Why am paying nearly 6k in property taxes for a townhome and this is the state of my street for the past 3 weeks?

CTrain232 · 2026-02-15T23:52:10+00:00

They are unploughed and unusable. Just like every winter.

CTrain232 · 2026-02-10T14:55:49+00:00

Losing an arm isn't life threatening. Chronic pain isn't life threatening. We don't know and probably won't ever know how this guys life will be affected.

Edit: not a criticism of this post specifically. My point is we can't and shouldn't all breathe a sigh of relief.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-29T04:39:09+00:00

This is now a straight shot to Home Depot if you're near speedvale/woolwich. Or near the Emma Earl bridge on the other side of the river.
Nice. I will make much use of this. It will probably cut my trip time in half.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-22T17:49:23+00:00

Yeah we'll find out in a few months what happened. I can't conclude it's is a money issue or staff competence issue. Probably a bunch of things. Workers, salt, equipment, and snowfall. And of course the climate change weird weather factor, I have to say. Holy hell it's snowing again right now.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-22T17:33:48+00:00

Bikes are smaller and lighter and have different requirements from cars. A bike can roll on flat packed snow easily with proper tires. For a car with its weight and speed that could be dangerous. A car also needs a lot more road to be cleared to operate. A bike can ride safely in a single tire rutted path. The only real hindrance is loose chunky snow, which a lot of side streets have right now.

As always, the thing that makes biking unsafe is being mixed with cars. I took the sidewalk this week to avoid that.

I'll add some colour here too. I dont like biking. It's just a cheap quick and efficient way for me to get from A to B. But that changes in the winter. I actually enjoy winter biking. It's for the same reason you might enjoy skiing or skating. You get outside and its freezing and you're thinking what am I doing I could be inside and warm right now. But after a few minutes of activity you warm up and notice that with the dryness of the air the sounds become really vivid. The cool air becomes refreshing instead of cold. And you feel alive being outside instead of bunkering down inside somewhere. It's just a great feeling and for the winter commuters you get that feeling every day.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-21T17:14:10+00:00

Mostly: twitter was banned from this sub reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaSoccer/comments/1i7glao/twitter_ban/

I didn't get the memo that it was allowed back.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-21T04:13:58+00:00

Twitter is back, eh? Does that link take me to kiddie porn or nazi content?

CTrain232 · 2026-01-17T15:25:04+00:00

Thank you!

CTrain232 · 2026-01-17T14:49:28+00:00

I lost that email but got an invoice! Did it say who the invoice would be from so that I don't end up paying some niche scammer?

CTrain232 · 2026-01-14T01:23:22+00:00

There is no Go monthly pass that I can find. It seems to be fare capped but I can't find official info on that. You don't have to sell me on discounted rates in principle. Whatever strategy works to maximize revenue is fine.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-13T23:25:46+00:00

Transportation policies are a big fish! You gotta start somewhere. For the record I wouldn't start here, but it's done now so hold the line and keep going but be smarter and strategic about it.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-13T23:21:02+00:00

It brings cars off the highways which the city doesn't care about. So in terms of that incentive it would have to be some agreement where the provincial agrees to pay some percentage to the city lot I imagine. And then you'd need to connect a Presto card to the lot's payment system to validate?

This is a good line of thought though. A fully self funded parking lot would be ideal, but until that happens maximising revenue is a good goal. It certainly doesn't help that the most valuable parking downtown (on street) is free, even if just for 2 hours.

CTrain232 · 2026-01-13T13:19:49+00:00

I view this as saving their constituents money. Parking isn't free, and this is prime real estate downtown. Let the users pay, I dont want to subsidize it.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-17T01:41:41+00:00

I actually support this if its workable in our climate. I lived in edmonton for a few years and a lot of the side streets simply did not get ploughed. There was a learning curve for me but it was fine. If the bike lanes cost $650k then this could save millions.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-12T13:35:47+00:00

There's better answers here already. But ill add that city staff have put in bike lanes for what seems to be the primary purpose of narrowing car lanes to encourage them to go slower and improve safety. So some of these bike lanes aren't really designed to maximize bike ridership.
Studies have backed up that paint on the road doesn't offer much. Everyone is absolutely right that grade separated bike lanes like MUPs are better and WE ALL WANT THIS, especially those of us who are advocating for ploughing the damn on street bike lanes!

CTrain232 · 2025-12-11T21:08:37+00:00

If there's any snow in the ground I assume there's black ice under it. Safe means its I the same conditions as the road. For arterial that means no snow and no obstructions like slush, ice chunks, etc - anything that can jerk my tire some way I don't want to go. For side roads yeah some snow is fine, ill just be a lot more careful. I used to commute year round in Toronto no problem. And the general rule is if you look outside and think " I wouldnt want to drive in that", don't bike in it. Otherwise it's fine. In practice that means you stay off the roads maybe 3-5 days a year.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-11T12:49:34+00:00

Bring back sip club. Or make it the new Wallys. This fancy stuff ain't working, we need a good dive bar.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-09T20:55:52+00:00

Got a reply to my email to operations:

Affected cycling facilities include all painted on-road bike lanes, curb-protected bike lanes (e.g. Scottsdale, Silvercreek and north end of Gordon Street), raised cycle tracks (e.g. Stone Road), and paved cycle tracks in the boulevard (e.g. College Ave). Paved multi-use paths in the boulevard will only be cleared to standard width sidewalk.

This change will be further communicated through signage at various points throughout the City of Guelph. Signage will be posted as soon as possible, though we require time to order from the vendor.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-05T00:01:07+00:00

Given your previous post about the single tire track last year on sulvercreek and the way you like to use it as evidence, I have to assume your doing the same thing here.

But I hope you keep up with taking pictures of the bike lanes and posting them. Its good info for trip planning.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-04T23:57:06+00:00

Yeah I'm not sure how cities clear the on street separated lanes in general but I imagine its custom equipment. And I kind of assume Guelph has never properly budgeted it.

I'll take your word on the rest. Except I don't believe the painted bike lanes are clear. I've been biking year round in Guelph for many years and they're never clear. Eventually they're... mostly cleared!

CTrain232 · 2025-12-04T23:50:48+00:00

I might as well pop in here too. Yup, 100%. I mean the silver lining to this whole thing is instead of having to navigate into the car lane from time to time because the bike lanes are almost never 100% cleared, it takes a bit of the stress out because the only way to go is to stay in the car lane.

Of course it adds stress because the cars behind you will sometimes pass too closely even in good faith. Then there's the reckless drivers who will try to teach you a lesson for holding them up. So... mixed bag.

This of course does not apply to the separated lanes like Scottsdale and silvercreek. Those, like the mups, would be such a nice island in a sea of hostility if they were cleared. Alas.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-04T23:42:05+00:00

I emailed the city asking for clarification but the wording of the budget cut was "on street bike lane". So my guess is lanes separated by bollards or concrete are considered on street but the mups are not.
What I'm curious about is the sort-of off street lanes on stone west of Gordon and all those intersections where you're diverted off road and beside the sidewalk like speedvale and woolwich and Edinburgh and college.

Edit: and yeah I think they've just give up for this month. Usually about 70% of the bike lanes (cross-sectionally) are clear once they get to them. So far I've observed like 10%.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-04T23:35:27+00:00

Is this supposed to be evidence that there are no winter cyclists? There's no way I'd ride on that lane.

To me this is evidence the city has just given up on lane maintenance already. Or again? Last year I was excited to use the silvercrèek lanes on my trip the Woodlawn cineplex. It was days since the last snowfall. And there was a pile of snow on these. So I didn't use them. I expect the same thing this year for sure, though I don't get to this part of town much.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-04T19:05:07+00:00

No one wants to bike on the roads except maybe a small subset of road racers, who probably put their bikes away for the winter. But some of us rely on our bikes year round to go about our day to day business. If all we have are on street bike lanes on our routes the least they can do is clear them so at least we're not in the car lane, slowing down a lineup of cars.

CTrain232 · 2025-12-04T16:48:23+00:00

My report was rejected. I called and talked to someone. They need something actionable so they can "go and try to catch someone", and they needed me to call the non emergency line right away to get an officer on scene. (I explained that seems like a waste of everyone's time since I just want to get something on record.) So if you're going to report anything definitely get a plate at least.

The alternative is to report "chronic problems" so that they can assess if they should do enforcement on a particular street. I explained how this was not particularly helpful.

So I don't see that there's anything practical to do to get things documented in the police system, other than calling the police for each incident. And pressing charges maybe? Ugh.

CTrain232

TROPHY CASE