u/Calebdgm

I'm glad you appreciated it!

The Ontario Living Wage Network has a directory with a bunch more living wage employers listed in Waterloo Region. A few more favorites of mine:

• Kindred Credit Union
• [Together We're Bitter Co-operative Brewing](Together We're Bitter Co-operative Brewing)
• Aura-la Pastries & Provisions used to be on the map. Maybe they're not a living wage employer any more? They still seem to have a listing on the Living Wage website.

Here's also the Region's page explaining that they've become a living wage employer. I think Cambridge was the first city to become a living wage employer.

It makes a lot of sense to me. If a business is paying less than a living wage, it's not a job creator so much as a poverty creator.

The Kitchener rides are every week. In Waterloo we're planning on doing the ride today and then probably a ride on August 28th (the last Sunday of August) at 2 pm. From there we'll see what happens.

I've been involved in organizing the weekly community bike rides in Kitchener for about a year now and some folks requested to have one in Waterloo, so here it is! Let me know here or on Facebook if you have any questions (I'll check the Facebook event more frequently, fyi).

I'm hoping some Waterloovians take up the torch of running Waterloo bike rides now and then. There seems to be interest in having them. For some reason every community bike ride I've heard about has started in Kitchener. Also, I'm a Kitchenerite, so it's more practical for me to be involved in the Kitchener rides.

I really want more people to enjoy these berries! Like mulberries, they'll just fall to the ground if people don't pick them. I'm also keen to add more to the map, so if you find any good serviceberry bushes, let me know and I'll verify them and then add them to the map! The 20 on the map now are ones that I've found in the past 36 hours or so since I made the map yesterday. There are so many around town!

There are weekly community bike rides every Sunday at 2 pm starting at Centre in the Square, rain or shine. There are usually around a dozen people there and we ride at a pretty casual pace for around an hour in roughly a loop, often ending at Cafe Pyrus or another local cafe or something. The rides happen every week, but if you follow @GroundUpWR on twitter, they usually tweet about the upcoming ride, whether there's a particular theme that week, pictures from the rides, etc.

Edit: Someone made a video of the big bike ride that happened around Earth Day

I've been using google earth web which makes it very easy to share. I believe when you select the project on the web version there's a share button similar to on google docs. I just yesterday downloaded the desktop version of Google Earth (which as far as I understand is Google Earth Pro? But it's free too though?) and I've been trying to figure out how to use both versions of Google Earth together, but when I downloaded the kml file from the web version, all my colors were gone when I opened it on GE Pro. I think I saw that there was a way to open a kml file on Google Earth web, but I haven't figured that out yet.

Super cool that you're working on a similar project! I think Ottawa's map is currently the ultimate goal of how I would hope for mine to look. I've emailed them to ask for advice on how to do it. Hopefully they'll have some guidance to give. I'll try and remember to let you know if they have some juicy tips!

About a month ago I biked up that way because they seemed to have just finished what I think was nicely separated bike lanes. But maybe I'm remembering incorrectly. The newly constructed ones went up to University, after which I thought there were those little cement blocks with bollards up until Columbia. But it's definitely been a while since I was up there though, so I might be wrong.

I really want to figure out OSM now! If I can figure out how to use it, I think it might be the best platform to put this on. It sounds like I might be able to color code the streets themselves instead of just drawing colored lines on top of the streets. I've reached out to the Bike Ottawa people to see if they can give some guidance on how to make maps like they've got. If you (or anyone else reading this) has any more insight on how to make OSM work, or what platform would be best for a final version of a KW LTS map, let me know!

That Strava heatmap is cool! I didn't realize that feature existed! I'm getting terrible resolution, but it's probably because I don't have an account(?)

Good to know! I've emailed cyclewr to see if they've done something like this or if they'd be interested in helping put this together.

And yes, I believe you're correct about King St. in front of the hospital. It's marked as LTS 3 because it's a two lane (or one lane per direction anyway) street with speeds less than 35mph. That was an area though where I was wondering if it would be more accurate to raise it to LTS 4 for a variety of reasons: the steep hills; the narrow streets and impatient drivers; the confusing painted shoulders that you mentioned.

I love the idea of including planned infrastructure like Kitchener's Downtown Cycling Grid and even proposed infrastructure like the Better Benton proposal. I'm not sure how to add that to what I have in a good way. I'm finding myself pretty limited by my current technology. But I'll carry this idea forward and see if I can figure out a way to make it happen. Thanks!

Thanks for the encouragement! If you send me your gmail in a DM I can give you editing permission so you can add to the map if you get the chance.

It looks like this is it. It's beautiful! Thanks so much for mentioning it!

This is an excellent point! It's been updated! The Levels of Traffic Stress metrics usually account for intersections. I didn't account for intersections much when I was making this so far though. Thanks for noting this!

Thanks for the connection! That sounds like a great idea! Do you know where would be best for me to post it? My first thought is maybe Urban Issues / Urban Design?

Edit 3: I've been informed that Cycle WR is working on a better version of the same project! They're still in the work in progress/proof-of-concept phase, but what they have can be seen at http://waterloo.cyclemap.ca/lts.

---

Here's the interactive map on Google Earth.

The system is outlined on this page from Northeastern University. They refer to the metric of Levels of Traffic Stress (LTS).

Here's how the color coding breaks down who would be comfortable riding on a given route:

LTS 1 (Blue): kids

LTS 2 (Yellow): Adults (including apprehensive adults)

LTS 3 (Orange): Determined adults

LTS 4 (Red): Fearless adults

I'm hoping this can be useful for people planning routes depending on your skill level, or even just to improve the pleasantness of your rides. I'll ride on anything, but looking at this map, I've been able to find routes that leave me less stressed when I get to my destination.

I'm also hopeful that the cities might be interested in creating a map like this and using it for planning new paths and prioritizing connections. For example, riding from Stanley Park area to downtown Kitchener is a 15 or 20 minute ride, so very doable in fair weather. But crossing the highway at Ottawa St. on a bicycle is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies, so I can understand if nobody in the Stanley Park neighbourhood cycles except for recreation.

I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on whether this labelling system is useful, or whether it's even accurate based on what I've done with it so far.

I've got a copy of the RoW Bike Map, but I don't like that it doesn't take skill levels into account, and that it features bike gutters (painted bike lanes) so prominently when I would often rather cycle on a quiet side street without a bike lane than ride on a high-speed, high-traffic street like Glasgow that has a narrow painted bike lane.

Note that this is more applicable in months without so much snow. It would be best to also create a map that takes into account which paths are prioritized for plowing for people who cycle year round.

On a side note, I'm also interested in trying to make a video about this similar to channels like Not Just Bikes or Oh the Urbanity, except just looking at infrastructure and things in KW. Is that something people would be interested in? Does anyone have expertise in that kind of thing?

Edit: Also, if this does end up being popular and if there isn't something better out there already, I would love to have help labeling streets. It's a fun way to spend some free time, but there are a lot of streets for just one guy, lol. If you're interested, DM me and I can talk you through how it's done and give you editing permission.

Edit 2: Thanks for all the support, and the feedback and suggestions! I'll be reaching out to cycling groups and people from the city to see if they've already got something like this, or if they'd be able to help make a more complete, better version of this. If you know anyone who I should get in touch with or if you want to be involved in this project, let me know!

Someone in the comments showed me a complete-looking map that uses this system for Ottawa, as well as a route finding system based on the LTS scores of routes.

Also, thanks for all the feedback on routes! I've been having a really rough time getting Google Earth to allow me to change things, but when I get that working again, I'll go through and address all the suggested changes.

Also eBikes for rent are offered by the bus company

This sounds really cool! Do they rent them out by the day? I think the bike rentals my city used to have were by the hour (or something). They didn't seem that cheap to me, and they didn't seem to get much use at the time, but I looked at the metrics for them and it seemed it wasn't that bad.

I think ebikes are a bit of a game changer too. I tried one at a group ride and it was amazing, and more similar to a regular bike than I expected.

Getting employers on board sounds like a great approach! I'm currently locking my bike to the railing behind my workplace, so if more people wanted to bike to work they would be even more limited in terms of parking. But even just to have an accessible indoor place to store bikes would be great. I have a coworker who parks at a public bike rack a few doors down.

This way too, I think we could prioritize workplaces that are right along the best cycling routes to encourage their use.

I'm not sure about the superhero image of winter cycling. I'm young and fit and able, and even I resonate more with the casual/pleasant ride to work sort of idea. I think it would depend on whether there's infrastructure that casual riders would be comfortable riding, because without the infrastructure, the super hero image might even be necessary.

Pedal assisted e-bikes are great. We regularly have one or two people using them. I think generally if you have something that would be good to ride in a bike lane, you should be good to join!

Yes! We aim to include everyone (even kids), so we don't choose difficult routes and we make sure to go at a good speed for everyone. We'll also have a designated back rider who rides with/behind the back of the group with a high-viz vest so the people at the front can easily tell if someone didn't make it through a traffic light or something. It's designed to be a very chill & easy experience for everyone involved so that riders can focus on meeting other cyclists and enjoying the ride.

Yes! Sunday, February 6th at 2 pm will be our February ride. Idk if there's a better way to do this, but if you mark yourself as interested in the event on Facebook, when I make the event for February, I'll just invite everyone from the guest list of the January ride, so you'll get an invite. Or just show up. We're pretty consistent.

I've been joining these rides since October and I've enjoyed them so much that I've joined in organizing & spreading the word about them. It's a friendly group and always nice to bike around on a Sunday afternoon and meet some other local cyclists. I would expect around 10 cyclists, but we'll be glad if a bunch of people see this and come join us.

I can answer any questions you have as best I can. We have a Facebook event, but most people just show up for the ride. If you want to share the event, here it is: https://www.facebook.com/events/447229830269895

We'll be glad to have you!

I had never considered this. Very weird that GRT doesn't allow pets. I wonder who would be able to change that policy. It seems like a great way to make the buses useful to more people and attract more riders.

That's cool to hear that you were able to live without owning a car for so long! I've also basically stopped using transit since the pandemic. Yet another reason I'm looking forward to covid's danger to pass.