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Maps Updated!
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Cyclists organize to get lanes A plan to rebuild Ontario Street in downtown St. Catharines without lanes for cyclists is proof of how backwards this city is, bicycling advocates say. Of all the communities in which Dennis Soron has lived and worked - Hamilton, Toronto, Edmonton, British Columbia, France and Britain - St. Catharines is the worst, says the Brock University sociology professor who lives downtown and rides his bike to work. Earlier this month, city councillors voted to tell Niagara Region that they want the Ontario Street conversion to two-way traffic - slated to occur some time this year - to include four lanes for vehicles, to avoid causing traffic jams. However, the Region says Ontario Street is on the Regional Bicycling Network, and it wants the street to have three lanes, with the eastbound curb lane made wide enough to safely accommodate cyclists. The St. Catharines council decision was "the tipping point" for Soron and his cycling friends. They have formed a new committee called the Garden City Alliance for Sustainable Transportation, with the goal of getting better service for people who ride, walk or take public transit. "What the Ontario Street lane kerfuffle brought to the surface is there is still a core of people who think cycling should be shuffled off to the margins," Soron said. Mary-Beth Raddon agrees. The city's position is contradictory, she said. "On the one hand, the city says it supports cycling and wants to support it as a tourism option, yet on the other hand, it only takes into account the needs of motorists," said Raddon, who is Soron's fellow professor in the sociology department at Brock, and who also cycles to work. "It is only paying lip service to creating an infrastructure for cycling." St. Catharines has some nice recreation trails, Soron said, but not the infrastructure for the "everyday commuter cyclist." To be truly bicycle-friendly "you need to integrate the needs of cyclists and pedestrians into all the decisions you make, such as how you design intersections or where you provide bicycle parking," Soron said. The city's Creative Cluster Master Plan calls for an integrated system of bike lanes through the core, Soron said, so council's recent decision to abandon cyclists on Ontario Street contradicts its own plan. St. Catharines councillors opted for the four-lane street after the city's manager of transportation services said traffic could be slowed by 50 per cent if space was left for cyclists. Soron said the city's preoccupation with moving and storing cars is an example of "old, out-moded way of thinking. "Far from being a leader, St. Catharines is getting in the way of even the small steps the Region is trying to make," he said. "The efforts to undermine this (bicycling network) shows how outmoded this city is in thinking that cyclists aren't part of traffic, but that they get in the way of traffic. It's a tacit admission that this city has no plans to build any cycling infrastructure." Soron said his students at Brock are similarly scornful of the city and its attitude towards cyclists and pedestrians. "It's one of the reasons they want to get out of St. Catharines," he said. "It's the kind of city that is set up for life in the suburbs, and they crave a more vibrant urban life. If you've cycled in the past, a lot of people stop cycling when they move here. They feel it's unsafe." And if the city really wants downtown St. Catharines on the wine route, it should remember that many wine tourists are cyclists, Soron said. Instead, he added, "this city has consistently shown negligence towards cyclists." How to get involved You can reach the newly formed Garden City Alliance for Sustainable Transportation by e-mail at gardencityalliance@gmail.com
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