Bike lanes needed to attract investment: Cartmell
Suburban Ward 9 Coun. Tim Cartmell has volunteered to champion the bike lanes file at City Hall, arguing cycling infrastructure is not just about transportation.
“It’s an economic development question as much as anything,” he said on Postmedia’s Talk Back online interview show Thursday.
When Amazon and other companies look to relocate, they ask about kilometres of bike lanes and mass transit.
“That’s a front-page question,” said Cartmell, who represents the Terwillegar-Riverbend area and south.
The companies know the younger generation wants alternative ways to get around and sees these young professionals as key employees.
If Edmonton doesn’t provide that infrastructure, it won’t attract these businesses or keep its youth, he said.
Cartmell will be leading the so-called active transportation initiative with Ward 8 Coun. Ben Henderson.
To create better bike lanes, Cartmell wants to search for the missing links — those spots where a targeted investment would suddenly open larger parts of the city to cycling, in-line skating, walking and jogging.
One example is what’s been called the ghost bridge — a missing link that would allow people living east of Terwillegar Drive to access the river valley trails without crossing Terwillegar Drive.
The walking and cycling bridge over Whitemud Drive was planned for between Bulyea Heights and Brookside along the 142 Street alignment. The paths leading up to it have been built, but not the bridge.
Council initiatives allow councillors to gather stakeholders and help shepherd the cause with city administration.
Next year, the city will continue construction on several permanent bike lanes south of the river — on 106 Street, 76 Avenue and 83 Avenue. An open house is scheduled for March 21.
The city is also re-writing its bike transportation plan, last updated in 2009. This was the plan that first saw kilometres of contentious onstreet lanes added to 97 Street, 95 Avenue and others.
Council voted to pull them after neighbours and commuters objected.
Much has changed in the North America-wide understanding of what kind of bike lanes work best, Daniel Vriend, general supervisor in Edmonton’s urban places area, said in an interview Thursday. “When we wrote the last plan, protected bike lanes ... were a relatively new phenomenon.”
City officials are starting the technical work and public consultation on the new bike plan this fall.
Cartmell said the process will mean setting priorities. Local needs such as connecting children with schools, residents to grocery stores and commuters to transit stations are important. But these big missing links — like the ghost bridge — are key to connecting the city.
“If we provide the missing links, then the smaller things take care of themselves,” he argued. People make their way through neighbourhoods to access key routes and connections. Biking to school might be more of an education campaign.
He said he wants city collision data — where people biking and walking were seriously injured — to be part of the conversation. But Edmonton shouldn’t just fix the issue after an accident. It should study risk factors to make streets safer everywhere, he said.