While a Centretown bikeway has been proposed for the Gladstone Avenue and Gilmour Street corridor, cyclists say the plan doesn’t go far enough to protect people on their bikes.
The city’s plan, which was released for
public consultation
in September, proposes physically separated bike lanes on Gladstone Avenue between Preston Street and Arthur Street and a westbound painted bike lane from Preston Street to Corso Italia LRT station.
The bikeway will then divert cyclists off Gladstone Avenue onto Arthur Street and Christie Street toward Bronson Avenue, where the proposal states they will “share the road with other vehicles.”
Cyclists will then be routed along Bronson Avenue for nearly 100 metres before connecting onto Gilmour Street, where a contra-flow westbound bike lane will continue up to Elgin Street.
This comes more than two years after a female cyclist
suffered life-threatening injuries
after being knocked off her bike by a dump truck at the corner of Gladstone and Rochester in June 2023, sparking renewed calls for bike infrastructure in the area.
That same intersection was also
the scene of a fatal collision
more than 20 years ago, when 18-year-old Jean-Pierre Morin was struck and crushed underneath a gravel truck while pedalling along Gladstone on Sept. 18, 2002.
While a bikeway along the corridor has been a long time coming, some cyclists say a route with indirect detours onto unprotected side streets, followed by an uphill stretch along the busy Bronson Avenue, isn’t the way to do it.
With many cyclists preferring to take the most direct route to their destinations, some are questioning why the bike lanes can’t just continue along Gladstone Avenue as far west as Elgin Street.
“For a lot of folks, it won’t make sense to go up Arthur, go over Christie, along Bronson and then up Gilmour,” said Erin Sirett, a Centretown resident who frequently rides her bike in the area.
“We have a concern about not putting the infrastructure where cyclists are going to be.”
The bikeway proposal also sparks safety concerns as it leaves cyclists without any bike lane protection for the short stretch along the busy Bronson Avenue. Not only does the route leave cyclists “feeling vulnerable to cars going by at fast speeds,” Sirett said, but it’s also uphill when pedalling north toward Gilmour Street.
The uphill route is especially concerning for Charles Abken-Marchand, who bikes in the area with his young daughter.
“I can see her struggling to go uphill on Bronson from Christie to Gilmour,” he said. “If we didn’t get there right at the start of the traffic light, there would be cars zooming up behind us and honking.”
“The traffic on Bronson is really aggressive, and the idea that we would have to go up there without any sort of protection or bike lane, that really is frightening to me.”
Sirett and Abken-Marchand both participated in a
rally last Thursday morning
at Bronson Avenue and Christie Street to voice their concerns about the proposed plan and advocate for better bike infrastructure.
Both cyclists said the morning Bronson traffic served as a fitting backdrop for the rally, as it further heightened concerns about cyclists being able to safely navigate this busy stretch.
“Being out there at rush hour was pretty nuts, with the traffic flying by and all the big trucks,” Sirett said. “All of us who were out there felt it by just being on the street on (Thursday) morning.”
Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster first called on the city to look into an accelerated plan for bike lanes on Gladstone in 2023 following the collision with the female cyclist. Now seeing the plan come back more than two years later, she said she’s aware it isn’t perfect.
While her initial plan was to have bike lanes built all the way down Gladstone, she was told during the feasibility assessment that the stretch of the road between Bronson and Elgin is too narrow for bike lanes.
Separated bike lanes would slow down transit routes, such as the route 14 bus, that rely on Gladstone Avenue as a main artery, Troster said. But widening the road would be a massive project, since many homes are positioned right up against the street.
“Staff basically came to me and said, you can have a Cadillac edition (with a full road reconstruction), but it could take decades. Or, we could do this interim thing that’ll advance safety right now. And of course, we want to do something right now,” Troster said.
Troster said she’s listening to public feedback and will be recommending further adjustments to the plan before it is presented to the public works and infrastructure committee in January.
Pointing to the rerouting on Bronson as an example, she said there are some components of the proposal that “are not acceptable.”
“I keep saying, it’s not perfect. But let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good. I think this is a good plan, and I think this is something that advances cycling safety by decades,” she said.
“I agree with the community that it should go all the way along Gladstone, but when a traffic engineer tells me there’s not enough room, I need to believe them.”
The plan would also remove Gladstone as an official truck route, which Troster described as a “massive victory” for cyclist safety.
Cyclists acknowledge there are many parts of the plan that will go a long way to improve safety, especially around the Gladstone and Rochester intersections where both serious accidents took place. The protected bike lanes and intersections between Preston Street and Arthur Street are “the gold standard” for Abken-Marchand.
But Sirett said it shouldn’t have to take several serious accidents for bike infrastructure to be reinforced.
“The plan is sufficient in the area where cyclists were killed and injured, but it shouldn’t have to come to that,” she said. “We can prevent those injuries and deaths, and that’s what we should be doing. We don’t want to have to see another injury or death before it’s made fully safe.”
For now, Troster said she’s focused on working with the community to make the bikeway as good as it can be. If revisions address the safety concerns to the satisfaction of residents and other councillors, she said the project could break ground as early as next summer.
“I’m really focused on making this plan as good as we can, and then continue to advocate for when they finally reconstruct the road, to be able to put the cycling tracks on Gladstone all the way to Elgin Street.”
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