Time to act on bike trails: councillors

While it's still early in the budget process, it appears as though Sudbury city council is getting serious about improving bike trails in the city.

Several councillors took turns at this week's budget meeting lamenting that despite all the talk about creating a cycling-friendly city, very little actual work has been done. The most visible steps have been the bike lanes added to some city streets.

“In my view, and I think in the view of the cyclists, I don't think (painting) some chevrons on a road really is doing anything to help cyclists,” said Ward 10 Coun. Frances Caldarelli.

A dedicated fund is needed to support the trails, she said, rather than relying on the roads department to include bike lanes when feasible as part of larger projects.

The committee was reviewing a staff report ranking budget suggestions from the public. Appendix A were items staff recommended for consideration, while items on appendix B were not.

The formal request, from the Sudbury Cyclist Union, was to dedicate one per cent of the total roads budget – about $380,000 - to bike trails. While not endorsing the full request, Caldarelli said concrete steps are needed.

Mayor Marianne Matichuk agreed, saying the bike lane on Regent Street, for example, is far too narrow.

“I don't know what the ideal cycling lane is, but some of them are six inches and that's not going to cut it,” she said. “We need to have a standard.”

While she was exaggerating about how small the lanes were to make her point – they're actually six feet wide - she said there are many roadways in the city where bike lanes will never be feasible.

“If you look at Brady Street, you can't widen that any farther than it already is on one side, or you'd be taking out a lot of buildings,” she said. “We should have an alternative.”

Ward 5 Coun. Ron Dupuis agreed, saying the broader goal is to create biking and walking trails to connect the smaller communities across the city.

“We, as a council, have to decide when we start acting on this,” Dupuis said. “We force developers to put in sidewalks in subdivisions that are isolated and in rural areas. Yet we, as a city, don't do our part to connect one small community with another so people can enjoy walking two or three kilometres.”

“The time to act has come,” said Ward 1 Coun. Joe Cimino. “Otherwise, roads always take precedence. So we have to put a number on a budget line.”

The comments were music to Ward 7 Coun. Dave Kilgour's ears. Kilgour, who sits on the city's Sustainable Mobility Advisory Committee, said he was glad to see “unanimity” on the issue.

“We have to put our money where our mouth is - perhaps we should put $100,000 as a budget option to start off,” he said. “We can put all the platitudes out there that we want, but it's action that's going to make a difference ... When it comes time and we're making budget cuts, we have to make sure that's not one of the cuts that's made.”

Lorella Hayes, the city's chief financial officer, suggested any budget item should be new money rather than funds taken from the current roads budget.

“We wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't remind you of the large infrastructure deficit in roads,” she said.

They should be spending $80 million a year to maintain the roads they have, she said.

“We're currently spending $36 million or $37 million,” Hayes said.

In the end, the item was amended to $100,000 and added to the budget priority list. Councillors also voted to add an extra $47,000 for arts and culture grants and $1.3 million to top up homeless funding cut by the province last year.

With the list now complete, staff normally prepares a report listing the cost of each new budget item, and how much it would mean in terms of a tax increase. Then the arduous process of finalizing the budget begins.