Money from the city’s multi-million-dollar cycling plan may soon flow freely, after being bottlenecked for a year due to a staffing shortage.
In 2008, city council approved the Ottawa Cycling Plan and allocated $25 million over five years to construct new bike paths and lanes.
Shortly after, however, council cut more than 200 city hall jobs. One person, Robin Bennett, was the only employee left to evaluate every road construction project in Ottawa for its potential as a cyclist-friendly route.
“[Bennett] is a very keen cyclist and does what he does very well,” says Pierre Johnson, Capital Ward Coun. Clive Doucet’s assistant on transportation issues. “But one person can’t do all that stuff.”
Instead of spending the annual average budget of $5 million, the city only spent $800,000 in the first year,” says Johnson. “They’re working with less staff right now, than four years ago when the [annual] cycling budget was $20,000,” he says.
A new report may provide the solution.
The transportation committee unanimously endorsed a motion last week to ask city staff to submit a report on the cost of hiring more people to implement the cycling plan.
Once the cost of the new staff is known, “it’ll go into the cauldron of budget issues,” says Bay Ward Coun. Alex Cullen, who initiated the motion. “We’ll have to lobby to ensure it survives the budget debate.”
But even if the city was spending $5 million annually on cycling infrastructure, Johnson says, it’s still less than one per cent of what Ottawa spends on roads.
“Particularly in a summer when we’ve had a number of high-profile accidents, we’re dragging our feet,” he says.
One incident involved five cyclists that were struck by a minivan on July 19. Later that week, two more cyclists were hit and sent to hospital. Then on Sept. 15, a 34-year-old cyclist died on Sussex Drive after she was hit by a bus. Nine days later, three separate collisions between cars and bikes occurred within an hour of each other; all the cyclists were hospitalized.
The problem, Johnson says, is that the city only builds bike lanes on portions of road when that portion needs reconstruction.
This causes bike lanes to begin and end at random, creating dangerous situations in which cyclists are suddenly forced to ride unprotected on the street.
“There are a lot of missing links in the cycling network,” says Charles Akben-Marchand from Citizens for Safe Cycling. “It’s a patchwork.”
A Centretown resident says he knows a way to mend one section of that patchwork.
Eric Darwin has created BikeWest, a plan to repave and realign a pre-existing pathway along the north side of Scott Street.
The path would connect Westboro Beach to Bronson Avenue and would lead into downtown.
Currently, the four-kilometre stretch is “a rather poorly designed multi-purpose path,” Darwin says.
The path leads through two transit stations where there is no clear route to follow. In one case, the path directs cyclists straight into an oncoming bus lane. At another point, the path becomes a narrow sidewalk as it crosses the O-Train tracks; it can barely accommodate two people walking side-by-side.
“As part of the LRT planning, they’re talking about widening those bridges and changing the angles a bit,” Darwin says. “Now is the time to plan something like the bike path.”
“The city needs to improve cycling facilities,” says Cullen. Hiring staff to achieve that goal is “a step in the right direction.”