The District of Saanich is launching the most significant phase of its multi-year above- and below-ground Shelbourne Street upgrade.
Today marks the start of phase two of the Shelbourne Street Improvement Project, which will see the installation of the University of Victoria bike connector: an upgraded cycling route between Shelbourne and UVic with cycle lanes along Pear Street and Poplar Avenue and a raised multi-use path from Poplar Avenue to Richmond Road.
The second phase includes the addition of north and southbound protected bike lanes on Shelbourne from North Dairy Road to Pear Street along with traffic signal upgrades, road repaving, sidewalk widening and new crossings.
Phase two is expected to take about 24 months and cost $23 million.
“This second phase is probably the most significant in that segment,” said Harley Machielse, Saanich’s director of engineering. “We know it has some of the higher traffic volumes but it also has some of the highest needs for pedestrians and cyclists.”
The UVic connector take cyclists from Pear Street to Poplar Avenue, then connects to St. Aidan’s Street via Richmond Road. From there, cyclists can use local neighbourhood connections to get to UVic. “Most of those neighbourhood connectors are very low volume roads,” Machielse said. “You don’t necessarily need dedicated bike lines.”
The district has allocated funding to put up barriers along all of the Shelbourne Street cycle lanes, Machielse said. They will be going back to the phase one portion of Shelbourne in the fall and adding barriers to those cycle lanes.
“This whole phase of Shelbourne Street will be all protected bike lanes,” he said.
Shelbourne Street was in dire need of transportation improvements, said Corey Burger, policy and infrastructure chair of Capital Bike, a Victoria cyclists advocacy group.
“Shelbourne is the bottom of the valley. It’s the straightest, flattest route from the Victoria border to Gordon Head and then once you go east through to UVic,” Burger said. “It’s the logical north-south connector to all of those places in eastern Saanich, and that’s why it’s such a crucial link not just for biking but also for transit and walking as well.”
Burger notes that in Victoria and Oak Bay, there are often side road options for cyclists. That’s not the case around the busy Saanich corridor, he said.
“You really can’t do that in the Shelbourne valley. If you take the side roads you are going up and down very big hills.”
Burger is happy to see the project move forward but hopes to see more urgency on future projects.
The Shelbourne Street upgrades were conceptualized roughly 13 years ago, he said. “That neatly highlights the challenge we have. We’re never going to get anywhere if it takes 15 years to build one bike lane.”
The entire project spans Shelbourne Street from North Dairy Road to Torquay Drive. The first phase, completed in July, saw the installation of north and southbound buffered bike lanes north of McKenzie Avenue to Torquay Drive. Phase three will address the street from Pear Street to Garnet Road.
Below ground, the project includes replacing utility infrastructure on Shelbourne including water, sewage and storm drainage.
Machielse said that underground work, while invisible to most road users, will take a better part of the first year of phase two before above-ground improvements begin.
“A vast majority of the project is actually the replacement of underground utilities that are aging in this area and need to meet the demands of the growing developing community along the Shelbourne corridor,” he said.
Machielse said design work, particularly around underground utilities, along with COVID-19 and resource challenges have slowed the project, but Saanich is hoping to stick to the new timeline.
“We’re now in a good place in terms of having that second phase of the project about to start construction, and we’re initiating design work for the third phase, which we hope will start in early 2024.”
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
-thumb.png;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)