City wants to see mindfulness and respect with bicycle safety
By Lethbridge Herald on May 17, 2023.
By Justin Seward
Lethbridge Herald
Cycling season is in full swing and safety is always at the forefront for those using the roadways in the city.
The City of Lethbridge encourages the basic safety protocol such as using hand signals, recommending that a helmet be worn, follow the traffic laws and being respectful of motorist and pedestrians.
“And that’s something that I think is definitely very important on the safety front is that mindfulness and respect for other road users” said Adam St. Amant, City of Lethbridge transportation engineer.
“Whether you’re a driver, whether you’re a person on a bike, whether you’re a person walking, just being mindful of where you are and what you’re doing. And be mindful of those around you that are also trying to get to their destination safely.”
St. Amant said it’s important to make sure that your bike is in good condition.
“Make sure you have working brakes, make sure your chain (is) on their properly and not falling off partway through. And making sure you have your reflectors and if you’re riding at night, your lights. But yeah, making sure the bicycle itself is in good operating order to be out there on the road and on the pathways,” he said.
As for Lethbridge cyclists obeying the rules, the city has anecdotal evidence.
“And to the best of my knowledge, most people do obey the rules fairly well ,” said St. Amant.
“But there are definitely some out there that take greater risks and don’t follow the rules and I think the people that engage in that behaviour create a little bit of a bad reputation for people on bikes overall. So the more we can follow the rules and the more we can show respect to other road users regardless of how they’re choosing to get around, I think we can improve the situation in the city.”
Where safety concerns lie are at intersections where conflict arise from the different modes.
“Intersections can be quite challenging,” he said.
“There’s a lot of things competing for attention, whether it’s a driver’s attention, a cyclists attention or someone walking, their attention. Pay attention to lights and signals and just having their attention brought in so many different ways. So it’s very important to be mindful at intersections and be aware of your surroundings. Making eye contact is one of the biggest things that can help, (and ) eye contact between drivers and people on bikes, and making sure you have that eye contact to really understand that a driver sees you and so that the driver also knows that you see them.”
The city developed a cycling master plan in 2017 with the idea of making cycling a realistic transportation option for any type of rider of all ages and abilities.
“The idea was to build infrastructure so that yeah people would feel safe getting around Lethbridge on a bicycle,” said St. Amant.
As a result of the cycling master plan, multiuse pathways have been built and now looking ahead to this summer, the city is expected to start on protected bike lanes in the downtown core on Fourth Avenue and on parts of Seventh Street.
The city will also be working on planning projects, for example, on various corridors such as sections of Stafford Drive and 13th Street from north to south and Fifth Avenue N.
19-18
13th street is much too congested to reduce it to accommodate a bike lane. That’s absolutely absurd.
Someone in City Hall is a cyclist, trying to promote his own agenda.