With warm weather heating up and more cyclists and scooters on the roads, the City of Edmonton is reminding drivers how to safely pass others on the road.
The city held a news conference Tuesday afternoon to remind residents of its Safe Passing Distance Bylaw, which came into effect last September.
“The Safe Passing Distance Bylaw is one of the ways the city is helping Edmontonians travel safely together,” said Shewkar Ibrahim, a transportation safety engineer with the City of Edmonton.
“The objective of that is to help create awareness around what we all need to do to when we share space.”
The bylaw sets out minimum safe passing distances that vehicles passing cyclists on the road are required to follow.
The required distance is a minimum of:
- 1 metre between the vehicle and the bicycle where the posted speed limit is 60 km/h or less
- 1.5 metres between the vehicle and the bicycle where the posted speed limit is greater than 60 km/h
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City officials said people on bikes or scooters on the street may ride in the middle of the lane to avoid things like debris close to the curb and parked vehicles.
Drivers can cross over the yellow centre line to give enough space between them and a cyclist, as long as it’s safe to do so and there’s no risk of oncoming traffic.
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The city said about 87 per cent of collisions where someone riding a bike was killed or seriously injured occur on roads without protected bike infrastructure.
Public engagement has also shown that close passing and aggressive driving are top safety concerns for people who are cycling around Edmonton, according to the city.
Ibrahim said the reason for the new education campaign “is to provide clarity.” People interested in learning more about how to properly share roads can visit a section of the city’s website dedicated to the issue.
Ibrahim added that since the bylaw took effect, the city has continued to receive calls from citizens about motor vehicles passing them too closely.
Stephen Raitz is with Paths for People, an Edmonton non-profit that says it is “dedicated to better infrastructure for people on bikes and on foot.”
He told Global News that he believes bike lanes are the “gold standard” for ensuring safe cycling. Eventually, he hopes the city will have a truly comprehensive network of bike lanes across Alberta’s capital, “but this kind of bylaw is a good change for the interim.”
“A bylaw like this is kind of important to establish some culture change to get more and more folks behaving a little differently on the road,” Raitz said. “Personally, I’ve had more positive experiences, less close calls, and I’m hearing that from the community as well.
“Although we’re still having some of those near misses or uncomfortable situations, this is something that sends us in the right direction.”
Raitz added he believes rolling out an education campaign as the city is now doing, is an opportunity to “really enhance the effectiveness of this kind of bylaw change.”
“It’s really valuable for drivers to realize that when they get a little too close to cyclists or other people rolling on the roads that it is really uncomfortable and very unsafe and sometimes a quite dire situation.”
–With files from Phil Heidenreich, Global News
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