A Quick Loop Around Kelowna
Kelowna bike infrastructure is looking pretty good these days. Join me on a quick loop around the City taking in some protected bike lanes of varying styles, gravel trails, multi-use pathways and open (or closed) streets depending on your perspective…
We start the loop on Ethel Street, maybe one of the first protected bike lanes in the city and the only one i’d seen previously. It has been a good few years since I was in town, pre-Covid I think, so let’s see some new things... the Ethel bike lanes are raised behind the curb, but dropped down to curb return corners at local street intersections… Kelowna were ahead of the game when it comes to TWSI’s - Tactile Warning Surface Indicators or cane detectable guidance for those with sight loss in other words. That bollard below also lines you up with the crosswalk and includes braille street names, albeit a few seem to be missing when looking back…
Across the road is a bike coral with lime scooters and the city has both the bikes and scooters… Both being well used… Last time I was here, drop bike was the provider…
So armed with our Brampton’s, we set out to see a few new things. Separation between people walking and rolling is great in the first section…
Ethel has been extended quite a ways south since I was last here, so we start on the familiar raised bike lanes, and cross the main highway through town that interestingly features a regular secondary signal head signed as a bike signal…
Phase 2 includes raised crossings, there is still a concrete curb return in there, and the pavement markings still say crosswalk/crossride relative to a true continuous sidewalk and bike path, but it still feels like we have more priority than we had further north…
Heading into what I assume is phase 3, there is now a cross-street with bi-directional facility on Sutherland Avenue. Nice to see that No Right Turn on Red (NRTOR)…
We take a spin along there as there’s a somewhat unique bridge to check out at the end. But on the way, a floating bus stop…
We approach the intersection with Richter with some interesting things going on. The NRTOR is great and will reduce conflicts with those on Richter driving, biking, or crossing on foot, but on Sutherland people driving and biking have a green light at the same time. The right turn lane means you can slow and look properly for people on bikes without feeling like you’re holding people up, but I wonder if a dedicated right-turn signal could be added here and given their own short phase or combined with a southbound left to reduce conflicts further…
Another option i’m trying to explore is the flashing yellow right turn arrow in situations like this that would better convey to drivers that they can turn right across the bike lanes, but must do so with more care. I think this would grab drivers attention more than the static sign that is common in Canada today... Dutch example here.
Looking back from the same spot…
A closer view of the Richter intersection…
The bridge, a precast concrete bridge over a creek that helped avoid impacts to the creek relative to widening the existing road structure… Waited for a good few minutes here for more people to come by, but had to model for this one myself… Of course two people on bikes came by right after me…
We backtracked to Ethel and we can see the Sutherland bike lanes continues east which is a relatively new addition…
We take Ethel further south as it takes different forms. Not quick build by any means, it’s looks good, but lower cost than the raised phase 1 section, maintain existing curb and gutter, reallocating space, adding curb extensions with trees. It’s worth noting the posted speed along here is 40 km/h even with the protected bike lane, a benefit to road safety for everyone…
The city definitely has some beach town vibes despite being reasonably populous. Few people riding wear a helmet and many are on cruiser type bikes… The beach chairs help too…
Reminder to leave a route through any new curbs for stormwater to reach existing catch basins…
Vegetated boulevards are welcome as long as they don’t grow over the bike path too much… What really interests me here is the lack of flex posts on the bike lane curb. For some reason when we add precast curbs we line them with flex posts on top to help drivers not drive into them, but really, when we had sidewalks next to travel lanes, drivers managed just fine… This is no different and a good example of not needing so many flex posts… There are hazard markers at the start and that’s all…
Something I haven’t seen before is the extra STOP stencil placed in the bike lane, presumably to encourage the correct behaviour and make people on bicycles realize the stop condition also applies to them. I’d maybe drop the crossride markings which kinda does the opposite and suggests people on bicycles have priority, see that Vancouver example in my last post too.
When you see scenes like this, I think it says all it needs to… This is why we do it… It’s also nice to see these quicker build facilities still including elements of landscaping rather than just concrete… Presumably those curb extensions were excavated quite a way to provide soil volume for the trees…
We get to the end of Ethel and I was about to turn right onto the painted bike lane, then realized there was a bi-directional protected bike lane on the other side, so we hoped onto that and followed it around the corner…
Onto what is really a laneway, but cool to see the woonerfy shared street signs… Helping to make it a formal connection in the bike network…
At the end of this lane, we turn onto Casorso Road, and another recent addition of uni-directional protected bike lanes much like the last section on Ethel…
We saw a lot of people on tricycles on this loop which was cool to see, and feel this was probably enabled by such protected lanes…
These protected bike lanes are great for pulling the kids along too... It does start to highlight the need for adequate lane widths to provide space to pass…
Near the end of Casorso, a floating sidewalk for want of a better name. Not sure of the exact purpose, but my guess would be reducing conflicts with the school drop-off activity… I’d maybe add some directional TWSI’s to guide people to the crosswalk and back onto the correct path on the sidewalk… Directional TSWI’s are still somewhat of a new idea in Canada, but common in many places around the world…
We turn onto a MUP headed for the Mission Creek Greenway… A gravel pathway along Mission Creek funnily enough…
We follow another MUP…
Then get on the gravel pathway which was great. I was surprised it wasn’t full of gravel bikes, but maybe there are better trails for that purpose, or maybe everyone’s at the beach on this day with temps in the high 20’s…
We get good signposting and priority at crossings…
And then we need to work our way across to the north side of our loop. We end up taking the sidewalk on what were pretty busy multi-lane roads with worn out sharrows that will hopefully one day be replaced with protected bike lanes…
But… We could have taken a better route back… I was looking at Google Maps at this point instead of the City’s bike map that would have pointed us to a different route along Leckie Road. We ended up at the Leckie Road anyhow where the ATC project looks close to completion and would have given us a much more comfortable ride… Next time…
We take the Rails with Trails connection back into the centre… This paved trail extends all the way to the Kelowna Airport, so if you ever need to fly into town with your bike, you have a comfortable route all the way into the centre. I’m not sure I’ve actually seen solar power street lights before… Interesting…
This pathway takes us all the way back into downtown… fencing on both sides here maybe gives it a sketchy vibe, but safe enough for kids I guess…
We head into downtown on Cawston Avenue. At the first crossing, tiny detail, but a push button I’ve never seen before… I kind of prefer typical crosswalk buttons that you can just hit with your arm, rather than have to push with my finger… maybe still some Covid paranoia creeping in…
It’s a nice route into downtown, completely separate from traffic, mostly shared with pedestrians… And dogs… Although there was a section with separate walking and rolling space…
This crossing in downtown interestingly had a push button for pedestrians and bikes that you can’t see below, presumably as it would call a shorter bike phase if no pedestrians were present. I wonder if peds see a biker pushing the button and end up having to cross in the shorter phase... Streetview image of the double button here.
We finish our loop along the water into downtown and back along Bernard Avenue that has been taken over by patios…
There’s a bike valet which is great to see… Although, like the one in Victoria, it would be great if it stayed open longer…
I can see the need for this sign… It feels like you could just roll across…
And I especially like this double sharrow… I’m not sure if this is just placing the new one outside the door zone without eradicating the old one, but it felt like the intent was legitimizing riding side by side… Best use of a sharrow (or two) that I’ve seen…
It was a fun loop, and great to see so many good things happening in Kelowna… It seems like there is plenty more coming… If you’re interested, here’s a map of the route we took…