A cycling task force has been established by Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin.
The task force’s goals are to engage the public on the city’s Bicycle Master Plan and to create a comprehensive plan that takes into account pedestrian and greenway needs, Fortin said.
“Our current cycling plan is out of date and needs to be rejuvenated,” the mayor said.
“We also realize that … times have changed. Victoria has changed and people have changed. We’re looking for an opportunity to really reflect the huge current interest around cycling. It’s where we want to go as a city.”
The task force will be made up of Fortin along with councillors Marianne Alto and Ben Isitt.
A Capital Regional District Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan last year estimated upgrades to cycling infrastructure throughout Greater Victoria could cost as much as $220 million.
The region currently has cycling rates of nine per cent in high density areas and about 3.2 per cent overall. However, those numbers could go up to 15 per cent regionwide and 25 per cent in areas of high density if infrastructure improvements are made, the master plan said.
Over the past two decades, municipalities have been picking off the low-hanging fruit of cycling infrastructure by doing things like painting bike lanes on roadways. There are about 140 kilometres of bike lanes in Saanich and 28 km in Victoria.
Municipalities are now facing more expensive improvements, such as building bike routes in areas where simply painting a line on a road won’t work. Concepts such as using barriers to create separate bike routes have to be considered.
Fortin said Victoria has probably installed about five kilometres of marked bike lanes on roads in the last two or three years.
“I believe we can do more,” he said. The task force won’t just be looking at bike paths but also issues such as bike parking downtown. For example, he asked, is it worthwhile to replace one or two parking spaces in front of a store such as Mountain Equipment Co-op with a space for 30 bikes?
“Those are sort of the infrastructure questions we need to focus on,” Fortin said. “If you have that larger plan when development happens or redevelopment happens, you can integrate the infrastructure into the development.”
Fortin said the task force will consult with neighbourhoods and other stakeholders to find out what improvements they want.
“The thing about Victoria is every neighborhood has got an interest in this. It’s about commuters but it’s also about local pathways and greenways.”
The task force will try to report back to council by late fall, Fortin said.
