It’s a well-researched professional paper that should be read and carefully considered by anyone interested in cycling safety and advocacy.

To completely pile roads through waterloo campus would be like making it a suburb. The only thing that sets it apart psychologically is the fact that you can’t drive in and park your car where ever you want as most people want to.

The problem of ring road as a moat is a problem.

I don’t know if this is the solution though. Thanks for putting it out there though, great start to a dialogue.

Otherwise great list. Thanks.

*Starting next year, the Region is indeed spending quite a bit of money on totally redesigning and seriously improving the bus system so that it makes for a solid network together with LRT.

*Commuters to the GTA and travelers to the airport are important markets, but they make up a tiny fraction of commutes in the Region. The vast majority of trips and commutes stay within the Region. (Intercity rail also requires substantially more investment per rider.) Also, the GO extension is ready to go ahead, except that it’s held up by a dispute with the owner of the rail line. GO is also working on an airport connection.

*There is no zero-cost option. The context for this is substantial growth, and transportation infrastructure needs to be built to handle it. It’s a matter of which infrastructure is better for the long-term, and where the future growth will be directed.

*Pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is a good complement to a serious transit system, but we also need transit that can compete with the car for the longer trips people make here. It’s less of a stretch for most people to take the bus or train than it is for them to cycle 5-10 km to work or the store year-round on even the infrastructure we could get built within the observable future.

But yes, if you’re following the rules, paying attention, looking out for others making errors, being out in traffic is “safe” by any reasonable use of the term.

As for rear-enders, the car-car type occurs most frequently in stop-n-go traffic when someone is not paying attention. I generally don’t find myself in that type of traffic (when it’s that slow I filter forward one way or another). As far as the general risk of being hit from behind in non stop-n-go traffic, which is extremely low, I use a conspicuous roadway position and a rear view mirror. By being conspicuous, I can determine in my mirror whether I’ve been noticed or not long before it’s too late to bail or whatever.

There is risk out there, of course, but most of it can be mitigated to a point that we must be able to tolerate. The risk of taking a bath, getting on an airplane, going for a dip or even drinking a glass of water is not zero, but we engage in all of these activities none-the-less, hopefully taking due care. Bicycling, safely, in traffic is no different.

Having said that, there are certain situations where it might be so dangerous that I would get off the road out of traffic. But that’s only when visibility conditions are extremely poor due dense fog, smoke or dust, in which I can’t do anything to verify whether I’ve been noticed or not. Even riding into a blinding sun is not that bad, because there I can see behind me in my mirror to see if I’ve been noticed.