Post date: Apr 25, 2011 10:10:12 PM

Work begins on City of Ottawa's Laurier Avenue bike lane

By Tristan Worden, Ottawa Citizen April 25, 2011 5:16 PM

OTTAWA — Construction has begun on Ottawa’s first segregated bike lane.

Work to build the separate lane for cyclists began on Monday and will affect Laurier Avenue from Bronson Avenue to Lyon Street. The plan calls for the new bike path to run the length of Laurier from Bronson to Elgin. Construction is scheduled to wrap up by the end of the summer. A segregated bike lane is a street-level bike path physically removed from the road by barriers such as poles, curbs or trees.

The lane would be Ontario’s first downtown segregated bike lane, although similar lanes exist in Montreal.

The city agreed to a two-year pilot project in February to institute the lanes and assess their impact on traffic and cycling safety, but not everyone is happy the program has taken off.

Avery Burdett, co-founder of Ottawa’s Responsible Cycling Coalition, says the lanes don’t address the real safety issues facing cyclists.

“Most accidents occur at intersections; segregated bike lanes don’t make intersections safer they make them more dangerous.”

According to Burdett the lanes pose a risk to riders because the design forces cyclists to conflict with traffic rather than coexist with it. He points to a recent incident in Montreal, where a skateboarder rolling in a segregated bike lane was killed by a bus that turned right across his path, as an example of the trouble dedicated lanes can cause. And cyclists, he says, have to cut across traffic when they want to turn left.

“You are turning left from the right side of the road because the segregated bike lane is on the right side,” he said. Burdett advocates “vehicular cycling,” which demands that better-trained cyclists share the road with other traffic and that drivers respect bicycles like other vehicles. Burdett noted that the bike lanes protect cyclists against same-way collisions, but said it is the cyclists themselves, not the roads, that need to change.

“The point we are making is the biggest factor affecting the level of cyclists collisions is the skill of the cyclist,” he said.

Neither cycling officials nor politicians would talk to the Citizen on Monday — a holiday at city all — but the general philosophy of segregated bike lanes is that if more cyclists are more visibly on the roads, drivers will think about them and their safety more regularly. Most of Ottawa’s organized cycling groups have been strongly in favour of the Laurier project.

Burdett’s coalition was founded last November with the goal of promoting skilled and “law-abiding” cycling.

He encourages new riders to join a bicycle club and stay away from high-risk areas like downtown streets, or roads during rush-hour traffic. At least, he advises new cyclists braving traffic to ride with experienced companions.

May has been declared “Bike to Work Month” and the city is also working with the National Capital Commission to install a cycling facility between Bay Street and Portage Bridge.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Work+begins+City+Ottawa+Laurier+Avenue+bike+lane/4672029/story.html#ixzz1KZjQ41Qf