That First Blast of Winter

Always catches me by surprise... This year even more so because it came so much earlier than it has in recent years! 

We were hit with an early snowstorm this year which started out as cold rain storm and then turned into wet snow. I don't love this wet and cold weather. I actually think I prefer -20°C to this - at least it's DRY!



It's come so early that leaves haven't even fallen from the trees which has lead to a lot of bendy and broken trees and power outages around the city.



This morning we had to get to City Hospital for The Girl's appointment at the Eye Centre. As a testament to the crappiness of the weather this is the least number of bikes I have EVER seen at the hospital's bike lock up - even when it's -40°C it's usually packed full of bikes.



The Girl at her appointment with some fancy glasses to check her prescription. She was pretty excited about them because she's been reading a fair bit of "steampunk" stories this last year and she decided they looked a lot like some sort of steampunky optical device...



After a stop at Night Oven Bakery we headed home through downtown on the Separated bike lane.



It wasn't the awesomest place to be - a lot of snow has gotten shovelled off the sidewalks into the lane and there was a LOT of water draining into it...



But it was still better than it would have been riding out in the middle of car traffic - sop I'm not going to complain too much!



Our awesome, indefatigable  neighbours were out and about today as well.



Snowy tunnel to get into our back yard!

Downtown Protected Bike Lane - Part Two

The Boy and I were downtown for our weekly stop at the Library and Bakery and it looks like Phase Two of the Downtown Protected Bike Lane Demonstration Project is going in. 

We actually approached 4th Avenue from North of 25th street (heading from Night Oven Bakery to the Frances Morrison Library) and discovered that the Protected Bike Lane only goes as far north as 24th Street. The southern end is at 20th Street. Either end doesn't feel entirely connected with anything really... Still, we rode it on the way home and though it ditched us as 20th we continued on down to 19th made a quick right and left and were onto the Meewasin Trail - I'm not sure I'd want to execute that maneuver at rush hour (especially while riding with kids)... but luckily for me, I'll likely never need to...

Protected Bikes Lanes in Saskatoon - again

The city of Saskatoon has created a short video to inform citizens how the Protected Bike Lane on 23rd Street is supposed to work:




That's me and my kids (and a woman who works for the city) in the video!

Protected Bike Lanes in Saskatoon

I rode downtown with the kids this morning for the official grand opening of the 23rd Street Protected Bike Lane Demonstration Project in Saskatoon.



We actually USED the lanes to get downtown.



Don Cook, Manager of Long Range Planning at the City of Saskatoon speaking to a rather large crowd of cyclists!



His Worshipleness Don Atchinson, Mayor of Saskatoon, was present for the ribbon cutting. Sadly he didn't jump on a bike and ride the new lane with everyone else... at least he didn't drive down it in a convertible...



After the ribbon-cutting we did a complete tour of the lane from city hall to Idylwyld Drive, back all the way to Spadina Crescent and back to City Hall.



I'm pretty excited about these. My only concern was the placement of the turning boxes 9for cyclists travelling along the bike lane - like the one in the pictures above and below... then look a bit... exposed...?




The cyclist basically has to turn into an area where there could be cars going straight through the intersection...



This turning box - where there's been a traffic calming bulge installed - worked out a lot better.

It's a new development for Saskatoon and there will be some growing pains and lessons to be learned - which is why it's called a "demonstration project"...



of course, it being Saskatoon, we couldn't have an official opening of a bycicle facility without at least one person parking their car in the middle of it... (actually a bus stop they've pulled into and parked...)



or two... (again, bus stop...)



Oh and these signs, that are supposed to be reminding people driving motor vehicles to watch for - and yield to - cyclists in the bike lane... can you see it there? In the mess of parking signs...? yeah, I'm not entirely sure anyone in their car is seeing it - I rode half the length of the bike lane before I noticed them... If I were king of the world I'd try and put them in the buffer zone between the cars and the cyclists.

Overall I'm feeling pretty positive about the whole project at the moment (I was a bit apprehensive at first, for... reasons...). Overall I think the city's done a pretty darned good job at this one and I'm relly looking forward to them adding 4th Avenue next summer!

This may become my new route to get down to the library!