The paint has already dried on the city’s newest bike lanes.
City workers already painted the lines for the bike lanes on Arundel Street early Friday morning with plans to paint Hudson Street, Vickers Street and Huron Avenue. The new additions bring the total amount of bike lanes to about 25 kilometres of road that stretches across the city.
The new bike lanes are part of a massive construction job by the city that includes repairs to roads, street lighting and sidewalk improvements.
The city’s active transportation coordinator Adam Krupper said they have designed the new bike lanes to connect to the existing trails along Boulevard Lake allowing cyclists to transfer from the trails to the road.
“The lanes are literally just being painted today but I hope the reaction is positive,” Krupper said. “We worked really hard to pick roads that are clean and have simple designs. I think people are going to look at these lanes and say ‘they are really simple and that we understand them’.”
He said they gave public consultation to the residents in the area by sending out letters and asked for feedback.
While most bike lanes aren’t connected to each other, Krupper said they are starting to bring them together. He said he’s excited about the work in Current River because once they are completed they will form a complete network.
“People are going to be able to go all across from Cumberland Street and all the way to Balsam Street on bike lanes and without having to worry about being in traffic,” he said.
Project engineer Mike Vogrig said they will also be making some changes to how drivers can make right hand turns. He said the confusion lies on where the drivers should be when they make their turn. In some cases, the vehicle moves into the bike lane to make the turn.
In order to solve this problem, Vogrig said they will be combining the right turn lane and the bike lane to allow vehicles to make a more natural turn.
“We’re hoping this will reduce some of the confusion,” Vogrig said. “We’re going to pilot it on Vickers Street and if it is successful we’ll apply it to other streets. It’s just a minor detail change so it’s nothing too crazy and we always try to improve the lanes.”
