Tye Carson
The cycling strategy calls for painted lanes in the downtown core but surveys show Calgarians want physically separated lanes for safety reasons.
City officials asked to study bike sharing and separated lanes
It wasn’t an easy ride but Calgary’s cycling community finally got what they’ve long desired: a strategy to make car-centric Calgary more bike friendly.
On Tuesday city council approved the $28-million three-year cycling strategy that calls for more on-street bike lanes widening existing pathways shower and lock-up facilities as well as a public bike share program. The goal is to double the number of downtown commuter cyclists to four per cent by 2020.
“At the end of the day you’ve got to start somewhere and this is actually a really really good start” says Ald. Brian Pincott a longtime commuter cyclist. “It isn’t just about making the perfect strategy or biking infrastructure you have to have it so that people understand how it works not just the cyclists.”
But making the strategy work will be an uphill slog. Council may have approved the strategy but it’s not entirely a done deal yet.
Final approval for funding the plan won’t be certain until November’s budget deliberations. City administration still needs to find $12.2 million to fund the capital cost of the strategy — a difficult but not impossible feat considering the city’s cupboards are empty.
“To some of the aldermen it sounds like $12 million in funding is an enormous amount of money” says Stewart Midwinter a director with BikeCalgary. “We’re going to have some sanity prevail when we sit down and talk about all of the things that we’re spending money on in the city.”
Pincott says the cost of the cycling strategy amounts to about “half an interchange” and finding the $12.2 million can be done within the existing budget. “We can do that by just reallocating within the transportation budget” he says. “It’s completely doable there’s no reason why not.”
Yet some aldermen and more cynical members of the cycling community aren’t convinced the strategy will work. For instance aldermen who are wary of the strategy’s $3-million public bike-share program directed administration to draw up a business strategy for private partnerships and sponsors.
The bike-share program would see about 500 bikes and 40 stations littered across the city and result in 100000 trips in its first year says Don Mulligan the city’s director of planning. He adds that council’s business strategy request is reasonable considering private sponsors will want to know the benefits before funding the program.
Yet for a bike-share program to be successful it requires the city to develop a more connected — and safe — network of bike lanes. The city’s surveys suggest most Calgarians avoid riding on the roads due to safety concerns but the current cycling strategy calls for bike lanes to be demarcated only by painted lines and stencils not barriers.
Among the first routes would be an extension of the bike lane on Ninth Avenue South as well as one-way bike lanes on Seventh Street S.W. and Eighth Street S.W. eventually lining up with the Peace Bridge. “The intent is to have those on a dozen or more routes in the downtown network within the three years” says Mulligan.
But giving Calgarians an “effective transportation option” means providing “options that are of interest to that majority” says Midwinter. “And most people seem to feel that their safety is going to be compromised if they don’t have a physically separate space.”
Ald. Gian Carlo-Carra expressed doubts the strategy’s on-street bike lane plan was “bold enough” to increase ridership. “Unless we separate it right off the bat and we put in a robust enough network off the bat it’s not going to have the uptake” says Carra before introducing a motion calling for administration to study the possibility of developing a network of physically separated bike lanes in the downtown core.
Separated bike lanes require more width which becomes more of a challenge says Mulligan. “It means we’re going to have to find width through either parking or narrower lanes” he says. “Or even losing a vehicle lane.”
But even within the cycling community there is a clear demarcation with one side enthusiastic that the strategy puts the city on the path to cycling mecca; the other notably smaller group fear the strategy like several cycling plans before it will go where several city cycling plans have gone before: nowhere.
“They’ve tried a few timid things but they haven’t got a plan that’s delivering piece after piece of infrastructure that’s heading somewhere” says Chris Alig co-chair of the Calgary Pathways and Bikeways Advisory Council (CPAC). “It’s just sort of random disorganized we’ll try harder next time stuff.”
Alig says the strategy doesn’t begin to address structural and organizational changes within the city transportation department to counter its “history of failing to deliver for cycling.”
Ald. Druh Farrell praised her colleagues for approving the cycling strategy as a step forward to building “a progressive city” that will improve the lives of all Calgarians.
“Even if you don’t cycle you benefit because those people who have the will and the interest to get on a bike and not take that one trip create extra space for motorists and it’s creating a healthier city as well.”
