The Dalhousie Community Association is pushing for a continuous cycling route connecting Ottawa’s west end to the downtown core to encourage more people to bike to work, but the proposal has been stalled in the administrative process.
The proposed route, called BikeWest, would run west along Albert Street to Westboro, where it could be extended even farther to Lincoln Fields.
The current scenic paths provided by the NCC are not ideal for commuting, says Eric Darwin, president of the association.
The biggest obstacle for the bikeway is Bayview Station at the western boundary of Centretown. Right now, the Scott Street multipurpose path ends at the station, morphing into an asphalt sidewalk and forcing cyclists to take the Albert Street overpass over the O-Train tracks. This is a problem because many cyclists are uncomfortable biking alongside vehicles, let alone on an uphill bridge where cars generally speed, says Darwin.
BikeWest offers two solutions, the first of which is to expand the Albert Street overpass to include a segregated bike lane.
The second would re-use the existing transit way overpass, which runs parallel to Albert Street, to create a bikes-only overpass. The city is currently planning a new LRT overpass at the station and is considering demolishing the existing one, says Darwin.
Of the two alternatives, the second would be cheaper, he says.
Despite having the support of Cycle Vision Ottawa and the Preston Street BIA, BikeWest seems to have hit a wall.
Darwin submitted his proposal last April, but still hasn’t received any feedback from the city. If there are objections to aspects of BikeWest, he only hears about it through the grapevine.
“We have this amazing opportunity to create this straight, segregated bikeway,” says Darwin. “But the city seems oblivious to it being there.”
With LRT planning underway, now is the time to consider implementing this bikeway– not putting it on the backburner, says Darwin.
“While we are building the transit way, why not build bike paths alongside?” he says. “It is important to get these ideas out now before the door is closed.”
At the very least the city needs to keep these alternatives in mind while planning the LRT so it doesn’t block the possibility of building a bikeway in the future, he says.
Darwin’s proposal makes sense in principle, but needs to be explored, says Dennis Gratton, the city's manager of rail planning.
“Implementing light rail is what we are focused on,” Gratton says. “But we’re not precluding any options for a bikeway. We’re not trying to interfere with it.”
While officials are trying to accelerate the transit plan, the LRT system and potential bikeway are going to take a while, says Gratton. The city just started an environmental assessment and that needs to be finished before the Bayview Station is redesigned.
“The situation is more difficult than people might imagine,” says Gratton of the proposed bikeway. “Funding is one of the issues. It just hasn’t happened yet.”
However, Bayview Station is the bikeway’s most expensive hurdle and at most it would only cost six per cent of the city’s cycling budget for the next 10 years, says Darwin.
The Ottawa Bicycle Club doesn’t agree with Darwin’s promotion of segregated bike lanes, which are lanes separated from the road by a curb, however, it would fully support a bike route connecting the west end to downtown, says Ron Stoneham, president of the organization.