Many frustrated at proposed Avenue C bike lane open house

An open house held at Caswell Hill School in Saskatoon was met with a vocal opposition.

The open house was held to get feedback from the community about new proposed bike lanes that would run down a majority of Avenue C.

The proposed plan outlines that the bike lanes would be constructed starting in Spadina Crescent at the river all the way to 45th Street out by the airport.

Nadalie Larson says she lives adjacent to Avenue C and is an avid biker. She is confused why the city wants to go all-in on a project most people can only use for a quarter of the year.

“I don’t see why we’re hyper-focusing on four months of the year when we could be hyper-focusing 12 months on the year. We’ve been asking for reliable transportation,” Larson said passionately. “We’re beating a dead horse at this point and let’s get back to that discussion.”

“We need to start looking at the future,” she added. “Electric cars are becoming more and more popular – why are we not looking at a metro system? Why are we not looking at something that’s going to get vehicles off the road 12 months of the year? Instead (the city has) this sweet cute idea that will provide us something for four months of the year.”

She says she’s sick of Saskatoon following Edmonton and Calgary and wants city planners to start focusing on Saskatoon and being itself.

Valorie Urban lives in the Fairhaven neighbourhood and feels money should be going to her community and cleaning it up as opposed to building new bike lanes.

In her opinion, the city should be addressing issues arising from the wellness centre, which she described as “a drug place.”

“Our children don’t want to go out and play because they’re scared,” she said. “We may lose the 7-Eleven, kids aren’t going to the hill to toboggan, people aren’t going to the ballpark for baseball games. It’s like the city doesn’t care.”

She adds the bike lane route proposed by the city makes no sense.

“Charlie Clark and his bike lanes! There are more important things in this city to deal with than bike lanes,” she stated. “I ride a bike. I’ve worked in the north end for 25 years and most people do not ride a bike to the north end. It’s absolutely outrageous.”

“How does a city become $53 million in debt?” she asked. “And they want to build bike lanes? I think you have to look at the people who actually need help and not increase our taxes to 18 per cent if they don’t get this budget under control. It’s absolutely outrageous.”

After reviewing the early renderings of the project, Kate Unruh feels the project doesn’t address safety.

“Just looking at this, it doesn’t seem it fixes any of the safety risks when I bike to work. Crossing Circle Drive, crossing 33 Street … there’s too much traffic, there’s a lot of semis, it’s not safe and it’s very fast traffic. It’s not safe to take Avenue C on a bike,” Unruh explained.

The proposed plan also isn’t sitting well with a business owner in that area either.

Precision Auto Body owner and CEO Joe Giocoli had many questions that remained unanswered.

“Where do we put the snow? Where’s the snow supposed to go? That’s already tough without the bike lanes,” Giocoli said in an interview with John Gormley.

The city says it’s continuing to listen to the feedback about the proposed bike lanes and is aware of the concerns brought up.

“We’ve heard from pedestrians, drivers, cyclists, business owners and residents,” said Nathalie Baudais, the engineering manager with the transportation department. “Pedestrians have asked for wider sidewalks and business owners are concerned about changes to parking on and off the street.”

With the open house now completed, city employees will continue to collect information and feedback.

A final recommendation on the project will be presented to city council in the fall.

–Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Giocoli’s last name.