The City of Penticton is adding more bike lanes to its roadways.
According to city engineer Ian Chapman, the new lanes, which will be located in the Carmi and Vancouver Hill areas, will cost the municipality little extra money to install as roadwork and repaving was required anyway.
“We have undertaken some works (in both locations),” said Chapman. “We squeezed a little bit more asphalt in where we can and it has resulted in the ability to define a fixed vehicle lane, leaving (enough room) for a bicycle lane to be installed at almost no cost. I think it will be a positive thing for the city.”
The bike lane on Carmi Avenue, Chapman said, will consist of two connecting sections taking cyclists from Government to Columbia Street.
“The section from Government Street to Dartmouth Road is fairly narrow and very windy,” explained Chapman. “So in that section there would be room for just the vehicle lane and the bike lane.
“Then in the section of Dartmouth eastwards up to Columbia it is much wider, in fact it could probably be a four-lane road. So in that section we will mark off the two travel lanes in each direction for vehicles from the centre-line and then the whole balance will be a combination of bike lanes or parking.”
On the other side of town, the Vancouver Hill bike lane will basically extend from Vancouver Avenue all the way up Lower Bench Road to the Poplar Grove Winery, and up Tupper Avenue.
“We will paint the two vehicle lanes on either side of the centre line,” he said, with a bike lane painted in wherever the width of the road is capable of supporting it.
Chapman said the city is also repaving the roadway on Warren, despite having paved it about 10 years ago.
“The engineering department selects roads for work,” he explained. “We do so under a number of criteria: whether there are utility works required in the road or where the surface is breaking up.
“In that particular road there is a section of water-main that was needed to reinforce the system resulting from analysis that we did. We also looked at the pavement stress index … and that road showed that it was due for some work. It was ranked up there amongst other roads that need work this year.”
Chapman added that the city will also install new traffic signals at Government Street and Warren Avenue.
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