Pedal the pandemic? City of Hamilton pitches safer cycling lanes for post-lockdown travel

The city is pitching strategic new bike paths, protective barriers and quiet streets" in a bid to make cycling safer in post-lockdown Hamilton - even along parts of car-happy King Street.

But the co-chair of Cycle Hamilton says council should think bigger" than the piecemeal" improvements in the plan so far. When you look at what other cities are doing, I think we risk missing out on a huge opportunity," said Jay Krause ahead of a planned presentation to councillors on Wednesday.

The city's pandemic post-lockdown mobility plan" aims to give more safe travel options to residents who opt against taking the bus for fear of COVID-19. HSR ridership plunged 77 per cent during the lockdown and will rebound slowly.

The city hopes cycling - rather than single-occupant car commuting - will help replace those lost transit trips.

One proposal is to quickly add concrete or rubber curbs between cars and bikes on existing painted cycling routes on Dundurn Street, Gage Avenue, Lawrence Road and Stone Church Road. The idea is to lure residents leery of biking in too-close-for-comfort car traffic.

The plan also suggests converting one of five car lanes on King Street West - one of the city's busiest traffic arteries - into a bidirectional bike lane between Locke Street and the existing cycling path over Highway 403.

Other quick-to-add bike lanes on Studholme Avenue, Longwood Road, Victoria Avenue and Mount Albion Road would fill in missing links between existing trails or paths.

New traffic-calming measures are also proposed on residential streets. Toronto labelled a similar effort quiet streets" in adding signs and slowdown barriers to 32 residential roads in the city.

Krause said there are some good individual pieces" in the city's mobility strategy. But overall, I would say there is room to do so much more," he argued, adding the plan does not propose any new money" for bike lanes, instead relying on $500,000-plus in existing reserves.

The city report notes Hamilton has already budgeted for some big cycling projects in 2020, including a path up the Claremont Access, lanes along York Boulevard and a long-sought connection to the Hunter Street GO station.

But other cities are pursuing comparatively ambitious cycling expansions, noted Elise Desjardins, a McMaster University public health graduate student studying cycling in Hamilton, in a Spectator opinion piece.

For example, Toronto has vowed to spend $6.5 million to quickly install 25 new kilometres of bike lanes and is rapidly expanding its bike-share network. Montreal intends to add hundreds of kilometres of temporary bike lanes, although that plan has also spurred complaints.

(Hamilton, by contrast, recently voted against spending tax dollars to prop up the local bike rental network abandoned by its operator. Community donors stepped in to save the program and the bikes should roll again this month.)

Desjardins argued Hamilton should close residential streets to all-but-local car traffic and add temporary bike lanes on corridors already targeted for future projects. If there's ever a time to experiment with reallocating road space or to reimagine how public space is used and prioritized, it is now," she said.

Matthew Van Dongen is a Hamilton-based reporter covering transportation for The Spectator. Reach him via email: mvandongen@thespec.com