I recently saw presentation from a Finnish city on their new "Super Class" of cycle routes in that city. Perhaps the term "Super Class" translates a bit funny to English, but it resonates with an idea I've been mulling over for Whitehorse for years: the need for a set of established, named and signed, contiguous cycle commuting routes in Whitehorse. I don't know what the best name for them would be "premier routes" "named routes" "priority routes"...I'm sure someone clever will come up some good nomenclature.
But the idea is a set of signed, designated key routes that receive high-quality, continuous maintenance year round. Thus, I broke out the pen and paper (or mouse and PowerPoint to be honest) and dreamed up some ideas based on what I know:
All of the routes I dreamed up start/end at a central hub at Waterfront and Main Street These routes should be uniquely identified, so I colour coded them, and again inspired by Oulu, I numbered them, starting like a clock starting from the north.
I also laid out the routes to connect all of the schools south of Porter Creek. Thus there is a priority cycle route to each school such that one-day maybe kids could start biking to school routinely again. A first step is to create a safe way for them to do so.
I'm not a resident in these subdivisions, so I don't know if the routes I drew up make the most sense of each neighborhood. Also I didn't draw anything for Porter Creek since I don't know enough about what makes for travel patterns in that neighborhood.
Anyway, I hope this inspires some ideas for how we can establish designated cycle routes for traveling by bike easily, year-round.
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