Waterloo city council approves uptown bike lanes
Waterloo, Ont.’s cycling community got a lovely late-spring gift Monday night with city council’s unanimous vote to install segregated bike lanes on King Street.
As Canadian Cycling Magazine reported on May 15, the new bike lanes are part of an ongoing redesign of the city’s uptown district in partnership with the Region of Waterloo, and it’s something that local cycling advocacy groups have been looking forward to for a long, long time. “Each road user has their own space on the road,” said Graham Roe of Waterloo Bikes on May 15, looking ahead to Monday’s vote. “It’s going to make it better for all users.”
It was a sentiment shared by many during Monday night’s vote.
“What I understand we’re doing here is we’re rightsizing our road,” said Coun. Diane Freeman, a committed cyclist in her own right, “to make all road users feel better respected in that space.” Representing the city ward in which the lanes will be installed, Coun. Melissa Durrell agreed, going further to say that providing something for everyone was the whole point.
“We knew we were going to do this once and we wanted to do it right,” Durrell said, quoted by the Waterloo Record.
Physically separated from the road itself—a preference in the community, as opposed to using painted, on-street bike lanes—the segregated bike lanes will bring new lighting, as well as a certain beautification of the street in making the lanes functional. Rather than using a heavy, solid bulwark of concrete or another kind of barrier, the lanes will be separated from the sidewalks and the road with tree plantings, benches and other features. When construction begins in 2017, the new lanes will extend from Erb Street up to University Avenue, with a cost of $10 million.
Along with the new lighting and beautification features, the transportation redesign will include one lane for vehicle traffic in each direction, parking between the road and the sidewalk on the east side of the street, and the removal of 22 parking spaces on the west side. While concerns persist about the economic impact of the loss of those spaces, the creation of new, walkable, rideable zones for cyclists and pedestrians in Waterloo has many infrastructure heavyweights singing the progressive plan’s praises.
“Tonight,” said Mike Boos of the Tri-Cities Transport Action Group, speaking as a delegate at Monday night’s council meeting, “we have the opportunity to make the uptown a truly complete street where everyone can belong and be safe.”
The plan faces one final hurdle: approval from the Region of Waterloo, expected to come down in June.
