Bicycle Lanes

There seems to be an endless debate in Saskatoon regarding bike lanes.

The simple fact of the matter is that our city was generally designed for two modes of transportation, that being by foot and by vehicle. 

Ideally, bike lanes would have been provided for in original street designs. 

Bicycles were not designed to coexist with vehicles on heavy traffic areas. They do not have brake lights or signal lights and their wheel profiles are sometimes inadequate to handle sudden changes in road dynamics such as loose gravel. Bicycles are not insured nor inspected to meet a standard. In many cases, the riders themselves are not even wearing helmets or reflective gear and they cannot maintain the speed of the traffic flow throughout. 

I am aware of long-distance runners that can continually keep up with or outpace the average bicycle rider in the city yet they are not running in lanes of traffic at busy times of the day. The same could be said for long board riders. The City should work to create proper bike lane corridors linking quiet streets and then possibly widen and demarcate sidewalk lanes to accommodate them. In any case, these bike lanes are provided for only a limited number of occupants each day. This current poorly conceived and executed system is a huge burden to the majority of people and businesses in the downtown core. Bicycle riders also have a history of seriously injuring sidewalk pedestrians in business districts where they bicycle past commercial door areas without regard for public safety, such as up on 20th Street.

I regularly see bicycles riding on streets such as Idylwyld Drive in busy traffic where they go onto the sidewalk and then onto the street and then back onto the sidewalk alternating between vehicle and pedestrian. Or a bicycle commuter slowly riding down 33rdStreet in rush hour traffic when all the vehicles behind them are backed up and trying to dodge around this person when somehow safely possible. Bicycles have no place on such streets at any time in my view. 

Bicycles are not capable of keeping up with the speed of traffic and this is a hazard which cannot be overcome. So, either we find ways to give them completely isolated travel ways or some bicycle riders will need to dismount and walk their bike through busy areas to once again get to the quieter streets and pathways to continue on their way. The idea of closing large streets to vehicle traffic in the downtown core to allow a few bikes to have complete travel way is completely absurd. Fact is, bicycles have a limited season in our country and only very few diehard riders even attempt riding through the winter months.