Thunder Bay bike lanes won't be plowed this winter

The city of Thunder Bay will continue to leave bike lanes unplowed over the winter months.

The city of Cornwall clears its bike lanes, partly to make it easier for people using motorized wheelchairs, but Thunder Bay's active transportation co-ordinator, Adam Krupper, points outthe city hascut back on plowing operations because of rising costs.

As the roads division brought to council earlier this year, there was a reduction in service for plowing. By plowing bike lanes, a lot more effort and money has to go into doing that, he said.

At this moment, it's kind of counter-productive to what the city is trying to do in terms of maintaining costs.

If the coming winter brings a heavy load of snow, the bike lanes will be used to store snow plowed from roads.

"Since the first bike lane was opened in 2010, the city's policy has always been that bike lanes aren't maintained in winter-time, Krupper continued.

What happens is that most bike lanes are next to the curb ... and the plow blade pushes the snow out to the curb. As that snow builds up throughout the winter, snow starts to encroach more and more onto the road, and the bike lane is used for snow storage.

Krupper noted that, if the city ever reviewed its policy on bike lane maintenance during the winter, it would likely have to consider which routes to give priority to and would want to be satisfied that it would be safe for residents to use bike lanes.

"In time there is a chance that the city will look at this, but we need to look at what are the priority routes, and there needs to be a cost-assessment on plowing the bike lanes to a level where the city is satisfied that they can be considered safe for all users, he said.

"I think that once there is a demand for providing that level of service, the city would definitely look to its peer cities to see what the best practices are, and how much it's costing to do that.