Business groups have qualms about BRT plan
Tan Ng thinks Third Avenue in downtown Saskatoon is working well for everybody, including the Asian food restaurant he has managed on the street for 20 years.
Red Pepper is moving to a new location on Third Avenue, just as the city contemplates revamping five blocks of the key downtown thoroughfare to accommodate bus rapid transit (BRT) lanes.
Third Avenue is one of the longest stretches in the city that has been targeted for dedicated bus lanes; the change could result in the elimination of large numbers of on-street parking stalls.
Ng said he and other business owners along the street are “very concerned” about the proposal.
“We’ve been here for 20 years and it’s just fine,” he said in an interview on Friday. “I have no idea why they want to change that and we’re not very happy at all.”
Brent Penner, executive director of Downtown Saskatoon, the downtown business improvement district, is seeking input from downtown businesses on the plan.
The first draft of the BRT plan for Third Avenue suggested the street’s 154 parking spots would be reduced to 10. Under an alternative proposal, 77 parking stalls would be retained.
Penner said he plans to meet next week with the City of Saskatoon’s BRT consultant, HDR Corporation.
“I’m not anti-transit,” he said in an interview. “That’s not where I’m coming from. We want BRT to be complementary and not reducing growth we already have.”
The BRT plan features crisscrossing routes that would offer frequent bus service on roadways like Eighth Street and 22nd Street. Most of the bus lanes would be located next to curbs and accommodate both buses and private vehicles.
Along several stretches, including College Drive, Broadway Avenue and Third Avenue, the system could feature bus-only lanes. On Broadway and Third, the exclusive bus lanes would be located in the middle of the street, not next to the curb, and eliminate two lanes of private vehicle traffic in each direction.
Penner said he hopes for flexibility as the BRT planning continues and he’s happy more than one proposal is being considered.
DeeAnn Mercier, executive director of the Broadway Business Improvement District, said she’s also concerned about the potential for parking spots to be lost. She said she is also worried about “construction fatigue” after the Broadway district endured a summer of construction two years ago.
The city hopes to have the final BRT plan completed in April and begin preliminary work in the fall. The cost of the system is estimated at between $90 million and $150 million, not including the $150-million cost of addressing railway crossing delays.