Transportation minister promises legislation to address impact on traffic by future bike lane projects

Alberta's transportation minister, Devin Dreeshen, is promising new legislation to ensure traffic impact assessments are in place for future bike lane projects.

Alberta’s transportation minister is promising new legislation to ensure traffic impact assessments are in place for all future bike lane projects.

Devin Dreeshan met with a group from the north-central Edmonton neighbourhood of Delton on Monday to hear their concerns about bike lanes being installed there by the city.

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The residents are concerned about the new lanes being built along 96 and 92 streets between 124 and 119 avenues. They’re also concerned about the removal of parking to accommodate the bike lanes and how they might limit access for emergency vehicles.

Dreeshan also met with Mayor Amarjeet Sohi on Monday to discuss future bike lanes.

Sohi called the meeting “very, very productive,” adding that the city informed the minister that out of every $100 million it invests in active modes of transportation, 20 per cent of it “is going toward building the bike network on-road, taking road capacity.”

“We don’t build bike lanes on arterial roads. We don’t occupy that space,” Sohi told media at city hall. “The vast majority of the work is being done to create choices for people to travel safely. We also shared with the minister that it is an affordable way for Edmontonians to travel and move around our city, and we want to create conditions for all Edmontonians to have a choice, whether they want to drive, whether they want to walk, or whether they want to bike, and that is our intent.”

Dreeshan told media “it was positive” that the city agreed to a traffic-impact assessment “on the negative effects that a road network would have if a bike lane were to remove parking or remove a complete driving lane.”

Sohi said the Delton project will go ahead as construction contracts are already in place.

Two weeks ago, Dreeshan – who has already discussed bike-lane issues with Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek – suggested the government could intervene in bike-lane projects it finds “problematic.” He’s said in the past that the province could even remove them.

Dreeshan first entered the north Edmonton bike-lane debate in April, when he and Karen Principe, the city councillor for the area, jointly shared their concerns about them. At the time, he said the removal of the existing bike lanes was “on the table.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Kenny