Downtown detour for LRT line construction inadequate, says cycling advocate

Parts of 102 Avenue in downtown Edmonton will soon close for construction on the Valley Line West LRT. CTV News Edmonton's Miriam Valdes-Carletti reports.

An Edmonton cycling advocate wants the city to dedicate a lane of an avenue in the downtown core to compensate for the loss of bike lanes closed all year for construction of a new LRT line.

The closure of a five-block stretch of 102 Avenue between 102 and 107 streets for construction of the west leg of the Valley Line LRT continues to impact cyclists as the detour set up on 103 Avenue, which was set up late last year, is inadequate, says Mike Sacha, a volunteer with the YEG Bike Coalition.

The coalition says the detour is poorly executed and dangerous. Sacha said it includes spots where cyclists must dismount as well as sections of narrow sidewalks that will be shared with pedestrians.

“My concern is that it’s going to be a hassle to go downtown, which I do daily on the bike,” said Sacha, adding the detour goes against the city’s own guidelines that say it must be as good and as convenient as the one that’s being replaced.

“That’s simply not the case,” he said.

Sacha suggests the city simply make a lane running from 110 Street to Churchill Square along 103 Avenue would be a much better, safer alternative.

He said the city already has a portion of 103 Avenue set up this way.

“Just extend it all the way to Churchill, then that’s one lane, perfect infrastructure, no conflict,” Sacha told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

“They were able to (set it up) very quickly last year. I imagine they’ll be able to do that very quickly this year.”

Construction by Marigold Infrastructure Partner crews along 102 Avenue begins on Monday and is slated to last to the end of the calendar year.

Po Sun, the city’s acting director of the Valley Line West LRT project, said Tuesday at a public information session a temporary lane from 110 Street to 103 Street will “hopefully, as much as possible, replace that infrastructure that we’re interrupting.”

“There will be some sections of the bike lane that would be closed and people would have to dismount, but it’s a limited, short section through the construction zone,” Sun told CTV News Edmonton.

Closing the avenue to traffic entirely – north-south traffic will only be able to get through at 105 Street through August, and another street will be opened and 105 Street’s intersection closed afterward – is necessary to allow crews to complete the work needed this year, Sun said.

The move is “to give Marigold a lot of workspace to get a lot of the work done and hopefully be able to complete the work that’s in this area within one season,” she said, adding sidewalks on both 102 and 103 avenues will be open for pedestrians throughout construction.

New dedicated bike infrastructure and sidewalks will be installed along the stretch of 102 Avenue, work Sun says will “integrate it into the downtown and hopefully bring more businesses and food traffic into the area.”

The west leg of the Valley Line LRT will run a 14-kilometre route between downtown and Lewis Estates when completed. Construction of the line, which started four years ago, is slated to be finished by 2028, followed by testing. It will have 16 stops, 14 at street level and two that are elevated, see the construction of bridges over Groat Road and Anthony Henday Drive, two new maintenance facilities and include 46 new LRT vehicles.

It will link to the Valley Line East LRT, which opened in late 2023, providing service between Mill Woods and Lewis Farms along a 27-kilometre line.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti