Three days after holding the official opening of the Yorkton Cycling Network Plan Friday, Council voted unanimously to revert a section of the biking network back to the ordinary street it was, although it will be marked as shared use.
Darcy McLeod, Director, Community Development, Parks & Recreation with the City made a presentation to Council Monday regarding public concern over the biking network.
"Since the opening of the bikeways the City has received a number of complaints specifically related to the portion of Gladstone Avenue between Broadway Street and Smith Street," he said. "More specifically the concerns relate to traffic resulting from the hours at the start and end of the school days."
The concerns were enough for Administration to look at options, said McLeod.
"The first option discussed was back a second driving lane and creating a shared use lane," he said, adding "according to the Transportation Association of Canada Guidelines, the minimum width recommended for a shared use lane would not be able to be met through this option without removing the parking lane. Since these are guidelines and not a legislated requirement, Council can choose this option but should consider the possibility of creating a potential liability concern."
The recommendation of Administration, among five options presented, was to re-design the network on the discussed portion of Gladstone, extending merge lanes, extending right-hand turn lanes and adding left hand turn signals to the traffic lights which control north and south bound Gladstone traffic at Broadway.
The cost of the re-design was estimated at about $9,000.
However Council quickly showed it was not in favour of tweaking the bikeway on the portion of Gladstone, but wanted to go back to the way it was.
Councillor Richard Okrainec said he didn't like the idea "of putting more lanes there," which he said could "make it even more confusing."
Okrainec said while bikeways have merit, along the portion of Gladstone being discussed "it doesn't cut it." He said he was not in favour of a re-design, but was in favour of "putting Gladstone back the way it was."
Coun. Larry Pearen said the bikeways are raising public concern.
"I too have had many phone calls," he said, adding later he had " more phone calls about the bike lanes than the flood."
Pearen said he too supports bike lanes in principal, but for that section of Gladstone he wanted to see things turned back to the way they were.
Coun. Bob Maloney said the costs of a re-design didn't work for him.
"I don't support spending a lot of money re-engineering what's in place," he said, adding he supported "a shared-use lane," which is essentially what all streets are in the city, but those parts of the Network are marked as such.
Coun. Chris Wyatt said he believed the issue was one where drivers needed more time to become used to the changes, but agreed if a change was to be made, the shared-use lane "is probably the best option."
Council would unanimously support a return to the way it was on the portion of Gladstone, but marked as shared-use.
