GuelphToday received the following Letter to the Editor in regards to a possible pause of new bike lane infrastructure.
A Christmas wish.
Dear Santa,
My grandfather works for the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation. GCAT wants to make it safer for people cycling, walking and rolling in Guelph. He speaks with City staff and councillors about building safer active transportation infrastructure, including cycling bike lanes.
Very recently protected bike lanes were installed on older painted bike lanes on Scottsdale and Wellington streets. What is cool about these new bike lines are the concrete barriers and posts that separate drivers from cyclists and offer real protection from cars. What is also cool is that they are the first protected bike lanes in Guelph that connect people and places so that they can cycle from their home to their work, schools and shopping, because they connect an area where people live, work and play.
The new barriers also calm traffic as the car lane appears narrower, which I learned are proven to reduce speeding. I am looking forward to biking with my dad and grandpa to get to my favourite parks, stores and schools.
Unfortunately, there are some people that don't like these bike lanes for some reasons including slowing down traffic.
And unfortunately, our mayor, Cam Guthrie, has responded to this Facebook group saying he may be looking at removing these bike lanes.
I am hoping you will call Mayor Guthrie and ask him to also speak with cyclists, walkers and city staff before considering such a move. My grandpa says that City staff are really great and fully researched traffic conditions and flow of traffic on these two roadways before installing the new protected bike lanes.
My grandpa also told me that he biked the full length of both roadways during the busy Christmas shopping season and noted no traffic slowdowns and loved biking in the protected bike lanes. He also said that a few minor tweaks to the barriers along with improved snow removal in the bike lanes would please the majority of cyclists and motorists.
Mayor Guthrie has also proposed looking at the possibility of installing multi-use paths on these two corridors, similar to those on Woodlawn Road, which would be amazing as it completely separates cyclists and cars.
I hope the mayor is serious and adds money in the city budget to install these multi-use paths.
But in the meantime, I hope he consults with city staff and other street users and leaves the new, less costly protected bike lanes in place.
We also welcome Mayor Guthrie to ride his bike with us and experience these protected bike lanes like the ones he experienced and raved about on his recent trip to Copenhagen with Guelph transportation staff.
Grandpa also told me about all of the recent collisions between motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. Many of these collisions could have been prevented with safer active transportation infrastructure. He told me about a cyclist friend of his that recently died in a collision on an unprotected roadway in front of a school in Guelph. Her daughter will not have a mom to celebrate Christmas with this year.
Santa, this is my Christmas wish. Please convince Mayor Guthrie to speak to all street users and be a good Grinch like the one in my favourite Christmas story.
By the way, my grandpa helped me with some of the big words.
Thanks,
Noah Darmon, eight years old AND Grandpa Mike Darmon
Co-chair of GCAT Advocacy Committee
