North Nechako Road Cyclists Wheely Happy
Prince George, B.C. – Armed with 1304 signatures on a petition, the Concerned Citizens of North Nechako Road, have pressed
(at right, a shoulder of North Nechako Road- photo courtesy Concerned Citizens of North Nechako Road)
Specifically, they called on council to add paved shoulders to the road work planned along North Nechako Road this year and create a project to pave shoulders to the city limits over a longer period of time.
It's a request that has been 24 years in the making…. and tonight, Council gave unanimous approval to the request.
Phil Mullins told Council, that bicyclists tell their committee that North Nechako is “the worst part of their ride because they are either forced to go off road, or vehicles have to swerve into oncoming traffic in order to avoid cyclists.”
The issue of paved shoulders along this stretch of roadway and a desire to have a dedicated bike lane has been an issue first presented in 1990. At that time, there were promises made about the addition of paved shoulders, but nearly a quarter of a century later, the shoulders are still not paved.
“Whatever solution we find, it has to be safe for cyclists and pedestrians” says Councillor Murry Krause.
The North Nechako committee says of the three options presented by City Staff, the idea of shared lane is not acceptable “That would mean pedestrians would have to walk in traffic lanes and that is not acceptable to us” says Phil Mullins.
The three options presented by staff are:
Bicycle Lane – is a dedicated portion of a road for bicycle use, which is designated by a lane marking separating the portion of road used by motor vehicle from the portion of road used by bicycles or pedestrians. This is often referred to as a paved shoulder. Estimated cost- $4.7 million
Shared Use Lane – is a travel lane intended for motor vehicle and bicycles to share. Type 1 is sharing the travel lane side by side and Type 2 is sharing the lane single file. This type of bikeway is suited for local urban and suburban roads and is typically on roadways that have low traffic volume and low truck traffic. Estimated cost- $898 thousand
Multi-use Trail – is an off-road dedicated facility for non-motorized users, such as bicycles, pedestrians and in-line skaters. The trail is typically within a dedicated public right of way. This design concept is used for high volume of users both motorized and not and typically where a roadway has a posted speed are greater than 60km/h. Estimated cost – $747 thousand.
There have been some savings achieved in the tender for the asphalt for the 2014 road rehab budget, so there is about $755 thousand dollars left in the road rehab budget. The road rehab plan for this year already calls for a major project on North Nechako Road from Rosia to Toombs.
So, Council wants to use that $755 grand to put in paved shoulders along the stretch of North Nechako road that is already planned for this year.
It means the original plan to move up five road rehab plans that were slated for 2015 to this year, will not happen. Those rehab projects will now go back to their original 2015 schedule.
Also approved by Council, that dedicated bike lanes be included on future road rehab projects on North Nechako Road.
Comments
Thank you to all the people who got together to bring this forward as an issue! And thanks to City Council for recognizing that creating and or improving bike lanes in Prince George is an important issue to our City.
It seems to be a little easier getting things done in an election year.
so we have a whole city in need of repaving and we push back five projects in order to spend $750,000 on a few dozen bicycles out one neighborhood? hmmmm :)
My concerns exactly^^^^
There are areas that are still not paved since amalgamation.
My sentiments of the two postings above.. WHAT was Council thinking??
Voter appeasement?
metalman.
Posted by: Stillsmokin on May 26 2014 8:39 PM
My sentiments of the two postings above.. WHAT was Council thinking??
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They just bought themselves 1304 votes.
I sure hope that our Council isn’t starting to take lessons from Vancouver’s Gregor Robinson and his wacky Vision Vancouver Party!! We have enough problems of our own without trying to emulate that bunch!!
Before the last election council was fully prepared to build a new ice rink after receiving 800 emails from rec hockey players. Best move Dapper Dan made during his term was to walk the decision back to sanity.
Things are looking up it now takes over 1300 potential votes to make the monkeys dance:P
A lot if big money lives down North Nechako!
How many cyclists use this route per day? 10 would be high for commuting one would presume? There are probably more daily short distance walkers. A side walk makes sense. But a dedicated bike lane? Which side of the road would it be on? Would riders of bicycles have to ride head on toward traffic? A shared use path keeps people off the road and increases safety. This sounds more like an end around by the north nechako crowd to get some road upgrades under the guise of a bike lane.
What is next?
A mural blocking the trailer park views from the road so the chosen ones don’t have to see how the others live?
Oh and btw, what other neighbourhood will be looking for a bike lane next?
I’m very happy to see the city moving forward on this issue. The paved shoulders will be used for bikers, walkers, joggers, mobility scooters, strollers and more. Every neighbourhood should have infrastructure available to non-motorized users. In fact, that should be the first priority.
Every neighbourhood should have infrastructure available that is paved first for the people that pay taxes in this city before non-motorized.
I am in complete support of dedicated bike lanes in Prince George, but not to the tune of 3/4 of a million dollars for one section of the city. I hope council takes a closer look at the numbers.
Hope you got it all out billyinpg as I think your post will vanish by morning along with the privilege to do so in the future. Some valid points but….
I probably should have been more PC with my comment but when you’ve had enough you’ve had enough, and I’ve had enough.
The city is crumbling into the abyss and council see’s fit to look and adopt bike lanes?
Just to be honest I am not against the bicycle riders but I do remember back in the 70’s and 80’s when I rode my bike everywhere, what’s different now?
There were no bike lanes back then or helmet law (that I see a great disregard for) and the traffic and bicycle riders got along just fine.
It’s just another special interest group with an agenda that we the taxpayers cannot afford, until we are caught up on maintaining what is already there…
Wow I must need another beer as I see I posted that without an Fbomb.
sorry but most houses down in north nechako pay a minumum 3000 a year taxes and alot of them pay way more then that. The roads are never paved and we dont even have sewer or fire hydrants. A bike lane is better then nothing.
Posted by: Stanwich on May 27 2014 2:40 AM
sorry but most houses down in north nechako pay a minumum 3000 a year taxes and alot of them pay way more then that. The roads are never paved and we dont even have sewer or fire hydrants. A bike lane is better then nothing.
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People in the Hart pay just as much and they’re being made to pay to get hooked up to the city sewer.
Stanwich is right. I just checked PGmap. Some of these houses are paying over $10,000 a year in taxes. There are few if any street lights, no water, sewer, or fire hydrants. Most are deemed not to have fire coverage for insurance purposes. They don’t make calls to the police department either it seems. They are 9km from the nearest school. What are they paying for?
If you need a business case, I think it’s pretty clear. Just a small increase in the assessed values of these homes means a big jump in property taxes. Will a proper bike lane mean a slight increase (say 0.5%) in the assessed values? I think it might. If it’s even close to this, the City will get its money back from the bike lanes in just a few years.
There is something to be said for not cooking the golden goose…
That makes perfect sense Icicle; let’s give them rich folk a bike lane and the poor folk will just have to live with their crumbling infrastructure. :)
Icicle – wow. A lot of people just do not get it.
The Nechako area has no problem with getting water from the ground via a well. There is a lot of sand and gravel in that area so not much problem for septic systems.
If one is paying over $10,000 in taxes do you really think they cannot afford to pay for fire insurance? Give your head a shake.
There are other areas in this city that amalgamated into this city and do not have pavement.
One area that comes to mind is the Haldi fiasco. There are many out there that have to drill over 400 feet to get water and as for septic- well they have to start from scratch to build one because of the soil in that area.
Most of the Haldi area is gravel roads. Nice for them to see BIKE lanes when they were promised pavement almost 40 years ago.
By the way- their school was shut down not because of lack of student enrolment but lack of good water!
What a slap in the face to a lot of the areas that have been waiting for something from this city.
Stanwich and Icicle comments makes sense. According to the City, in 2013 the average residential property paid $1,740 / year in municipal taxes. Looking at PGMap and the property values along North Nechako in the area in question, the municipal taxes for the residential properties would anecdotally average more than $4,000 / year. There is one road in and out of the community, it is in a horrible state of disrepair, the paved portion is narrow, and the community gets roads, snow clearing and garbage collection as direct services only. Residents pay a premium on house insurance for distance from fire protection, schools are limited, no nearby shopping or other amenities, etc.
All of that is a lifestyle choice for living in the community, absolutely. Does that mean the residents should not desire something that was promised almost a quarter century ago? Does the disproportionate contribution to municipal taxes not warrant consideration of a slightly wider road with marked lane for non-motorized traffic? Heck, in the most used section of the road, there is barely a wide enough paved section for the width of a vehicle.
I think Icicle said it all and beat me to it.
I have a good friend that lives out that way and pays over $7000 a year in city taxes, with no city services other than garbage pick up.
North Nechako Road is a main arterial road for the city with heavy traffic. To get paved shoulders, or a separate multi use trail, is something they would have in any other city. PG is a large city and should be able to do more than one project at a time.
Maybe one day the 20,000 residents of the Hart won’t have to ride their bikes on the highway with no street lighting to get to the bowl? This decision at least give the Hart some hope… maybe the province can chip in?
I live down there. I’m not rich by any stretch. My taxes are over 5500 bucks a year. I have no curb, no gutter, no city supplied water, sewer, street lighting or anything else that people living in most places in PG have. The road going to my house is hideous. I’ve changed a couple of rims and tires over the last few years because of the pot holes on North Nechako road. I have ridden my bicycle down that road once in the 15+ years that I have lived there. I certainly see lots of people using that road for something other than driving their cars. The folks in our neighborhoods have been paying big money to the City of Prince George for a long time with absolutely nothing to show for it. I was amazed that we were actually on the docket to get any road work done as I had all but given up hope. The road needs repairs and is getting some of it this year. Adding a strip down the side for bikes makes sense. It’s the best time to do the work while the machines are doing the other part.
If we simply allocated public resources to the people paying the most money into the pot, we wouldn’t need government at all. We could be managed by a capatalist free market system. If that’s the case, we might as well close the soccer fields, schools, parks and anything else those free-loading 10-year olds use, since they don’t pay taxes.
It’s up to our government to allocate resources to where they are needed, especially to the vunerable, and not necessarily the people who pay the most. If you don’t like the idea of a social democracy, you are in the wrong country.
It’s a good point, jillianmerrick. Our government has doled the funds out. They have decided that the rich people should get a little bit too.
Social democracy doesn’t just mean that the rich pay for all the rest of us. It means that they should get something too.
This is vote buying plain and simple. There is no noble goal behind it.
The city is making people in the Hart pay out of their own pockets to get hooked up to the sewer system. I’m all for bike lanes but is this really fair?
I can’t argue with Billyinpg’s deleted post about crumbling sidewalks making it hard for seniors to get around, vs a bike lane. Seems sidewalks should have come before a bike lane.
But this bike lane is more than a luxury.
Pidherny Recreation Centre will be serviced by it, and there are hundreds of kids at some time or another pedal out there to go downhill mountain biking – now they’ll be safer.
There are two large mobile home parks located in that area, and now those kids will be able to ride their bikes – safer.
The rich down at the end of the road, I know some of those people, and a lot of them are health professionals who pay millions in income taxes, health professionals that we wanted to come to our city to care for us, and a lot of them like riding bikes, so making their life easier, may make our lives easier as well, unless you want to go back to the good old days when we got to travel to Vancouver because we didn’t have enough specialists here.
It’s all about making the city a pleasant place to live, and in this particular instance, city council chose to make it easier for some rich people to live.
Now, as for the handicapped – we can help them without spending a dime.
Don’t park in handicapped parking spots – and lots of you do it because after all, you’re only going to be a minute.
Don’t park your car on the side walk – talking to the fine folks that park part on the road, part on the sidewalk.
If a sidewalk crosses your driveway, don’t park across the sidewalk.
Anyone who has mobility issues is hampered every time a vehicle decides to block their access.
And that costs us nothing to do except develop some common courtesy.
And Billy, for what it’s worth, back in the 80’s we didn’t have a bunch of deadheads texting and driving – so it was safer to ride a bike back then.
I wonder how many of those who signed the petition are ready to dig in to their pocket to help pay for this….
I can tell you
NONE
They already have bcracer, it’s called taxes. There are compelling arguments both for & against this issue. Personally, I have no problem paying for this. I bike regularly, 3 summers ago in the space of 5 days I was run off Otway Rd. twice by idiot yahoos heading out to float the river, I now drive out to where I bike. Living on the Hart one takes their life in their hands if they want to bike down the highway. If we truly want to promote ourselves as a progressive thinking city that wishes to attract residents, we need more of amenities like bike lanes & infrastructure upgrades. Unfortunately entropy is the nature of our universe & there is only so much money to go around.
I think it’s a good move. It will pay for itself in property taxes and a longer lasting road. To be clear, there are no sidewalks in this area (no sewers, curbs, etc either) and the pavement being replaced has been there since amalgamation. This part of town, while paying very high taxes and insurance (as others have said), has seen basically no investment from the city. This isn’t some exclusive and luxurious bike lane, it’s just paving the shoulder of the road so pedestrians and cyclists and whoever else can get out of the way of vehicles. It’s only widening the pavement by 2.2 meters to bring the road up to the minimum standard. No other projects are set back by this, it doesn’t interrupt the paving schedule. And, just because Council has earmarked the 755 k doesn’t mean that’s what this project will cost, other estimates put the work around 200k, so there may still be money for other work once this is done.
I was asked by the group to sign the petition. I agreed. I was told that it was needed and I did ask about tax increases. Of course any time the city builds something, it’s paid for with tax dollars.
I totally agree with the comments from ski50 regarding who lives down there.
Probably wouldn’t have caused an uproar if they didn’t say it was for road rehab at first. Jump the gun with the surplus then next day use it for something else
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