Twinning crowded NCC pathways ‘the way to go,’ Dewar says
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No plans, at this time, to separate cyclists from slower moving traffic: commission
BY CASSANDRA DRUDI, THE OTTAWA CITIZENAUGUST 12, 2009 11:01 PM
OTTAWA-The NCC’s crowded recreational pathways should be twinned to separate faster-moving wheeled traffic from pedestrians, says Ottawa Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar.
“Clearly, this is the way to go,” he said in Wednesday. “Pedestrians do have concerns about bikes. And people who are travelling on the bike paths decide sometimes to go on the roadway.”
“We’re using our bike paths more and more, and we have to increase capacity, but we can’t forget about who uses it.”
Dewar, who held a cycling summit in May, released a report last week that recommended ways to improve cycling in the city of Ottawa. It proposed improvement in four main areas: treating cycling as an integral part of the city’s overall transit plan; educating cyclists and motorists; linking the suburbs to the core for cyclists; and maintaining cycling facilities year-round.
Concern about the use of the pathways, which have a suggested speed limit of 20 km/h, is bubbling to the surface during a summer in which cycling safety has been under scrutiny after the hit-and-run incident that injured five cyclists.
Pathway users of all stripes — from dog walkers to electric bike riders to cyclists — complain of others using the routes with a sense of entitlement.
“They built it, and they came, and now the traffic (on the pathways) is even higher,” said Charles Akben-Marchand, past president of Citizens for Safe Cycling. “It’s a bit of a lawless facility.”
Despite the idea that separating pathway users on wheels from those on foot could be a solution for pathway conflicts, the commission is not, at this time, considering twinning for its system of 180 kilometres of recreational pathways , said NCC director of urban lands and transportation Marc Corriveau.
“As long as we’ve had the recreational paths, they’ve been multi-use,” he said. “Since the 1980s, there’s not really been a need to do so (separate wheeled and pedestrian traffic).
“I don’t think the issue is so bad now you need to consider that.”
From 1998 to 2008, the number of trips taken on NCC pathways in each spring and summer soared to 31 million from 17 million, according to surveys conducted for the commission.
And as the number of users rose, so too did the percentage of cyclists: in 2008, cyclists accounted for 64 per cent of pathway users, up from 56 per cent in 1998. The percentage of pedestrians dropped slightly, to 24 per cent in 2008 from 30 per cent in 1998.
The NCC does not keep track of which pathways, or which areas of pathways, are the busiest, but experience suggests the pathways along both sides of the Rideau Canal, the pathways along the Ottawa River on both sides of the river, the Rideau River pathway and the Voyageur pathway are the most used, a spokesman for the commission said.
Ottawa is not without an example of what separate cycling and pedestrian facilities could look like. The Alexandra Bridge, which crosses the Ottawa River and joins Ottawa’s St. Patrick Street to Gatineau’s St. Laurent Boulevard, has a wide wooden footbridge on its west side, with two lanes marked for cyclists (one for bikes heading to Ottawa, the other for bikes heading to Gatineau) and the rest of the space left for pedestrians.
“I think it works very well on Alexandra Bridge,” Akben-Marchand said. “A segregated pathway system would have benefits.”
It costs about $220,000 to build a one kilometre stretch of the standard, three-metre wide pathway. Because of the way its budget is structured, the NCC does not keep track of how much it costs to maintain the pathways. But Vélo Québec, a non-profit organization that oversees the Route Verte, Quebec’s vast network of bicycle paths, pegs maintenance costs of one kilometre of pathway at $3,000 a year.
If the experience in other cities is anything to go by, separating cyclists from pedestrians can work quite successfully.
In Vancouver’s Stanley Park, cyclists and pedestrians on the Seawall path around the park clashed in the 1970s, until the pathway was widened to six metres to allow for separate lanes for cyclists (and other path users on wheels) and pedestrians. The cyclist portion of the pathway is one-way, while pedestrians can travel in both directions on their section.
“It’s much superior to having it mixed,” said Arno Schortinghuis, president of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition.
In busier sections of the Central Valley Greenway, another recreational pathway in the region, wheeled and foot users of the pathways are separated for a total distance of about two kilometres, Schoringhuis said.
In addition to separating traffic on pathways, the city of Vancouver also has separated areas for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicular traffic in some places.
On the Burrard Bridge that joins downtown Vancouver to Kitsilano, a three-month trial is under way that gives each roadway user an area on the previously hectic bridge. One lane of the six lanes on the roadway has been designated for cycling traffic headed south, and is separated from the road by a concrete barrier. One sidewalk is designated for pedestrians only; the other is for cyclists heading north. Previously, both sidewalks had been shared by pedestrians and cyclists.
“It’s just a joy to cycle across and to walk across,” Schoringhuis said. “Separate is ideal. There’s speed differentials between pedestrians and bicycles and bicycles and cars.”
In Calgary, with more than 600 kilometres of recreational pathways within its city limits, a pathway along the river splits into separate sections for wheeled users and walkers at certain sections along the Bow River for a total distance of about one kilometre, a city spokesman said.
Along Calgary’s pathways, the speed limit (20 km/h in most areas, although it drops down to 10 km/h in some) is enforced by bylaw officers.
cdrudi@thecitizen.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
I definitely agree with the idea of widening or twinning.... after cycling and walking in other cities with wide multi-use paths Ottawa's can seem almost dangerous.. especially when they wind a bit. They are also not very good for going at a decent speed on a bike since it would be dangerous for pedestrians (that's why you will see cyclists on the parkways). But even when cycling at a slow pace or walking along the canal, I find the paths too narrow for the traffic and the amount and variety of different users.
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