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Bike Lanes for Bruce Peninsula

Northern Light

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I'm just back from camping up near Tobermory, and while in a local store up there, this headline story caught my eye.

The province is apparently backing away from a pledge to add bike lanes (paved shoulders) Highway 6 as part of road reconstruction this summer.

I personally think its a great idea (win-win), no loss of road capacity; and its supported by the local Conservative MPP and the business community.

For those who agree, please consider writing to the Minister of Transportation, Kathleen Wynne in support of this project.

See article below for details:

http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2576693

Bike lane advocates say now is the time to pressure the provincial government to link southern and northern Ontario.

The Ministry of Transportation plans to resurface Hwy. 6 from Mar to Tobermory this summer and also do South Baymouth to Little Current on Manitoulin Island.

Half-metre shoulders will be paved. Bike lane advocates are lobbying the province to increase the width to one metre to create dedicated bicycle/fitness lanes.

"If we bit by bit, stretch by stretch, as it's being resurfaced, create a one-metre paved shoulder, eventually we can have a cross-Canada bike trail," said Maja Mielonen, who is leading a fight for bicycle lanes on Manitoulin Island.

A rally is planned for Sunday at 2 p.m. in Manitowaning to show support for a cross-island paved bicycle route.

Mielonen and her supporters say bike lanes foster a healthy lifestyle and boost tourism and road safety.

The MTO says adding an extra metre of road is costly -- about $15,000 per kilometre.

Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Conservative MPP Bill Murdoch has called on Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne to include cycling lanes as part of the $20 million project to resurface 70 kilometres of Hwy. 6 on the Bruce Peninsula.

"The people of Grey-Bruce-Owen Sound have been told that the Ministry of Transportation is committed to encouraging active forms of transportation, like cycling, but no such commitment (for bike lanes) was delivered," Murdoch said Tuesday in the Ontario legislature.

He said his office has received numerous calls of support for bike lanes from Mar to Tobermory.

"Now that they're doing the road, now's the time to do it," he said in an interview.
 
I'm all up for this. I could see why the average person may call bike lanes in Bruce peninsula and Manitoulin Island, but biking through rural/wilderness areas is actually great. It's really not that bad for your average person living in a rural area, and it's great to bike through for recreation. Something very suitable for Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin island, but also all throughout southern Quebec and Ontario. I'll stop myself before I start ranting about how the world/this country would be a better place if everyone ditched their cars and we just took bikes and trains around everywhere in a society where you're expected to bike around to another town or through the countryside every week, so I'll just say that this is an admirable cause.

Does it really cost $15k per kilometer for an extra meter? For some reason I doubt that. Either way, I'll be sending in my letter as soon as I start being un-busy. I was planning to bike up around there, and it'd be very cool if I didn't have to pull over every minute.
 
Manatoulin is a great place to cycle. There is very little traffic on the island, so it's not really urgent to build bike lanes on the island.

Hwy 6 from Tobermory to Mar is a good place for paved shoulders, but south of Mar there are quieter roads that should be used.

In BC, paved shoulders are required of every new or repaved highway.
 
Thanks for pointing this out. Paving shoulders is such an easy step to improve rural cycling and walking, and is standard in much of the USA and, apparently, BC. Our unwillingness to take this simple step is frustrating.

In Niagara-on-the-Lake there's an ongoing debate about building a bike path parallel to (former) Highway 55. Simply paving the shoulders of the road would fulfill the cycling infrastructure needs in a town that is full of cycling tourists and seasonal labourers who count on their bikes to get around. It would be so easy and yet it fails to happen.
 
Here is a bike path in Quebec called P'tit Train du Nord that was converted from an old abandoned railway line:



Obviously the path goes a huge distance, passing through each small town, and it is very level ground even though it is a mountainous area as the alignment was designed for rail. Single rail corridors also happen to be perfect width for a two-way bike path. And being off-road it is is more pleasant than on-road and the scenery is nicer. There must be plenty of rail lines throughout Ontario that can be converted to bike path.
 
Just to make it easier for those who wish to be advocates on this issue...

This link is to the online feedback (for the Minister of Transportation) page:

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/feedback/minister.shtml

Or you can write the Ministry:

Ministry of Transportation
Corporate Correspondence Unit
3rd Floor, Ferguson Block
77 Wellesley Street West
Toronto, Ontario M7A 1Z8

You may also wish to advocate more generally as noted by some other posters for a universal policy that all provincial highways (excluding 400-series) be mandated for paved shoulders of 1.5 - 2.0 M for cyclists, as-of-right when they are reconstructed/resurfaced.
 
There are, and they have been converted. The problem is that we could use a lot of those old rail lines too.

Once you get to Wiarton (coming south from Tobermory), you start hitting a web of abandoned railway lines across southwest Ontario. Most of these corridors are intact, some converted into trails, others left fallow as adjoining landowners want to take over the land or cite privacy or tresspassing concerns and lobby against conversion. Quebec seems to be much more proactive in preserving the old railbeds.

But one could get from Wiarton to Owen Sound and down to Orangeville by rail-trail (the old CP line is fully intact). There's plenty of potential trails all over. Bikes are banned from most of the Bruce Trail, but I'd like to see a bike equivalent; and it can be done.
 
**UPDATE***

Thanks to those who wrote, we have at least a partial victory.

Hwy 6 will get a 1M paved shoulder on both sides at all times. (Awfully tight for cyclists, 1.5 would have been nicer)

In addition, the MTO has been ordered to review all highway plans (non-access-controlled) for possible inclusion of cycling facilities. Report due in the next few months.

My thanks to all who wrote! Never lose hope, you can (and did) make a difference.
 
**UPDATE***

Thanks to those who wrote, we have at least a partial victory.

Hwy 6 will get a 1M paved shoulder on both sides at all times. (Awfully tight for cyclists, 1.5 would have been nicer)

In addition, the MTO has been ordered to review all highway plans (non-access-controlled) for possible inclusion of cycling facilities. Report due in the next few months.

My thanks to all who wrote! Never lose hope, you can (and did) make a difference.

I know they've had alot of support from the Ministry of Tourism too. Bike tourism is getting very big and it's a market Ontario could do really well in.
 

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