Protected 2-way bike lane along Regina’s Park Street officially opens

Regina’s first two-way protected bike lane has officially opened on Park Street.

City of Regina unveiled the bike lane Tuesday.

Bike Regina has been documenting the project timeline on social media, sharing pictures of the progress.

The one-kilometre bike lane was part of a 14-week, $1.5-million project to refinish a stretch of Park Street between Douglas Avenue and 17th Avenue East.

Extending along the east side of the street, it is separated from the boulevard’s northbound traffic by plastic buffers as well as a parking lane.

The bike lane will be all-season, and snow will be removed from it in the winter.

She said its important for both drivers and cyclists to know the rules of the road, noting that drivers generally yield to both cyclists and pedestrians and cyclists yield to pedestrians.

This type of bike lane is like “a smaller street for bicycles within the larger street,” Hawryluk said.

As part of the project, the city also turned 17th Avenue East into a bike boulevard that connects with the Arcola multiuse pathway.

Overall, Regina has a little more than 50 kilometres of cycling infrastructure, split between on-street bike lanes and multi-use pathways.

The city has committed to investing $250,000 per year into bike lanes until 2023. The new Park Street bike lane alone cost an estimated $50,000.

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Shanie Leugner, Regina’s manager of engineering and infrastructure, said the city is prioritizing bike lanes in the core and working out from there, while attempting to combine them with road rehabilitation projects, as was the case on Park Street.

In keeping with the active transportation elements of the transportation master plan, Hawryluk said the city is aiming to be more “cycling friendly” and working toward the creation of a “comprehensive bike network.”

–With files from Global’s Mickey Djuric