As the Lake-to-Lake bike route nears completion in Penticton, B.C., some residents are voicing their concerns about the final phase of the project.
More than 100 concerns were gathered on Tuesday for an open discussion about the bike lane. Brenda Blatz was one of the event organizers, hoping to spark some conversation about the South Main Street section.
“The concrete barriers are what we’re most concerned about. We’ve talked to many cyclists, young and old and they find that South Main is fine the way it is. A painted barrier that was a foot or 18 inches would be fine — the concrete barriers aesthetically, safety-wise for emergency vehicles to get by,” said Blatz.
“Ironman and a lot of avid cyclists will not use the bike lanes, (they’ll) be on the road anyways. This road is very busy and it’s a high-density road with a lot of residents that have like 100 vehicles, maybe 200 vehicles that are coming out of one entrance. It’s a very busy road for adding more distractions.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, Penticton resident Ron Barilla shared his concerns as well as a presentation looking at bike lanes in other cities.
“What concerns me is when I look at cities, maybe close to our size or maybe a little larger like Victoria, for instance, they can’t afford bike lanes. And yet we’re going deeply into debt for bike lanes to please a special interest group.”
Aside from the total estimated project cost of $8 million, Barilla says he is also concerned about the logistics of having a protected bike lane on South Main Street.
“I think that if they do put curbs in and barricades in, it’s going to be the fact that it’ll lead to accidents,” said Barilla.
“Once those barricades go in, if they go in, where are the service vehicles, ambulances, delivery trucks, that sort of thing, and residents here going to park?”
Just over half of the Lake-to-Lake bike route has been completed. Work on the next and final phase, which will bring the route to Skaha Lake, is expected to begin later this year.
According to Penticton’s general manager of Infrastructure, Kristen Dixon, there is no exact start date as to when construction on the next phase will begin.
“The rumours are that construction is starting imminently,” said Dixon.
“Construction is underway on the point intersection and some other projects in the area but there’s no scheduled construction date yet for this last section. We have lots of time to work through these issues with the residents.”
The city is currently working on a detailed design plan for how the final section, between Galt Avenue and Skaha Lake Park, will look.
Dixon added the draft design plan should be available for the public to view by the end of this month or early June.
“I understand there’s a lot of anticipation. This is the last section and we’ve been talking about getting that detailed design out to the community soon. There’s a lot of people eagerly awaiting to see exactly what that’s going to look like,” said Dixon.
“We’ll do an online information session, and then we’ll also do an in-person information session likely at the senior centre again; the plans will be available on Shape your City. We will be mailing out to all impacted residents to give lots of notice of when those dates will be out.”
The city has received some feedback regarding the bike route.
According to Dixon, public feedback has been taken into consideration for not only the final phase but for improvements on the already completed portions.
“We have heard feedback from people around the perception of an abundance of signage and kind of the clutter that that’s causing. We are taking a look at that and actually revisiting the first few sections that have been completed to see if there are opportunities to get rid of some of that redundant signage,” said Dixon.
“It is part of a learning curve as the community adjusts to having a new type of infrastructure and as they get more and more comfortable with it, we can actually do less on the signage.”
The city is hoping to have the route fully completed by 2024.