Downtown bike network gets one- year test drive
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When commuter cyclists have safe downtown routes of their own on 8th Avenue, 12th Avenue and 5th Street, they’ll be able to thank one of their own for helping shift the council vote into their favour.
Jenn Turcott was one of many avid, year-round cyclists who took the day off work earlier this month to urge a council committee to make her daily ride to the office safer with barrier-separated bike lanes.
She urged councillors to consider that Beltline residents like her rely on the roads more often than suburban motorists. She fretted over a debate in which “fear trumps reason.”
Turcott may not have persuaded many council members, but her boss was clearly listening and understanding – Coun. Andre Chabot, who has long employed her as a constituency assistant.
“Hearing her concerns and some of the close calls she had, certainly opened my eyes to the challenges a cyclist who wants to commute on a regular basis has,” he said.
Chabot split off from the suburban conservative councillors he normally votes with to support 5.6 kilometres of new separated bike lanes as a one-year trial starting next year.
They also OK’d an end to the ban on daytime riding along the Stephen Avenue pedestrian mall – a decision many downtown retailers urged council not to make.
Council voted 8-7 in favour of nearly all the “cycle tracks” that city planners recommended, although they rejected a proposed route in a traffic lane on 1st Street S. E., one of the core’s busiest routes.
Cycling advocates hailed the major leap forward for pedalling options into the core. Transportation planning bureaucrats shared celebratory handshakes outside city chambers, after months of fierce public criticism of their ideas and questioning of their data.
“Some people are skeptical. It’s new for them – lots of questions,” said transportation engineer Blanka Bracic, who was targeted personally on social media by a frustrated councillor last month. “And for others, they’ve seen it in other places and can’t wait for it to start here.”
Without 1st Street S. E., the separated lane network is left without a north-south connector in east downtown, but two close together at 5th Street and the existing on-street trail at 7th. But the smaller trial is $ 2 million cheaper – now costing $ 7.5 million for the pilot project, or $ 11.8 million if it’s made permanent.
Council instructed transportation managers to find ways to further shave costs off the pilot project.
This is the biggest investment in infrastructure for cyclists since the Peace Bridge, the $ 25-million river crossing forged in even more controversy than the months of scrutiny these bike lanes faced.
Don Mulligan, the transportation planning manager who helped promote that project six years ago, praised young Calgarian cyclists and enthusiasts who rallied support for the bicycling lanes – a groundswell the Peace Bridge never had.
“It was before its time, and that’s why there was such massive resistance to it. And most of that’s melting away,” Mulligan said.
The one-year trial will be monitored for effects on traffic, nearby businesses and ridership, and council can make it permanent or scrap it in 2016. The goal is to double or triple the number of downtown cyclists, beyond the 1,500 counted during the busiest hour of morning rush last year.
Most suburban councillors voted against the cycling plan, saying their residents were far more worried than inner-city Calgarians about the effects on traffic and the costs.
“I’ve heard loud and clear from my communities that it’s a good idea whose time has not come yet,” said Diane Colley-Urquhart, who represents the deep south.
Chabot, who used to be a cycle commuter on 16th Avenue N., said on a per-user basis, the bike lanes are much cheaper than other major road projects or the west LRT.
“We can’t look at just what’s good for the outlying areas. We also have to consider what can contribute to the quality of life for those innercity people, when we’re trying to increase densities,” he said.
By eliminating the 1st Street S. E. route, council avoids enraging merchants and seniors’ groups in Chinatown, who had expressed grave worries about the change.
But allowing bikes to share the street on Stephen Avenue during the 2015-16 pilot goes against the wishes of avenue retailers from small boutiques to the manager of the Core Shopping Centre, who worry about cyclists weaving around crowds of pedestrians.
“We just don’t believe that cycling should negatively impact pedestrians,” Maggie Schofield of the Calgary Downtown Association said before Monday’s vote. “They’re supposed to be the most important mode of transportation in the city, particularly in the downtown.”
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said pedestrians and cyclists should be fine sharing the street outside of lunch hours and major events, when bikes may remain banned. He was on Stephen Avenue shortly after noon Monday, and even then there was room.
“Had I not been speaking there, you still could have rolled a bowling ball down the middle of the road because most people were sticking to the sidewalk,” he said.