St. John's wheels out the final draft of its new bike plan

The City of St. John's has unveiled the final draft of its new bike plan.

The Bike St. John's Master Planwas commissioned in 2018 toreplace a 2009 plan that recommended over 200 kilometres of bike routes, paved shoulders, as well as other ways to increase bicycle ridership, but didn't have broad support from council.

Coun. Dave Lane, who sitson the Bike St. John's committee, describes the new bike plan, unveiled Wednesday,as "thoughtful."

"It builds on a lot of the lessons that we learned from the last one, with a lot of public engagement," Lane said.

Bikers in the capital city had frustrations with the previous bike plan, which Lane described as "partly finished, partly not."

4 goals in report

The newreport outlines four goals:to build and maintain biking infrastructure designed for people of all ages, to develop a cycling culture in the city, to enact policies that cultivate cycling culture, and to evaluate the progress of the programs.

One of the recommendations in the new plan is to open the Kelly's Brook, Rennie's River and Virginia River trails currently used primarily by walkers to bicyclists.

In opening up the trails to cyclists, Lane said the city is aiming to make cycling accessible for everyone, and to
make the trails accessible for all types of movement, recreation and activity.

The city plans to do this by widening the trails.

"If you are on the trail now and walking, if you hear the rumble of wheels behind you, it may not be a bike," said Lane."It could be a stroller or a wheelchair. Now you don't have to be concerned about getting knocked over because what we are talking about is widening them, and making room for everybody."

Another aspect of the plan is to pave some of the trails, which are currently laid with crushed stone. Lane saidthe pavement will enable different types of movement on the trails,such as being friendlier to scooters.

Lane said paving the trails will be cheaper in the long run, as it will decrease the amount of maintenance required.

Cyclist Kristen Morry ofSt. John's welcomes the new bike plan.

"Having more shared-use trails that are useful to get from point A to B and allows bicyclists to be away from car traffic, that is absolutely what I want to see," Morry said. "I'm really excited."

Morry says cyclists and pedestrians are a much better fit together.

"A cyclist-pedestrian accident means an injury, and a cyclist-car accident means a death, probably, due to the speed" Morry said.

Nick Parsons is Morry's partner, and a fellow cyclist. He supports the renovations to the pathways.

"I'm all for getting these trails wider and getting cyclists on them. I think cycling will save the world, and we just need to encourage it however we can," Parsons said.

Taking it to the streets

With regards to biking on the roadways, the city could be eventually departing from the bike lane.

"Does it have to be a bike lane, or could we maybe make the sidewalk wider, and make that into a shared path?" said Lane. "You're just narrowing the road a bit;you could still have parking on the road with a buffer of grass with a nice wide
trail that is on the road, but really right next to it."

During the winter of 2017, bike lanes were temporarily converted to street parking.

Former councillor Art Puddister wanted to see that as a permanent change.

• 'Great potential' to modernize: St. John's bike lane plan pedals forward

The city still needs to do more detailed design on the trails, at a cost of $150,000. The renovations on the trails are expected to cost $5.2 million.

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