The city has got some funding to be used towards bicycle infrastructure. When I was bicycling home from grocery store the other day, I noticed construction equipment on one part of the bike path I was using. They added a little bit to the trail so it goes out to an intersection and eventually it will be paved. Paved bike paths are ok, except I find they get 'root heaves' in just a few years after being paved.
On the parts of many paths around town, there are tons of root heaves on the paved sections. Sometimes it's easier just to go off the path and ride around them.
I wonder what the preference is for riders on bike paths, pavement or dirt? I suppose there would be no root heave problems if there were no trees nearby the trail. Are there many paved bike paths around North America that have that problem?
I think the money would have been better spent building new dirt bike paths. As long as the dirt bike paths are made the right material, so any bike can ride on it, I don't mind dirt paths. I just think that our city doesn't have much for bike paths, and I prefer bicycling on them.
Either type works fine for me. I rarely use either in Vancouver, but our big new $24 million central valley greenway route that opened last year is a combination of paved and unpaved paths, and I can go fast enough on either. That root issue can be a problem... The 7-11 trail built for expo 86 has some sections with that, but they're repairing them. If I had a choice of more trails that were unpaved, or fewer built but were paved, I'd pick unpaved.
ReplyDeleteWish our city would fix the root heaves. I suppose that's the bad side of building more paths here, won't be maintained very well.
ReplyDeleteThe greenway route sounds great!