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Cyclist group pushes for small fixes to IKEA development

By: Bartley Kives

2/05/2009 10:12 AM | Comments: 7

A COMMUTER-CYCLIST lobby group wants to change two tiny sections of the massive IKEA pro­ject city council approved in March.

Bike to the Future has appealed a pair of zoning provisions contained in the Tuxedo Yards Redevelopment, a $400-million project that may even­tually see 1.5 square million feet of commercial space rise on what's now industrial land alongside Sterling Lyon Parkway west of Kenaston Boulevard.

On March 25, council voted 14-2 in favour of the complex proposal, which includes an amendment to the city's long-term planning blueprint, zoning variances, land subdivisions, a street closing and a $26.5-million develop­ment agreement with Winnipeg's Fair­weather Properties and IKEA Canada.

While Bike to the Future does not op­pose the project, the group wants to see more bicycle-parking spaces located at the 350,000-square-foot IKEA store that will anchor the project and also wants to amend the site design to reduce what it claims is a high potential for colli­sions between cars and bicycles where the existing bike-and-pedestrian trail alongside Sterling Lyon Parkway cross­es future motor-vehicle access points.

"With all the private access they're putting through the development, you'll be stopping three or four times on the bike path, whereas now you're stopping once," said Mark Cohoe, a Bike to the Future director. His group claims the existing site design creates the poten­tial for "right-hook accidents," which are caused when right-turning motor vehicles collide with bicycles heading straight down a parallel bike route.

That potential could be cut by con­struction of four raised crossings that may cost up to $10,000 each, Cohoe said.

Bike to the Future also claims the IKEA store, which may be completed by 2011, needs more than 30 bicycle­parking spots for visitors and would like them closer to the front of the store.

Winnipeg's MMM Group, the consult­ant representing the developer, said 50 stalls at the site are more than enough for bike traffic to the furniture store. But the firm is more than willing to dis­cuss the overall site plan with Bike to the Future, spokesman Paul McNeill said.

The appeal is slated for Tuesday mor­ning's meeting of city council's prop­erty and development committee.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

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7 Commentscomment icon

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I go to IKEA every time I am in Vancouver (Richmond) and look forward to them opening in Winnipeg. I don’t recall seeing any bicycles parked outside. It will be interesting to watch these guys hauling a piece on unassembled furniture away on a bicycle at forty below. There seem to be those who will give it try.

Uh Dunder...the new accesses to IKEA will be cutting across an existing bike path that links Waverley to the Assiniboine Forest, a route that is currently heavily used and will continue to be used by cyclists who have no plans to go anywhere near the inside of the store.

Now this information was readily available from the article, but that of course would require someone with the ability to read to figure it out.

Dunder, IKEA's mixing spoons start at $5.99. (But they are dishwasher safe, withstand temperatures up to 425F, and come in a choice of gray or black.)

I doubt many people will by cycling home with their new Kramfors sofa or Markor coffee table in their carrier basket.

But I don't doubt that cyclists will have to watch out for traffic turning.

If the project follows normal Winnipeg standards, there will be no service road, multiple connections to major highways, and additional traffic lights -- all to get the merchant to locate here and take our money.

In a big city, such as Toronto, Calgary, Regina, or Brandon, such a large complex would be served by a service road, so there would not be so many places where people are making right and left turns off of major thoroughfares into private parking lots.

Excessive traffic turning directly from major thoroughfares into private parking lots is one factor giving Winnipeg travel times as great as cities many times its population.

GFin, maybe you are being sarcastic. In which case you got me.

IKEA sells flat-pack furniture that people usually cart to their cars and take home themselves.

The IKEA can't go downtown because people of Winnipeg's shopping cart laws.

IKEA would have had to compensate the city when customers abandon shopping carts on city streets and parkades.

So the IKEA stores have to go on their own big lots with lots of parking.

You know, if they had put the IKEA downtown (in the old mail sorting building), this wouldn't be a concern...

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So this cyclist 'killing zone' only extends a few hundred meters around the store?

Ahem. Where are these cyclists coming from ? Do they just appear out of thin air a few blocks from the Ikea ?

Anyone who rides their bike from Transcona to the Ikea just to buy a 50 cent mixing spoon is crazy anyways.

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