CMNS165 Jenni Szajnzinger: Biketoria - 2nd One Pager Assignment for CMNS 165

Szajnzinger. Biketoria. February 26, 2018.

If there’s one topic that is sure to get people riled up in Victoria B.C., it’s bike lanes. The initiative to build dedicated, protective bike lanes on many of the main streets of downtown Victoria broke ground in October 2016. This has been one of the most visible projects taken on by Mayor Lisa Helps, who has announced she will be seeking re-election on October 20^th, 2018.

The comprehensive bike lane project, dubbed ‘Biketoria,’ will offer dedicated traffic signals for bicyclists and barriers to protect bicyclists from cars. There will be total of 5.4km of protected bike paths, including areas for making turns at intersections. The project is expected to be finished by the end of 2018.

The 2016 census results from Stats Can indicate that commute times have risen to an average of about 26 minutes in Victoria. The census also demonstrates that around 6.9% of Victorians commute by riding bikes.

The budget for the project keeps on expanding, and December 2017, Victoria City Council asked for almost $3 million more for the first phase of the bike lanes. To many residents of Victoria, this seems like a miniscule portion of the population to be spending around $14.5 million on, especially when the project was initially budgeted at $7.75 million.

At almost double the amount that was originally quoted for this project, many Victorians are wondering why this money couldn’t have been spent on perhaps more pressing issues, such as affordable housing. There remains some confusion on who, exactly, is paying for the paths of Biketoria. There has been speculation that funding was coming from property taxes, but Mayor Helps says much of the funding is, in fact, coming from the gas tax, rather than property taxes. The B.C. Government is contributing some funding as well.

With the bike lane construction well into phase two, any opposition at this point feels futile. Longtime Fort Street establishments such as the Dutch Bakery, Russel Books, and Dots have said that they have not noticed a decrease in business. Once construction is complete, businesses along the bike path routes are hoping that they might in fact see an increase in business.

City workers are citing the “if you build it, they will come” ethos for the bike path plan – if people feel safer while biking, they think more of the population will take advantage of the new infrastructure. There are between 1000-1500 people using the stretches of completed bike lanes each day.

At least one Victoria businessman is trying to be proactive about the bike lanes by building a bike through takeout window. Kunal Ghose, owner and operator of the restaurant ‘Dobosala Cantina and Ride-Thru,’ says it is slated to open later this spring on Pandora Avenue. It is possibly the first ‘Ride-Thru’ restaurant in Canada, Ghose said he wasn’t aware of any others in existence. As the spring and summer weather approaches, perhaps his restaurant will get more people on the bike lanes to try it out.