Several videos have surfaced online recently showing near misses between cyclists and vehicles that are driving in Edmonton bike lanes.
“Either out of confusion or other reasons and that, of course, can be quite scary if you’re cycling head-on towards a car that’s driving in the bike lane towards you,” said Chris Chan, executive director of Bike Edmonton.
Olga Messinis, director of Transportation Operations with the City of Edmonton, said drivers need to pay attention to the signs and markings indicating lanes are for bikes.
"There’s a lot of elements in that bike lane that really differentiate it from a regular driving lane so the motorist would have had to pass numerous signs and barriers," she said.
Spring cleaning is part of the issue with cars being able to get onto bike lanes.
"We actually install a centre post in the bike facility in question and that deters motor vehicles,” said Messinis.
But that safety feature is removed until street sweeping is complete.
Chan said there are other hazards cyclists have to watch for.
“One of the biggest problems that we see is drivers making right turns and sometimes left turns across the bike lanes and when you aren’t expecting traffic from two directions as a lot of our bike lanes are, that can lead to conflicts.”
“As a driver, whenever you’re turning you have to yield to any traffic going straight through including bike lanes, and that isn’t always happening,” Chan added.
According to data provided by the city there were 24,000 collisions last year, 130 involving cyclists.
"I think we all need to be more aware of each other, first and foremost. It's very important. We're all busy, we're all in a rush to get somewhere but the reality is that we all need to get there in one piece,” said Messinis.
With files from Regan Hasegawa…
