Burlington Cycling: New Master Plan

NRU
April 11, 2018
Maryam Mirza

With a revised cycling master plan underway, and recently approved provincial funding the City of Burlington is making it a priority to increase cycling ridership.

With the recently approved $640,298 in provincial cycling funding that must be invested by the city by 2020, Burlington’s is moving to revise is cycling master plan.

“We are working with a consultant to improve our cycling network here in the city,” transportation planning technologist Dan Ozimkovic told NRU. “That plan is going to tell us which roads need cycling facilities and what these facilities should look like, if they need to be protected, whether it is as simple as installing signage on a local street, etc.”

The city is working with a team of consultants—Kate Whitfield and Ezra Lipton, Kim Voros of Alta Planning, Melissa Gallina of Lura Consulting, Justin Jones of Share the Road and Jessica Dorgo of CIMA— to update its 2009 cycling master plan. Public consultations began in January with a focus on gathering information that help increase ridership.

Burlington cycling advisory committee chair James Schofield told NRU that the city needs to engage residents who are not cyclists in an effort to create a plan that would encourage more people to switch to cycling.

“It’s less about engaging specific cycling groups and more about engaging with the public because the intention is to hear from people who aren’t currently cycling and to try and understand what sorts of facilities and cycling infrastructure they would feel comfortable cycling on,” he said.

He explained that cycling commuter rates in Burlington are currently sitting at 1 to 2 per cent. However, there is a significant number of people that may want to bicycle, but they do not feel safe enough.

During public consultations, Schofield says, the committee has heard that people want safer ways to get across the QEW and connect the north and south parts of the city.

“It’s been one of our top priorities for a number of years at the cycling committee to encourage the city to build [an overpass for cyclists across the QEW],” he said. “The City of Burlington is in the stage of analyzing the information [it has] received and putting together the plan.”

Share the Road Cycling Coalition manager Justin Jones agrees with Schofield.

“Culture change takes time, it is not an instant thing,” he said. “Changing infrastructure in a city is a lot easier than culture, and in order for communities to start to move the needle on how their residents perceive transportation in their communities they need to consistently invest in organizing and delivering events … [to] encourage people to get around differently.”

According to Jones, Burlington has been doing well when it comes to educating, encouraging, and communicating the importance of cycling to residents.

For the city to do even better, he says, it needs to focus on building continuous networks so people can get to and from their destinations safely.

“If you have a safe paved trail, but in order to get to that trail you have to ride 100 yards on a four-lane arterial road, that is the barrier—it doesn’t matter how many kilometres of beautiful safe paved trail you have to ride on if that 100 metres on that road feels super dangerous you’re not going to ride it,” he added.

Schofield agrees with Jones and says that the master plan will address the connectivity of cycling infrastructure in the city.