City’s cycling strategy met with opposition
Posted May 7, 2012 10:13 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The City of Calgary’s transportation department wants to build 180 kilometres of new bike lanes over the next eight years under their $28 million dollar cycling strategy.
One of the first goals is to put in lanes on 6th and 7th Street, to connect the Peace Bridge to Stephen Avenue.
But Gary Beaton, the president of Calgary Tour de Nuit tells 660News, it goes against what cyclists actually want and because of the orientation of the core, there’s a more urgent need for better east-west connections thru the downtown.
Beaton says they’ve been pushing the transportation department for three years to build the bike lanes and do the necessary studies to determine if that’s where people on bikes want to ride, but they seem reluctant to even start basic traffic studies.
He says with massive cost overruns on the Peace Bridge, the city seems to be determined to throw money to prove the bridge was a good idea.
The city has hired a transportation department manager from Arizona to oversee the plan, but Beaton says it’s unnecessary, since Canadians already have enough expertise to develop specialized marketing required to get more people cycling.
The city will be holding public consultations over the next few months before the first lanes are built.
