Civic works committee approves $582K plan to temporarily improve cycling safety on King Street

The city’s civic works committee is supporting plans to move forward with measures to make King Street safer for cyclists.

City staff presented a variety of options but committee members voted to approve the option staff preferred, which would see a dedicated bike lane and buffer with barriers and would cost an estimated $582,000.

City politicians considered the logistics of moving ahead with the plan while knowing that the street will be torn up down the line for construction of bus rapid transit. Staff said about a fifth of the cost will be recouped when BRT construction begins but the majority of money spent would go towards infrastructure that would be torn up in two or three years.

“People will say ‘well, you’re not in favour of cycling if you don’t approve this.’ It’s very difficult,” said Coun. Phil Squire.

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“The way I reconcile it is I say ‘look, you wanted this over $500,000 to be spent on a temporary project, as a community you have to live with that now, you have to live with that choice and you have to understand that there isn’t unlimited money and that money that’s being spent on this will come away from some other really valid, permanent cycling project.'”

Coun. Jesse Helmer noted that staff presented several options, ranging in price from roughly $350,000 to $1.7-million.

“I’m glad that we’re getting something reasonably priced that’s going to solve the issues that we’re seeing.”

Helmer also added that in retrospect, it would’ve been wise to budget for this as part of larger construction projects like York Street and Dundas Place.

“We probably could’ve carved out something in those budgets for this kind of mitigation measure which is some kind of temporary thing that’s going to make things easier through this part of downtown for cyclists,” he said.

“We’ve realized it partway through and I think this is an appropriate way of handling the issue.”

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The full council will have the final say next week.