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Maps Updated!
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Downtown bike lanes sent off-track By Marlene Bergsma Standard Staff A plan to add bike lanes to Ontario Street between King and St. Paul streets in downtown St. Catharines has lost city council support, because it would cause too much traffic congestion. St. Catharines councillors agreed Monday night to ask Niagara Region to implement a four-lane intersection at Ontario and St. Paul streets and to move any bicycle routes to side streets such as Yates Street. The decision comes as the city and Region prepare to begin converting Ontario Street to two-way traffic, with construction scheduled to be begin this summer. The original plan for two-way traffic, which was presented at public meetings, showed four lanes at the intersection at St. Paul, but the Region then realized Ontario Street was intended to be included in the Regional Bicycling Network, wrote Kris Jacobson, the city’s manager of transportation services in a report to council. The road was redesigned with bike lanes, leaving three lanes for cars. On Monday, Jacobson recommended the city ditch the bike lanes. Adding bike lanes to Ontario Street would slow eastbound traffic by 50 per cent, he wrote. City staff are sympathetic to the need for bike lanes, wrote Jacobson, but the resulting traffic jams “will severely degrade traffic operations through the corridor and will result in long queues and extensive delays for motorists,” especially during the evening rush hour. Since the Region is not implementing bike lanes on King or St. Paul streets, the Ontario Street connection is not necessary, he wrote. Yates Street could be used instead, just as South Drive was recently used instead of Glenridge Avenue. Glenridge was deemed to be too narrow to accommodate bike lanes, so “deviating from the original plan made sense,” wrote Jacobson. “The situation along Ontario Street is similar, and, in staff’s opinion, there’s no reason why an alternate arrangement cannot be achieved.” Adding the bike lanes to Ontario Street would result in one lane of traffic heading west on Ontario, and two lanes heading east, with one of the eastbound lanes serving as a dedicated right-turn lane onto St. Paul Street West, and the other serving as a combination left turn and through street. The St. Catharines Thorold Chamber of Commerce agreed with the plan to eliminate the bike lanes. Executive director Walter Sendzik told councillors Monday that bottlenecks need to be avoided if the city is to succeed in attracting tourists and residents to the downtown. “Most importantly, alternate routes can easily be achieved,” Sendzik told councillors. Jacobson wrote that Niagara Region engineers intend to stick with their bike lane plan, and recommended city councillors make a formal notice to the Region that they no longer want bike lanes. Councillors agreed to the suggestion. But with the vote to eliminate the bike lane plan, St. Patrick’s Coun. Mark Elliott says the city needs a new downtown cycling strategy. With the city’s creative cluster master plan recommending better links for pedestrians and cyclists, a strategy is needed, Elliott told councillors. He asked that a report be prepared in time for next year’s budget deliberations.
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