Port Moody council has a handful options to create a bike path connecting the Moody Street overpass pathway to the Trans Canada Trail near Barnet Highway but should one of them be turning Clarke Street's HOV lane into a bike path?
It's a question the city and its residents will grapple with as part of the recently launched Master Transportation Plan (MTP) process, which will include public consultation under the TransPort Moody banner.
Bike paths and regional cycling connections will be part of the MTP talks, said PoMo transportation planner Mark Halpin, in addition to discussions with TransLink on the feasibility of removing a traffic lane and how doing so would affect the corridor's people-moving capacity.
The bike path options were presented in a staff report at Tuesday's Moody council meeting in response to a Trails BC delegation in March that looked at Trans Canada Trail options for Clarke Street. Council had also received a staff report two years earlier detailing bike connection options on the north side of Clarke between Moody and Kyle Street.
Staff's summary of the potential routes for a bike path connecting Moody's mixed-use pathway to the Trans Canada trailhead at Short Street included several options for each of four sections on the route.
The most challenging, they noted, would be the "pinch point" between Mary and Queen streets. This two-block stretch offers a space between the curb and Evergreen Line fence of just 1 to 2 m and includes street light poles. A two-way off-street bike path requires a minimum width of 3 m.
One option is relocating lamp standards and shifting the road 1 m south, possibly with a barrier to separate the bike path from the HOV lane.
A second option involves converting Clarke's HOV lane to a separated, two-way on-street bike lane, while also removing parking that is allowed in the HOV lane after the morning rush hour. Such a move would require TransLink approval based on sustaining the people-moving capacity of the corridor.
A third option would be to remove parking on the south side of Clarke Street, allowing for a shift in travel lanes without moving the full roadway, to create a separated bike lane.
The concepts offered few details and no cost estimates; doing so in a preliminary design phase would carry a $30,000 price tag.
Council debated whether to have staff provide "high-level" cost estimates for all the options — a motion that city manager Kevin Ramsay cautioned would be ill-advised because it wouldn't provide the kind of professional, reliable information council should have to make a decision — but Mayor Mike Clay questioned whether a glaring question, one driven more by political and community factors than money, should be answered first.
"Shouldn't we determine whether we want to close one lane of Clarke Street before we do anything on this?" he asked. "Because that's the kingpin of this whole plan, especially that pinch point.
"Removing a lane of traffic is a very costly option, and it's a community cost, not just a dollar cost."
Council opted to include the Clarke Street bike path preliminary design project in the 2016-’20 five-year financial plan process.
Coun. Diana Dilworth voted against the motion, saying she would like to see more community feedback from the TransPort Moody process and consider the bike path in 2017 or 2018, while Clay said it didn't make sense to consider the project in isolation from the MTP process when the public would tell council whether a Clarke Street bike path is a priority.
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