Yellowknife’s new bike lane trial to appear on these streets

The City of Yellowknife is introducing bike lanes on at least three streets as part of a trial approved in this year’s budget last winter.

Painted lanes should appear on Range Lake Road, Forrest Drive and 53 Street in the weeks ahead.

That’s a slight alteration to the initial plan, which called for lanes on 52 Street and 47 Street rather than 53 Street.

At a meeting of city councillors on Monday, staff asked for 52 Street to be switched to 53 Street as it would be “easier to administer” and cause fewer issues while still serving essentially the same area of the city. Council agreed.

$10,000 was earmarked for the project. With that money, public works director Chris Greencorn told council, the city may not get to 47 Street – the fourth and final street on the list – but will do if it can.

“We’ll work within the budget and the means provided,” he said.

“We’re going to move forward with minimal impacts on on-street parking and complete as much as we can.”

Bike lanes have a chequered history in Yellowknife. A decade ago, the city – in a separate trial – installed lanes on 52 Avenue that were widely considered to have the effect of forcing cyclists into and out of vehicle traffic at intersections, which some residents described as “the worst of both worlds.”

This trial doesn’t take the same approach of installing physical infrastructure, but instead spends a small amount of money to paint distinct lanes for cyclists during the summer.

“Our current approach is to take a non-invasive approach to basically get bike lanes installed to raise awareness, to nudge people into moving more towards active transportation modes,” said Greencorn.

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Mayor Ben Hendriksen said the lanes would help provide the city with information as it starts work on a new transportation master plan, which will set out Yellowknife’s approach to all modes of transport for the years to come.

Greencorn said staff had evaluated proposals from eight different bidders to help the city develop that plan and “will be moving forward with the award of that in the coming week.”