Promoting the Keddy Access Trail

This past week I noticed this tweet mentioned a Bike Month event promoting the Keddy Access Trail.

Join members of the #Cycling Advisory Committee and City of #HamOnt in celebrating the Keddy Trail.

Doughnuts will be available, which you can promptly burn off by riding, rolling or running up the hill! pic.twitter.com/jYPuC7qWCm

— Chris Ritsma (@emptybikelane) June 10, 2022

I had visited the trail twice before, but I thought it would be nice to join in and show my support as a Toronto cyclist.

These two cheery volunteers from Smart Commute Hamilton were dispensing refreshments at the access point off of the east end of St. Joseph’s Drive.

I had a nice conversation with Chris (in the Hawaiian shirt) from the Hamilton Cycling Committee.

When I remarked that I had seen a lot of improvement in bike infrastructure in Hamilton, and the fact that their downtown was relatively compact compared to TO, he countered with the fact that when a bike lane gets installed in Toronto, many cyclists are immediately seen using it, which is not necessarily the case in Hamilton. We both agreed that the pace of installation in both cities is slower that we would like. He also mentioned that the HSR Mountain Climber program was pretty popular. A cyclist at a specially marked stop close to the bottom of the escarpment can rack their bike and then ride the bus for free to the first stop after the mountain access.

To his right is Councillor Danko whose ward is the West Mountain. Here’s another picture of Councillor Danko at the refreshment table.

When I mentioned that bike lanes on the mountain were comparatively sparse, he replied that he hoped that bike lanes would be installed on Upper Wellington from the mountain brow to Rymal Rd. He said it was a natural north-south route since it did not link with the Linc. Even better if that would be accompanied with some degree of protection for the bike lanes on the Jolley Cut which is the mountain access connected to Upper Wellington. Note that the Jolley Cut bike lanes are also connected to the Keddy.

I was happy to see that the donuts being provided were an independent shop called Grandad’s Donuts. I was told that they use recipes similar to the original Tim Horton’s, and I could see that their donuts were much bigger than the current offering at TH. Very yummy as well.

I biked up to the end of the W5th access to see if the state of the trail had changed. Regrettably I saw that the end is just connected to a sidewalk.

I saw that the bike lane markings at this point had faded away during the past few years. This is what it looked like back in Dec 2020.

Smooth sailing down the mountain.

On the way back down, I stopped by the booth again, and there were a few more people gathered. Here is a picture of several of the members of the cycling committee.

I had met Cora of Hamilton Trike (2nd from the left) on a trike ride around the harbour a few years back. She had a crank forward bike that people were trying out from Phoenix Bike Wrx who took over bike production from Rans.

This fellow rode up on a bike designed by Kris, the owner of Cafe Domestique in Dundas.

Riding down to the bottom of the trail, I was very happy to see that it was connected to the Hunter St bike lanes that were not there two years ago.

This is an interesting implementation that I’ve not seen in TO: a bi directional lane buffered by parked cars.

At any rate, it was nice to check out the Keddy access trail once again, and to meet some of the local cycle activists.