City council rejects colleague’s effort to pause bike-lane construction

Edmonton's city council has rejected a proposal from a councillor and mayoral candidate to pause bike lanes. CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson reports.

Bicycle lanes are being built all over the city, including in the central Edmonton neighbourhood of Delton.

Some people in the area don’t want them. They created a petition and even caught the attention of provincial transportation minister Devin Dreeshen, asking him to intervene in the city’s plans.

That’s what motivated city councillor and mayoral candidate Tim Cartmell to call for a pause on any new bike lane construction on city streets during this council’s final meeting.

• Download our app to get Edmonton alerts on your device

“It’s the last chance to say, ‘OK, we hear you. We’re going to stop. The stop isn’t going to cause a lot of damage. We’ll take a look and hear from you before we proceed again,’” Cartmell said during city council’s meeting on Wednesday.

Along with the Delton lanes, which city staff say are three-quarters complete, the pause would likely also impact work on 132 Avenue. City councillor Karen Principe, whose northside ward includes part of the latter four-year bike lane project, has repeatedly raised concerns. She’s running for re-election as part of Cartmell’s Better Edmonton party slate.

“I wish we weren’t here, I wish that this had come about earlier, but I’m glad it is here now,” the Ward tastawiyiniwak councillor said at the meeting.

City staff say they’d have to analyze which projects could be paused and the consequences for doing so.

“We would be looking at monetary implications, cost delays with the contractor,” Pascale Ladouceur, the city’s branch manager for infrastructure planning and design, told city council. “There could be some increased costs to finish the work in the following year.”

Some city councillors grappled with what constitutes “proper consultation.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a bit of sober second thought on all plans, (but) where you draw the line on that, I don’t know,” Ward Dene Coun. Aaron Paquette said.

Ward Aniriq Coun. Erin Rutherford added, “It’s very easy to listen to the loudest voices, or the unhappy voices and say that they weren’t listened to. They were listened to.”

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi says he’s proud to build bike lanes that offer safe transportation options to Edmontonians.

“More and more people are using those bike lanes and active modes of transportation, and as we build more, more people will use them,” Sohi said.

In the end, Cartmell couldn’t convince enough of his colleagues to support the bike lane pause. He’ll instead take his pitch to Edmontonians on the campaign trail.

“The semantic idea that ‘well, work started three blocks away, so we have to do the work on your block too because reasons’ doesn’t wash. It doesn’t wash in the court of public opinion at all.”