The opening of Thunder Bay’s first dedicated bike lane on Court Street is just the beginning of improving access to the city’s roads for cyclists, said city officials.
"The active transportation plan includes at least 34 kilometres to start with in terms of bike lanes," said Mayor Lynn Peterson, who coasted a short distance down the bike lane on Court Street by Boulevard Lake to officially open the cycling route Thursday morning.
While Court Street will act as the learning curve for city planners, bike lanes are already in the works for Walsh Street and Syndicate Avenue in the south core as well as shared lanes in the north side on Fassina Street and the section of John Street from the Expressway to Balmoral Street.
Peterson said it’s about making the community a safe place for bicyclists with the number of them growing in the city.
"We need to meet those needs and this is great way to do it," she said. "It’s healthy. It’s a good way to green your community. It’s great to have a lot of people move around the community safely on the mode of transportation they prefer."
With the lanes being fairly new, there is still some confusion about how motorists and cyclists are to share the road and active transportation coordinator Adam Krupper said there will be an education and celebration day of the lanes Saturday on Bay Street from Algoma to Secord Street starting at 10 a.m. and running until 4 p.m. People will be able to learn about the city’s active transportation plan and have one-on-one conversations with people on the committee about what the lanes means for drivers and cyclists.
"It is a major change to the road," Krupper said. "The road widths have been decreased a little bit. We have parking on one side and we’ve got a strange lane on the other side."]
When people are driving down Court Street, Krupper said they should know there are bike lanes on both sides of the roads, travelling with traffic and there are a few misalignments with the paint lines that will be fixed early next week.
There is also no parking in the bike lanes; you can’t have your vehicle sit or temporarily stop there either.
"People have to know that where there is a bike lane, they can’t park," he said.
Thunder Bay Police Service officers will be enforcing the new parking restrictions.
