People who ride bikes in Edmonton finally have something to celebrate, after years of looking with envy to cities like Minneapolis, which has a very similar climate to Edmonton, and Calgary, whose 1-year old downtown cycle track pilot has already counted over 770,000 trips. The City of Edmonton opened its first protected bike lane on Whyte Avenue today. The surprise move came quickly, through the use of flexible bollards and portable planters, both of which can be installed or removed overnight.
Not everyone was pleased, as some motorists expressed displeasure at the change.
"We take congestion and public concern seriously, and while narrowed driving lanes aren't preferable, we're happy with the project. The goal was to get protected bike lanes built sooner than later, to prevent traffic deaths, within the budget and timeline," City spokesperson Johanna Keevener said.
With the protected bike lanes, the roadway is the exact same width as before, but just allocated differently. Keevener said the $3 million retrofit, guided by budget and time constraint and carried out without consultation from motorists, is a pilot program to prevent cyclists from being killed and to better protect pedestrians.
A planned rethink of the road is projected in five to 10 years.
"We will assess the road at that time, and look at different types of bike lanes and possibly widened sidewalks. It’s a heavily-used street, with 3-4,000 pedestrians and cyclists travelling it daily. So we’ll certainly speak to the public and consult road users about it at that time," she said.
This post is satirical.
Though overnight street transformations are possible, and even Calgary's downtown cycle track network was constructed in just 6 months, Edmonton's first two protected bike lanes, approved in 2014, aren't scheduled for completion until 2018. The majority of the content of this article is from the City's explanation of narrowing the High Level Bridge pathways without any consultation with the users.
If the City were consistent in its commitment to preventing deaths, this post wouldn't be satire: it would be true.
Write to your Councillor and the Mayor's office to demand a central network of protected bike lanes (a "minimum grid" or better), like Calgary's, and improvements to the High Level Bridge to increase safety and capacity.
How Seville transformed itself into the cycling capital of southern Europe
“In Spain there’s been a lot of planning about cycling, but then the plans get put into a drawer,” Cebrián says. “So there was no opposition during the planning process, as everyone thought the same thing would happen. The opposition only started when the infrastructure was being built, and by then there was no way back.”
In fact, so surprised were some of Cebrián’s Seville council colleagues when the work did start that on the first day officials from the transport department, separate from his urban planning section, tried in vain to get the construction crews to halt.
They didn’t, and the demand for the network soon became clear. Even before lanes were finished some cyclists squeezed between fences to use them, an unlucky few crashing into barriers marking the end of completed sections while riding at night.
The net result is not Dutch or Danish levels of cycling, but nonetheless impressive. The average number of bikes used daily in the city rose from just over 6,000 (0.5%) to more than 70,000. The last audit found 6% of all trips were made by bike, rising to 9% for non-commuter journeys.
— Read the full story at The Guardian.
