Sidney staff have completed a preliminary design of a bicycle boulevard running through the town from north to south, which includes measures to reduce vehicle traffic on the route.
The Bowerbank Road bike route will run from Henry Road to Resthaven Drive, connecting north Sidney to the town’s core, with parks and schools along the route.
The project is part of the town’s active transportation plan, which was adopted in July. In a recent survey, nearly half of Sidney residents gave the thumbs down to bike projects in Sidney.
The preliminary design includes features to discourage through vehicle traffic, such as a southbound closure at Calvin Avenue and a restriction on northbound left turns at Siddal Road, as well as speed humps on Melville Drive to slow vehicles down.
Bowerbank Road is classified as a collector street with a speed limit of 50 kilometres per hour and sees an average of 1,900 vehicles a day, a staff report says.
To facilitate the project, the speed limit will need to be reduced to 30 km/h and the road will have to be reclassified as a local street, a staff report says.
The design includes a proposed re-routing of B.C. Transit routes 81 and 82 to Mills Road instead of Henry Avenue, subject to approval by B.C. Transit.
Council previously approved spending $360,000 to complete the Bowerbank project.
Staff are designing a multi-use path on Calvin Road. The project, with an estimated cost of $400,000, is expected to be part of 2024 budget deliberations.
The town previously dropped two proposed bike-lane projects as priorities in its draft transportation plan in response to public opposition during an engagement process.
Council received hundreds of letters and more than 1,000 responses to a public survey, exceeding the response to any other online survey the town has conducted, including a survey on the Beacon Wharf replacement, a topic that sparked protests.
Forty-six per cent of respondents said they did not want to see any new or improved bike projects in Sidney, a staff report said at the time.
Thirty-two per cent of trips made within Sidney are done on foot, while only six per cent are by bike and micromobility devices, according to the Capital Regional District’s 2022 household travel survey.
Sixty-two per cent of trips are by car.
The design is expected to be further refined during a detailed design phase.
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