Abstract Manager

Your plans call for an all-ages-and-abilities (AAA) cycling facility in a constrained corridor. Your opportunity arises in an upcoming road resurfacing project. You have two options: you can bite the bullet and remove the on-street parking to get it done or choose the seemingly simpler quiet local street parallel route. While shifting the cyclists to the local street might appear to be the politically easier option, it involves difficult trade-offs too, like reducing car access to a multi-facility city park and a school. In the end, either option will mean impacts to motorists and both require thoughtful consideration.

This is the situation the City of Guelph found itself in when it contracted Mobycon to conduct a feasibility study for a portion of its Woolwich Avenue AAA cycling route, one designated as part of the City’s Spine Cycling Network per the recently approved Transportation Master Plan (2022). Together with the City of Guelph, the Mobycon team developed several design alternatives based on evaluation criteria and engaged with a wide variety of City to evaluate:

• Consideration of an alternative AAA route: a neighbourhood bikeway on a parallel local street, fronting a multi-facility city park and an elementary school. While less direct, this route created some beneficial network redundancy and would involve trialling a new type of infrastructure in Guelph. Traffic impacts such as turning restrictions, reduced access to sports fields, and complex intersection movements were all evaluated to ensure traffic volumes and speeds would be low enough for a comfortable cycling experience.
• Both options had to traverse the “five points” intersection, a true challenge to navigate by bicycle today. Solutions proposed included multi-stage crossings and traffic restrictions to enable a seamless passage for cyclists.
• Directness, cohesion, visibility and comfort for cyclists were all evaluated, and the political vulnerability and implications of diverging from Council-approved plans were discussed.

Project and consultant leads underwent several rounds of engagement with City staff, who ultimately elected to proceed with the Council-approved AAA arterial bike route. This presentation will outline the benefits and challenges of both routes, how these factors were analyzed and provide context as to why the constrained arterial corridor was selected. It will underscore the benefits of using a route evaluation exercise to successfully introduce a new concept (Neighbourhood Bikeways) to City staff, as this early introduction will likely ease their adoption in the future.