Saskatoon city council approves two segregated bike lanes

Saskatoon city council is open to testing segregated bike lanes on two busy streets in the downtown area in May. The initial lanes installed will be temporary to allow for adjustments before becoming permanent.

Sean Shaw, a member of Saskatoon Cycles, helped organize a petition to install two segregated bike lanes, whereby the lanes are positioned between parked cars and the sidewalk, on 4th Avenue and 24th Avenue — 1,900 people signed it.

Saskatoon Cycles presented the Better Bikes Lanes project at a recent city council meeting. “Those are exactly the two streets that make sense for downtown cycling,” Coun. Pat Lorje said in The StarPhoenix report.

The two segregated lanes will help educate the public on what safer cycling infrastructure looks like, in hope that they will support any additional segregated lanes on other streets in the future.

“I must admit, I didn’t get it originally when we were talking about bike lanes … when we got back from Vancouver I said to Coun. Clark, ‘All they do is use green paint and a few barriers; why can’t we do that?’ and he said, ‘That’s what we are asking.’” said Coun. Randy Donauer.