Bike commuting in Regina - not bad, not great. Being Prairie flat is bonus... but that's about it. For now.
A little background: Up until last year I hadn't been on a bike in a decade. I was living in Victoria, and just got a new car, and would've been a daily driver. But I saw all the bike route signs and facilities everywhere, and that my boss and most of my colleagues bike to work, so I got one too. Haven't looked back; car stays in the parkade except for roadtrips.
I'll refer and compare to
Victoria and
Vancouver, because I have more experience there and their bike commuting rates are the highest in the country so they must be doing something right. Plus Vancouver is consistently rated one of the
best to live in the /world/ so comparing Regina to it is always a good way to find things to improve.
Photo credit: me, except as noted.
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There is a bikeway/pathway "system"...
... but the "system" is all really just an on-street north-south bike lane on McCarthy Blvd (between Sherwood Mall and Wilson Park), and another north-south lane on Wascana Pkwy (between Wascana Park and the U of R) hooking into the old Devonian recreation path through the park. So if you're trying to get anywhere not along that diagonal line, you're out of luck.
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The Devonian path is a nice /recreational/ ride - good scenery along the way, but too circuitous and curvy for quick commuting, and too far on the city's edge and not along many workplaces or businesses or schools to be a useful transport route anywhere.
There's the Royal Regina golf course:
Nice creekside setting - no mosquitoes when I was there anyway:
Historic site - the first railway site I think:
Underpasses at the rail line and the Lewvan are nicely done - less visually-intrusive than overpasses, less steep than a bridge, and no jumping or throwing risk:
Lighting is spotty, but there's signs warning curves ahead:
Curvy path for no apparent reason - looks nice, but slows you down if you're trying to get to work:
Bridges are nicely done, but run perpendicular to the line so they force stops and slow downs:
I think this was the only major road crossing along the way:
There's no underpass at Albert St so you have to surface cross:
It looks like from there people just bike on the sidewalk:
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Downtown there's bike lanes on Smith St (southbound) and Lorne St (northbound) between College and Victoria Avs.
On College Av the bike lane crossings are marked:
/But/, there aren't any crossing lights to help:
Lorne St northbound, crossing College Av
Smith St southbound, crossing College Av
On Victoria Av, there's just the usual traffic lights:
Lorne St northbound, crossing Victoria Av
Smith St southbound, crossing Victoria Av
Similar lanes in Vancouver and Victoria have buttons you can press to stop crossing traffic. College and Victoria Avs would be ideal for the same thing:
Vancouver - from spacing.ca
Victoria
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Other bike facilities - the City has bike registration ("licences") so you might get it back if it's stolen:
It's the good old crown logo! Well worth the five bucks:
There's City-supplied racks:
They're the thick pipe-type, which isn't really convenient. Ideally when you lock your bike, you use a U-lock hooked through your frame and the front tire (esp if it's quick-release) to the post, leaving as little purchase in between for a thief to slip tools or pry. Like this:
Photo: Cora Bike Rack Canada
Thinner racks like that would be better.
And some neat racks:
That's a "This might be a Bait Bike" sticker from Victoria. Like bait cars, they set out bait bikes (with tracking devices) to tempt thieves, then follow and bust them. Another good idea for Regina to emulate.
Why is this bike (at the General Hospital) locked to a fence when there's a "coil" rack just beside?
Because that "coil" isn't even secured to the ground!
I told hospital security anyone could just turn the coil through a lock and steal a "locked" bike, but they just said "it's only for transient use" (whatever that means) and won't fix it down. Oh well.
What's missing from this picture?:
Where's the bike rack? Really nice when there's unpredictable snow or rain or muscle cramps to have the transit option.
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The bikeway "system" also includes permission to ride sidewalks at the Broad St underpass (between Dewdney Av and Saskatchewan Dr) and on Assiniboine (there's a "shared use" lane) and Arcola Avs.
Otherwise you just go on the street with the rest of traffic. Which is usually no problem since most Regina lanes are relatively wide (vs Vancouver anyway). I got the sense Regina drivers aren't used to having bikes alongside, especially along the main roads (Albert St, Victoria Av). Half the time they changed lanes entirely to go by; the other half they came within 10-20cm at full speed.
Either way, I actually feel safer biking than driving. Maybe because I bike more than I drive. You don't get passive safety like seatbelts or airbags or crumple zones, so you're naturally more vigilant and alert. There's no radio or blind spots, so you see and hear more around you. You're smaller, so you're a smaller target.
You definitely feel the road more: ruts, dips, potholes. Another way to have a "sense" of the city.
Broad St - parking lane on the right gives a bit more bike room:
Victoria Av - same deal:
Victoria Av East - wider lanes, but not much fun; no alternate west-east route, hard to make left turns across multi-lanes:
Albert St - no parking lane, so it's a bit of a tighter fit, kind of scary sometimes:
College Av - also tight:
Would be nice if there were other roads to use. In Vancouver there's a network of designated bike routes: quieter streets parallel to the major roads, so if you know how to drive somewhere, you have a parallel route to use a bike. With those stoplight controls I mentioned above so bikes can get through cross traffic.
There's a neat little folding map the City of Vancouver gives for free, complete with bike locker locations and how to take your bike on transit:
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Of course Vancouver's denser, grid layout makes bike commuting pretty straightforward even without a route map. Commuting from Regina's suburban sprawl is a bit of a psychological barrier... but it's not really much of a stretch. My commute from Woodland Grove - no actual Woodland, or Grove - to work Downtown (the hospital), ~20min (vs ~10 by car)):
Prince of Wales Dr - decently-wide lanes:
Arcola Av - paved shoulder, albeit debris-ridden:
The shoulder narrows as you go head in, and you have to cross the Ring Rd on-ramp lane. I always get buzzed here by cars accelerating to turn off and merge to Ring Rd:
A bike lane, or at least some "sharrows" to remind drivers of bikes merging from the shoulder to proceed would be nice. Like these:
Photo: spacing.ca
The Ring Rd overpass could also use the same, it's a bit of a tight fit too:
No shoulder past that point:
(Aside: why does that highway sign use that symbol for the Trans-Canada? Those rectangular ones are for stand-alone signpost blades; big signs like this are supposed to be a maple leaf:
)
From there's it's 3km to the hospital:
Instead of crossing lanes to turn at Park St or College Av, it's easier to cut across Lacon St, behind the Four Seasons, and take Broadway Av...
... or College Av, which is a bit quicker though busier, and more undulating ruts:
Then Winnipeg St - love the tree canopy:
Then 15 Av - new infill affordable housing where that school used to be:
And some pretty bad potholes:
And voila:
A small secure compound right outside Emerg. It could use a roof to keep the rain or snow away:
All in all, instead of 20min driving to and from work, it's 40min riding. For the "cost" of those extra 20min, I get 40min of daily low-impact exercise, save the stop-and-go wear on my car, the carbon emissions into the air, get that up-close-and-personal connection with the city along the way, and just overall feel better.
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So overall, not bad, not great in Regina. There's definitely a lot of potential though, and with the Prairie flatness it should be relatively easy to get more people on bikes.
It's all about "normalising" bike commuting: putting bike lanes, sharrows, signs, racks, maps... aside from seeing more cyclists on the road, probably the best promotion for biking is infrastructure. Wherever you go, you should see cycling infrastructure, and think, "I could bike here."
Anyway, I left a note to a Mr Chris Sales at the City's Community Services branch (the guy the City information person said is in charge of cycling stuff) saying pretty much the same, along with a copy of the Vancouver map as example. You guys actually in Regina please post if you ever see anything new. Next time I'm back I'll see if there's any development.