A group of local cycling advocates, namely Kevin Schlauch*, Lindsay Bliek*, Becca Cleaver Burke, Jessy Rajan, and Kourtney Brangan have started a petition to get the City to extend the 5 St SW cycle track south beyond 17 Ave SW. The petition is available to be signed at several businesses in the Beltline area. Please check out and sign the petition at any of these locations and support safer cycling and active transport options (this will benefit scooters, too as per the ByLaw change**, so share this with some of those Lime and Bird users that might not think about cycle track advocacy).
- Shelf Life Books
- ReWorks
- I Love You Coffee Shop
- Inner City Brewing
- Annex Ales
- Banded Peak Brewing
- Broken City
- The Beltliner
- Bike Bike
- The Establishment
- Cabin
- The Bike Shop
- La Boulangerie
- Two House
- Last Best
- Uncommon Cider
Let’s make this petition take off! Tell 2 cyclists and 5 e-scooter users you know about this petition (Lime has seen over 35,000 individual users of the e-scooters since the launch on July 16, so you almost certainly know 5 of them – just ask!).
* Kevin Schlauch and Lindsay Bliek are both Bike Calgary Commuter of the Year recipients for 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Please extend the cycle track!
I agree this should be extended to Elbow Drive and the pathway system.
The City is currently planning a separated cycle track on 2nd Ave (2 blocks away from 5th) to run from 10th Ave all the way to the river.
l suspect that they’re not currently interested in considering extending 5th st in parallel.
Looking at the route, one issue is the last two blocks on the southern end don’t have any parking, so a cycle track would either have to take a vehicle travel lane or require widening the road somehow. My guess is that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Though I think there ought to be room to widen the road, I think the travel lanes are probably well used there and not likely to be given up.
I personally think that 5th Street would benefit more from a dedicated cycle track than 2nd street.
Having the 5 Ave bike lane end at 17 Ave put cyclists in a difficult position at a busy and bike unfriendly area. People travelling to the River aren’t going to want to ride east for two blocks. If the portion of the road near Elbow Drive and the Safeway is too narrow the City should consider designating part of the sidewalk a MUP and connecting the system that way. The Elbow pathway sees so much bicycle traffic it really is a shame that it’s not directly connected to the main cycle track network.
2nd Street is for the most part wide enough for cars and bikes with a school zone to slow people down. If they would make 2nd street 30km/h the entire length from the river to 10 Ave it could be an ideal commuter route. The narrow stretch between 24 Ave and the River could benefit from some kind of cycling infrastructure to help people on bikes navigate this part.