Ordinary Cyclists Need Cleared Paths
Bike Winnipeg has responded to Councillor Browaty telling him that, if it looks like most people who ride bikes in Winnipeg during the winter are hard core cyclists, this is a consequence of the lack of snow clearing on bike routes. Many patches of ice and mounds of snow in critical places on the bike lanes create unsafe conditions for anyone but the strongest cyclist.
If Winnipeg’s bike routes were well maintained, more people could choose to travel by bike in the winter, in the same way that building a well separated bike lane attracts more ordinary people to travel by bike.
See the full letter here.
I have been commuting by bike most days since moving to Winnipeg from the west in 2018. I agree that maintaining the existing lanes has to be a priority. Road plow operators either do not know a lane is under the snow or do not really care. In some locations if the road was plowed to the curb an added sense of comfort and safety would be available to the cyclists.
Unfortunately designs such as bulb-outs while great for pedestrians, collect snow and make cyclists ride in in the cleared portion of the road uncomfortably close to motor vehicles.
Thanks for the comments Stan. We’ll be pushing hard to get the winter maintenance measures that were passed last fall and forwarded into the 2019 budget process included in the 2019 budget. Certainly one of the issues we need to do a much better job of in Winnipeg is clearing our lanes. That means recognizing that we need to be getting plows or sweepers out for smaller snow events that do not currently trigger clearing but that do see snow pushed into lanes, and a much better job of clearing through separator islands and bus by-passes.