Bogus bike lanes lead cyclists, city nowhere
Proposed route is an inexplicably complicated route no one will use
If you build it, they won’t come. Ever.
Windsor’s latest proposed bike route purports to take cyclists from Wyandotte Street at George Avenue to Wyandotte Street at Vernon Crescent. That’s three kilometres. It sounds simple. But this is Windsor, so it’s not.
The proposed route is not as the crow flies — unless that crow downed a double martini. Instead, it’s an inexplicably Byzantine expedition: George south to Seminole, east to Pillette, north to South National, southeast to Jefferson, north to Edgar, east to Edward and back to Wyandotte. It’s a combination of bike lanes, sharrows and a multi-use trail, for a total of 5.3 kilometres. Hope there are lots of signs.
It’s been dubbed The Zigzag.
And no one is going to use it.
Unless you don’t want to get from A to B. Or you don’t support the interesting local, independent stores and cafes of Olde Riverside and Pillette Village. Maybe you don’t like urban vibe, even though you live in a large city.
This bike route will be a lot like the pedestrian overpass over Huron Church Road — a curious relic.
“Some out-of-way travel,” the report to council on Monday states. But it’s “achievable.” Just some paint and markings that have already been budgeted.
That’s the problem with Windsor and bike lanes. There’s a big difference between a commitment to bike lanes and painting some lines.
“It’s a very important eastwest artery,” Coun. Hilary Payne said of Wyandotte in supporting the recommendation.
Which is why it, and Ouellette Avenue, should have bike lanes. Bike lanes have to go somewhere — where people travel, where life happens. If they don’t, then you don’t really have bike lanes. You have bogus bike lanes.
What if I want to cycle to the Riverside Pie Cafe, a new, local independent business in Olde Riverside? This proposal reroutes cyclists away from Olde Riverside and Pillette Village, both corridors of local, independent stores and cafes. It’s difficult to think of a decision more short-sighted than discouraging people from exploring the city’s neighbourhood commercial corridors. This should be a destination, not a throughway.
If we can cut traffic to two lanes and accommodate bike lanes on Wyandotte through Walkerville, why can’t we do this several kilometres east through Riverside, where there are six lanes including street parking?
Windsor is spending more than ever on cycling infrastructure, CAO Onorio Colucci has said. But if we’re creating bike lanes that no one will use, he might as well shinny up that massive new flagpole on the riverfront and toss that cash into the wind with the billowing Maple Leaf. And if we’re not going to listen to the cycling committee, set up to advise council, we might as well disband it.
This is about more than bike lanes on Wyandotte. This is about a disturbing pattern of backward thinking, wasted opportunities and being on the wrong side of history.
If Toronto’s Bloor Street can have a protected bike lane, there is no reason — none — that every centimetre of Wyandotte Street can’t have one, too. The number of cyclists on Bloor has jumped 36 per cent, according to a city report. Sixty-four per cent of survey respondents said it works for cyclists and motorists. It has made the street a nicer place to live and a better place for business. And the neighbourhood is more vibrant, according to a column by transportation policy analyst Gideon Forman. Mayor John Tory called it part of a “21st century city.”
Victoria’s goal is to be “the best small cycling city in the world.” It’s adding protected bike lanes on eight major routes.
While Windsor debates who should pay for bike racks, London last year installed new bike racks in former parking spaces on two streets. Where one car used to park, 14 bikes can be parked. The city also installed four bike fixing stations for simple repairs and adjustments.
“There is no vision, creativity or planning for the future,” Lori Newton of Bike Windsor Essex has said.
Council has a chance to begin changing this with a new active transportation study next year. Will it?