they otherwise wouldn’t have risked the side of the road. Many probably aren’t currently willing to walk because there literally is no space for it, or because they are afraid that poor weather would make their journey back unpleasant. Perhaps most intriguingly, there are many missing sidewalks along fast-moving roads to destinations that may be far for walking, but just right for cycling. I think a secondary outcome would be that many will consider cycling on low-population sidewalks as an alternative way to get to their workplace from their suburban homes — both of which may now be solely accessible by car. I know that legally bicycles are supposed to be on the roads, but as a practical matter, many roads — especially in suburban areas — tend to be scary for prospective cyclists, and consequently a very strong deterrent if they are missing sidewalks.

I don’t think sidewalks are always necessary on both sides of the street, particularly if one side does not have any connections. However, calculations about where sidewalks may or may not be needed must be viewed with suspicion, as they appear to me to be prescriptive rather than descriptive. The purpose of sidewalks and walkways should not be just to provide a choice for people, but also to accommodate the choices that will be made and already are being made by pedestrians. People in industrial areas do walk, as do people in the suburbs, whether or not planners think it reasonable. If you look carefully at the satellite imagery in the above map, you will find many places with footpaths in lieu of missing sidewalks.

There is a possibility that if you build a sidewalk, it will not have a use. For 60 years we have been erring on the side of building fewer sidewalks than necessary. It’s about time we started building at least as many sidewalks as we need, and perhaps a few more. Widen (and create) sidewalks, not roads!

That’s King Street in Uptown, viewed at William. We’re looking north.

Walking north to the new public square.

King St and Willis Way, parkade on right, square on left.

This is the new public square, with everyone’s favorite rusty bell. We cross the square.

Somewhere in here a path begins.

The path doesn’t last very long before we’re in a larger open space in front of the mall.

I guess the yellow line indicates the path. CIGI is the building up ahead.

Uh. This is not very nice. We need to go in the same directions as the rail, but we’re getting sidetracked.

Caroline and Erb is a large and unfriendly intersection. The one-way aspect does not make for the most pleasant drivers, and we need to cross twice. Not that anything makes clear that that’s where we need to go.

Here we’re on our cobblestone path. With some unfortunate raised path crossing ours.

Except that’s not even a path, just decoration. Though if it weren’t raised above the paving stone, I wouldn’t mind.

There are some treacherous points for cyclists.

The Perimeter Institute is on the right, and the paving stones change over to asphalt with a bump.

And just that quickly, the asphalt gives way to dirt.

Straight ahead is Waterloo Park. If we turn left here, we can get to Father David Bauer Drive, go through the woods or a parking lot, then across some fields, and over a dam that’s apparently not supposed to be used as a bridge. Then we walk along the edge of a large UW parking lot, cross both directions of often busy University Avenue, climb over a hill, and then end up at PAS and Hagey Hall. During the winter there are more obstacles. We’ll go straight.

Keep going straight.

It’s hard to see here, but there’s a nasty pothole in the dirt/gravel.

Behind the fences on the right are various animals, and so this section attracts many strollers.

Another dilemma. Somewhere to the left there is a path that goes through the woods and can empty out onto Seagram Drive, which doesn’t have a sidewalk. Also, we could cut through the parking lot, which is nice and level. But we’ll follow the proper path and go straight.

Which means we get to go down.

The asphalt slopes downwards to the left, for runoff to go into the creek. That probably means this isn’t the nicest spot in the rain.

This pipe has become a rather unpleasant bump for cyclists.

Now we get to come back up. Most cyclists seem to go through the parking lot instead. [Update: So do most pedestrians.]

The path continues on the other side of the road and the tracks.

This is Seagram Drive, which — for cars, cyclists, and lost pedestrians — leads to the main UW entrance. A sidewalk is sorely lacking here.

If we keep going straight, we’ll get to University Avenue, cross at a special light (or be impatient and jaywalk), and end up at the engineering and math buildings. But we’ll turn left, as that leads to ostensibly the main UW entrance.

This looks promising.

Welcome to UW parking lot A.

The yellow striped area is for crossing between adjacent parking lanes.

This is not a pedestrian friendly crossing.

Almost there!

This section scares me, as there is very little visibility around the corner and you need to traverse a lot of space.

This is University Avenue and Seagram Drive. It’s pretty clear now where UW is.

Future campus plans call for this being a grander entrance, with a large open path traversing the campus from here.

As it is, South Campus Hall stands in the way, and many people climb the stairs just to go through to the other side.

To get to the library (back right) and the science buildings, we can go instead along this path.

All parts of the above route are quite well-travelled throughout the year. And yet, the path from Uptown Waterloo to the University of Waterloo is haphazard and planned either poorly or not at all. The main things wrong are the inconsistent and poor quality surfaces — dirt is not acceptable for paths that get used by commuter cyclists; the lack of sidewalks along Seagram Drive; and the need to traverse a very large and busy parking lot. It also has very little signage, none of it useful to the casual passer-by. Considering that the walk is barely 20 minutes, and that it goes from a university campus to a reasonably fashionable downtown, there is every reason for this path to be made a deliberate and planned thoroughfare.