Bylaw 5590: Traffic Bylaw

https://www.edmonton.ca/documents/Bylaws/C5590.pdf

The purpose of this bylaw is to regulate the use of highways under the direction, control and management of the City and to regulate the parking of vehicles on such highways as well as on privately owned property.

Notes

Bicycles are allowed on all highways in Edmonton. This includes roads on private property that normally permit the public to use for passage or parking.

“highway” means any thoroughfare, street, road, trail, avenue, parkway, viaduct, lane, alley, square, bridge, causeway, trestleway or other place, whether publicly or privately owned, any part of which the public is ordinarily entitled or permitted to use for the passage or parking of vehicles, and includes:

a sidewalk, including a boulevard adjacent to the sidewalk,if a ditch lies adjacent to and parallel with the roadway, the ditch, andif a highway right of way is contained between fences or between a fence and one side of the roadway, all the land between the fences, or all the land between the fence and the edge of the roadway, as the case may be,

but does not include a place declared by regulation not to be a highway;

MATERIAL ON SIDEWALKS/ROADWAYS
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A person shall not place, cause or permit to be placed any earth, sand, gravel, grass, leaves, snow, ice or other material upon any sidewalk or roadway.

BICYCLES
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A person shall not ride a bicycle on any sidewalk.This section does not apply:if the bicycle has a wheel diameter of 50 centimeters or less; orif the sidewalk is designated as a bicycle path.

BICYCLE CONDUCT
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A person riding a bicycle on a sidewalk or bicycle path shall:

• yield the right of way to slower moving people;
• alert anyone about to be overtaken by sounding a bell a reasonable amount of time before overtaking;
• use reasonable care when overtaking another person; and
• travel under control and at a reasonable rate of speed having regard to the nature, condition and use of the sidewalk or bicycle path including the amount of pedestrian traffic.

Crosswalks

“crosswalk” means:

that part of a roadway at an intersection included within the connection of the lateral line of the sidewalks on opposite sides of the highway measured from the curbs, or in the absence of curbs, from the edges of the roadway; or any part of a roadway at an intersection or elsewhere distinctly indicated for pedestrian crossing by traffic control devices or by line or by other markings on the road surface;

“sidewalk” means:

that part of a highway especially adapted to the use of or ordinarily used by pedestrians, and includes that part of a highway between:
(i) the curb line, or
(ii) where there is no curb line, the edge of the roadway, and the adjacent property line, whether or not it is paved or improved

This means that crosswalks do not have to have any kind of signage to be considered a crosswalk. e.g. the following is a crosswalk, and pedestrians have the right of way, even though it is not explicitly marked or signed in any way (the green lines have been added digitally):

Alberta Regulation 304/2002 of the Traffic Safety Act states:

Yielding to pedestrians
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A person driving a vehicle shall yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk. Where a vehicle is stopped at a crosswalk to permit a pedestrian to cross the roadway, a person driving any other vehicle that is approaching the stopped vehicle from the rear shall not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle. At any place on a roadway other than at a crosswalk, a person driving a vehicle has the right of way over pedestrians unless otherwise directed by a peace officer or a traffic control device. Nothing in subsection (3) relieves a person driving a vehicle from the duty of exercising due care for the safety of pedestrians.

There is currently no section in the Edmonton Traffic Bylaw 5590 or the Alberta Traffic Safety Act specifically dealing with cyclists in crosswalks. Cyclists are not legally required to dismount at crosswalks and there is nothing to prohibit a cyclist from riding along a crosswalk.

In terms of the operations of a crosswalk, as stated in the Alberta TSA “Use of Highway and Rules of the Road Regulation” Part 2, Division 4 (75): “A person driving a vehicle shall yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within the crosswalk.”

Therefore, only if a cyclist dismounts and is therefore considered a pedestrian and not a vehicle by law, does he or she obtain the right-of-way over motorists.

If a cyclist chooses to ride his or her bike along the crosswalk, they are considered a vehicle.

This does not excuse vehicles from exercising due care, but they are not legally obligated to treat a cyclist riding in a crosswalk as a pedestrian.

A cyclist riding in a crosswalk continues to be a vehicle, so may or may not have the right of way, depending on conditions other than the existence of a crosswalk. For more information, see this LawNow blog post about Bicycle Law in Alberta.

e.g.

Red traffic lights

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(1) When, at an intersection, a red light is shown by a traffic control signal, a person driving a vehicle that is approaching the intersection and facing the red light

(a) shall stop the vehicle

(i) immediately before the marked crosswalk that is on the near side of the intersection, or
(ii) if there is not any marked crosswalk, then immediately before the intersection, and

(b) shall not, until a traffic control signal instructs the person that the person is permitted to do so, drive the vehicle so that the vehicle or any portion of the vehicle is

(i) across the marked crosswalk and into the intersection, or
(ii) if there is not any marked crosswalk, into the intersection.

(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), unless a traffic control device prohibits a right turn from being made on the red light, a person driving a vehicle may turn the vehicle and proceed right at the intersection if that person first stops the vehicle and yields the right of way

(a) to any pedestrians that are in the intersection, and
(b) to any vehicles that are in or approaching the intersection.

The City of Edmonton typically encourages cyclists to dismount, especially at busier intersections. We must address all cyclists and their varying levels of skill and comfort.

Note that the City of Calgary has updated its traffic bylaw to explicitly describe multi-use (bicycle & pedestrian) crossings, as well as a 1 metre minimum passing distance. Calgary’s bylaws apply only within Calgary, however.