UPDATED – UBCO bicyclists demand action to find safe, legal route to campus

KELOWNA – The cycling community at UBC-Okanagan is asking the institution and the City of Kelowna to immediately find a safe and legal bicycling route to the Kelowna campus.

Many riders to UBCO had been using a private road that connects to the Glenmore valley. But the road owners recently obtained a court order that shut down the route for all but a handful of cyclists.

That has forced the Curtis Road cyclists to either take busy Highway 97 to the campus or a steep, mountain bike trail along a hillside.

“Neither of these options is an acceptable, safe, year-round cycling route to campus,” says Rebecca Tyson. She’s an associate professor of mathematics and a spokesperson for the UBCO cycling community.

“The Curtis Road residents could decide to share their road with cyclists and pedestrians, or the City and the University could work together to build a bike path across the university lands on the other side of Roberts Lake,” says Tyson.

She notes there are some alternative routes in the works but there’s no immediate solution to the UBCO safe cycling route issue.

“If hundreds of us want to ride to campus, that takes a lot of cars off the road each day. Isn’t that what a city, a university and a society that values sustainability should be supporting?”

The Kelowna mayor says he understands the cyclists’ frustration and is working to find a solution.

“In the three years that I and my council colleagues have been together, we have tried to speed up the planning of alternate routes and that’s what we will continue to do,” says Colin Basran.

A UBCO spokesperson says they’ve improved the signage alerting bike riders to the restrictions on who can use Curtis Road.

“We’re asking everyone to comply with that court order because if they don’t the court will remove all access for everyone at the university,” says Bud Mortenson.