Options to consider for lake-to-lake route

With the recent announcement from the City of Penticton that public engagement activities are going to be resuming on the lake-to-lake, all-ages-and-abilities bike route project, I thought it would be a good time to write about my favourite choices for the route.

Included in this press release about restarting public engagement was the news that JoAnne Kleb would be returning to her role as engagement strategist. I’ve really treasured my time working with all City of Penticton staff, and we are very fortunate that we have a talented, professional, thoughtful staff working to make this city better.

JoAnne is one of those people. Welcome back, JoAnne!

A report for the route was prepared by CTQ Consultants and Drdul Community Transportation Planning that was dated Nov. 18, 2019. The report can be viewed in detail at shapeyourcitypenticton.ca, and I would encourage everyone who is not familiar to go there and look at all the options and provide feedback if you have not done so already.

Essentially the report breaks the route down into four segments, and gives four or five route options for each segment. Segment 1 runs from the south end of Penticton to Kinney Avenue, Segment 2 runs from Kinney Avenue to Duncan Avenue, Segment 3 runs from Duncan Avenue to essentially the library area just south of Eckhardt Avenue, and Segment 4 runs through the downtown to Okanagan Lake.

In advocating for this infrastructure over the last few years, our main criteria (among others) for this route are: it is safe and suitable for all ages and abilities of cyclists; connects with key city amenities; is linear.

Although recreational bike riding is great and this route will certainly encourage much more of that, our goal in advocating this route is to enable as many folks as possible to consider the bike not only as recreation, but as viable, safe, inclusive transportation alternative.

For Segment 1 my choice is the South Main Street route, or 1D on the report. This is essentially a segment that already exists, although significant upgrades are proposed to make it suitable for all ages and abilities.

The proposal calls for protected bicycle lanes. On the southbound lane the orientation of the bike lane and the parking would essentially be flipped as it is now: the bikes would get the space directly adjacent to the curb and the parking lane would be moved out adjacent to the travel lane. On the northbound lane it would be a bike lane with a physical barrier separating the people on bikes from automobile traffic.

Of the four options it’s the shortest to get to Kinney Avenue and likely would be the easiest and least expensive to implement. Although I also like the options through McGraw/Wilson and Paris streets, I feel that this could be a future spur of the laketo-lake route in connecting Skaha Lake Park to Kinney Avenue.

These streets are somewhat quieter from a vehicle traffic perspective, and some simpler forms of traffic calming through to Kinney Avenue could be added in the future.

For Segment 2 my choice is the protected bicycle facilities on Atkinson Street, connecting with a multi-use pathway just north of Duncan, eventually connecting to Fairview Road just north of Duncan Avenue. This is option 2D on the report.

Not only is this particular option quite direct, but it also connects with essential amenities such as Cherry Lane Shopping Centre and the Safeway complex. This option also connects directly with a significant amount of multi-family housing near Cherry Lane and west of Safeway.

For my next column, I will discuss Segments 3 and 4 of the project.

Matt Hopkins is a board member of the Penticton & Area Cycling Association and co-founder of the Penticton Bike Valet. This column runs every second week in The Herald