New bike lanes planned for Osborne Village

Osborne Village

The city has released its final design for protected bike lanes set to be built this summer as part of a larger road renewal project in Osborne Village.

Bike lanes with curb barriers will be installed on River Avenue beginning at Harkness Avenue and run westward past the curve where River Avenue becomes Wellington Crescent to the intersection of Stradbrook Avenue and Wellington Crescent. The plan notes that future pedestrian and cycling strategies include a route continuing down Wellington Crescent.

In the current plan, the bike route continues east on Stradbrook Avenue, right up to the shared-use sidewalk leading up to rapid transit’s Harkness Station.

Plans include flashing-light, push-button crosswalks on River Avenue at Lewis Street and Scott Street, on Wellington Crescent just before Stradbrook Avenue, and on Stradbrook Avenue at Scott Street.

New landscaping and tree-planting areas also feature in the plan.

Active transit advocate and Bike Winnipeg executive director Mark Cohoe was generally pleased with the plans.

“I think this is great to see. It’s definitely progressed from what we saw in the previous plan,” he said. “It’s certainly a really positive step for the city to be taking.”

Cohoe said the plan helps make a start on Winnipeg’s cycling infrastructure network, adding that if similar plans being discussed (but as yet unfunded) for Marion Street come to fruition, those networks will nearly connect, creating a significant piece for the network.

But for now, this plan helps to address some issues in Osborne Village, he said.

“I think it creates some important connections,” Cohoe said. “I think it’s going to take away some of the confusion along that connection to Nassau from River … It helps with walking in the area, too, because you’re getting rid of that right-turn yield, which removes some of the conflict that was existing there.”

With the biggest stretches of protected bike lanes running along River and Stradbrook Avenues, it’ll help cyclists feel safer and move quicker when traffic picks up, he said.

“That’ll be a big pleaser for a lot of people,” Cohoe said.

Cohoe, who has for years advocated for bike lanes to be included in every road renewal project moving forward, said these plans hint that the city may be starting to listen — although, he was very cautious in his optimism.

He said routes like these are only going to become more and more necessary as the effect of motorized vehicles on the environment and climate piles up and becomes more dire, and besides, they come with other benefits.

“It’s going to make a more affordable, sustainable city for us, and it’s going to be a lot more vibrant,” Cohoe said, of a future with a development active transit network. “When I’m biking, I’m interacting with my neighbours. I’m interacting with the community at large. I’m looking at the shop windows. As the need hits me, I can get off and go and check something out. That’s the community and the eyes on the street that we want to see.”

Cohoe also said that protected bike lanes will be particularly necessary to make people comfortable with winter cycling.

A final information session will be held on March 23 at Augustine United Church (444 River Avenue).

The city is still looking for feedback on the final design, through a survey available until April 14. Find the survey at engage.winnipeg.ca/river- stradbrook-wellington-road- renewal-and-protected-bike-lanes