The city is urging all wheels to test a temporary protected bike lane on Woolwich Street between Macdonell Street and Wyndham Street.
The two-way bike lane was created on Friday by replacing the parking lane on the south side of Woolwich Street. Special bicycles cross rides will temporarily be added to the intersections of Macdonell Street and Wyndham Street to allow users to safely get in and out of the protected bike lane safely.
The launch of the bike lane kicked off with an opening ceremony that included a live jazz band and refreshments. Cyclists were seen peddling on the temporary lane that will be in place until Sept. 20.
Woolwich Street between Macdonell and Wyndham streets will be modified into a “complete street”: a sustainable road layout that includes common modes of transportation such as walking, driving, cycling, and public transit.
Program manager of sustainable transportation Jennifer Juste says this pilot project is a small part of city's Transporation Master Plan. Residents are encouraged to share feedback by completing a survey.
“Traditionally we built roads for cars, but as we move forward into the future, there's increasing demand for active transportation, cycling, safer pedestrian space, better transit access and we really heard a lot of that coming from the community plan last year,” said Juste.
“So we're exploring those concepts as we move in towards developing our transportation masterplan and this is an opportunity for people to come to check it out, see how it works and give us feedback that will inform our transportation master plan moving forward.”
Juste says the city chose Woolwich Street because of the prominence of the location where community members frequent the Sleeman Centre for Storm games and visit jazz festival activities.
She said the location also had the most minimal impact on-street parking compared to other locations.
“It was someplace that didn't have any cycling infrastructure but could probably benefit from having something in the future,” said Juste.
“That feedback is really important for us to decide and determine to what degree there's an appetite for this approach or philosophy and we hope that it will pique their interest for the next one were planning in October,” she says about the bus-only lane on Gordon Street in the works for the middle of October.
Cyclist Duncan MacKenzie says he cycles every day and came to the event to show support for the initiative.
“I've been invested my whole life. It is such an efficient way of turning force into energy at virtually no cost,” says MacKenzie.
He says it will be interesting to see how much more traffic this experiment will create because he believes there is no doubt that when a protected lane is introduced, it generates more traffic.
He says when he first moved to Guelph in 2011, he knew that because of the high number of students, there will be a lot of cycling in the city.
“And much to my amazement, not only were there bike lanes, but they even had a person in city hall whose job it was to be planning around after transportation. Since then, a second person has been hired and a third temporary person,” says MacKenzie.
“So clearly this municipality, as well as every other municipality around the world, is understanding we can't keep paving over the land and put more and more single drivers in vehicles hogging all this space.”
