Cycling advocates oppose new study
Councillor proposes shelving pilot project for east-west route
BY KATE JAIMET, THE OTTAWA CITIZENAPRIL 2, 2010 7:41 AM
A section of Somerset Street as it would appear with a bicycle route. This image shows Somerset Street as a one-way street with parking on it while the proposal calls for two bike lanes on the street.
Photograph by: Image courtesy, City of Ottawa report
Plans for a safe, segregated east-west bike route through downtown should move ahead this spring, say cycling advocates, opposing a motion by Somerset ward councillor Diane Holmes to shelve the pilot project until a city-wide study is undertaken.
"We study things until we're blue in the face, and, at the end of it all, we're left with nothing," Ottawa Bicycle Club president Ron Stoneham said. "I think it's a great idea to have something in the downtown core ... and, if it works, expand it elsewhere."
"We need a visible pilot and we need it in the downtown area where the most cyclists are," said Tom Trottier, past president of Citizens for Safe Cycling. "I don't think we should broaden the scope of the study."
Following a motion passed by city council in 2008, city staff wrote a paper outlining possible routes for a trial version of an east-west bike lane across downtown. The lane would be separated from car traffic by posts or a curb.
The proposed route that scored highest would have two bike lanes running east and west along Somerset Street. It would connect to the University of Ottawa via the Corktown footbridge and run through Somerset Village and Chinatown to Little Italy on Preston Street. It would also involve eliminating some street parking along Somerset and turning one block, between Elgin and Metcalfe, into a one-way street.
Other possible routes included Lisgar and Gilmour streets and Gladstone Avenue, with varying effects on street parking. The paper also discussed the possibilities of east- and westbound bike lanes together on one street or on two different streets.
City staff presented the paper to the city's roads and cycling advisory committee earlier this month, with the intention of holding a public open house this spring, followed by a formal report to the city's transportation committee in May or June.
On Thursday, though, Holmes gave notice that she intended to table a motion at a transportation committee meeting next week that could delay the downtown pilot project indefinitely.
Citing the geographical restrictions of the original study area, the motion would ask staff to "evaluate the best corridor(s) city-wide for consideration of a pilot on-street segregated cycling facility." That means looking for the best spot for a trial anywhere in Ottawa, not just downtown.
Holmes said she believed in a segregated cycling route across downtown, but it might be better to start with a pilot project somewhere else to prove that the concept was workable and wouldn't hurt businesses.
If an evaluation does determine that downtown is the best place for a pilot project, there should be full consultation before it goes ahead, she said. She said that, although the paper presents various alternatives, it's clear from her discussion with city staff that Somerset is their preferred location.
"You don't ask Centretown and Chinatown to have some of their parking or all of their parking removed without consulting them," Holmes said. "The residents and the businesses and the churches have got to come to a decision with all of the professional help we can give them that, 'Yes, we can do this and my business won't be badly affected by it'."
Holmes said she thought analysing pilot project locations across the city could take "a couple of months," plus another "four or five months" of consultations afterward.
Bay Councillor Alex Cullen said he understood the concerns of downtown business owners about traffic and parking, but he said the city must face these issues and wrestle with them, rather than avoiding or delaying them.
"We need to have a pilot project. We need to pick a route cyclists will use and test it out," Cullen said. "How Somerset joins both eastern and western communities to downtown makes it an ideal candidate."
Derek Crain, chair of the Somerset Village Business Improvement Area, said a bike lane on the north side of the street was a possibility, but not on the south side, which is used for parking.
"We definitely would not support anything that would take the curbside parking off the street," said Crain, whose organization represents the businesses between Bank and O'Connor streets.
River Councillor Maria McRae, who chairs council's transportation committee, says she'll support Holmes's motion to effectively start over and believes in developing a broader city-wide cycling strategy.
Capital Councillor Clive Doucet, who sits on the transportation committee, says he will move an amendment to Holmes' motion that would allow the downtown pilot project to go ahead at the same time as a city-wide study.
Doucet said the downtown pilot project could be amended to allow a bicycle "priority" lane rather than a bikes-only lane on certain stretches of Somerset, keeping street parking intact.
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