To the editor,
I heard mayor-elect Bujtas on the radio the other day bemoaning the fact that there is no budget for, among other things, bike lanes. Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong advocate of cycling and cycling infrastructure.
However, there does not seem to be any coherent plan for cycling routes in Terrace, and the money currently being spent on them is, in my opinion, wasted (with the possible exception of the lanes on Kalum Street north, which are of adequate width to actually contribute to the safety of cyclists).
The newly-painted lanes on Kenny St. and Sparks St. on the bench are even narrower than they were previously, and are about the width of the average cyclist, leaving no buffer at all for safety—a cyclist riding in the centre of the lane between the curb and the line occupies the entire width of the lane.
I haven’t measured the new lanes, but I am pretty sure they are narrower than 1.2 m, the absolute minimum specified in BC’s Active Transportation Design Guideline, and are far narrower than the 1.8 m ‘desirable’ width.
I note that the lanes on both of these streets were pretty much entirely gone for the entire cycling season this year. Repainting them 8 weeks before the road-sanding and plowing season is really a waste of money.
They will be mostly gone again by spring. The city apparently can’t afford to ticket people who park in bike lanes, and the RCMP are not interested, even though the regulations regarding cycling are in the provincial Motor Vehicle Act. I think it is safer to have no bike lanes at all if they can’t meet the province’s own standards.
Tim Keenan,
Terrace B.C.
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michael.willcock@terracestandard.com