Continuous Sidewalks and Bike Paths
Continuous sidewalks and bike paths are relatively new in Canada, but there’s growing interest. Let’s take continuous sidewalks and bike paths across local streets from emerging practice to standard practice in Canada.
A Continuous Sidewalk and Bike Path, Rotterdam, Netherlands
I became more aware of continuous sidewalks after a trip to Amsterdam many years ago, saw one example in Canmore, Alberta a few years after that, and then was delighted to be part of the team bringing them to life in the City of Nanaimo’s engineering standards and Metral Drive corridor. Over the last year or two, legitimizing them in national guidance has been an objective.
The first step in that process is now complete, and i’m pleased to share a new publication from the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) that i’ve been working on with a great team of people from the Active Transportation Integrated Committee.
The new document is somewhat of a stop gap to hopeful inclusion in future guidances and is titled ‘Emerging Practice Briefing: Continuous Sidewalks and Bike Paths’ providing some legitimacy to their use in Canada at this time, and hopefully inspiring more municipalities to consider such designs prior to formal TAC guidance that would take more time to establish.
Per the TAC website “Continuous sidewalks and bike paths prioritize pedestrians and cyclists over turning motor vehicles at crossings of local streets. The designs of continuous sidewalk and bike path treatments in Canada have varied, and this briefing provides a synthesis of the techniques used and lessons learned. It also identifies several examples and references. It is important to note that continuous sidewalks and bike paths are already used widely at residential and commercial driveway crossings and laneways. However, the purpose of this document is to specifically address their use at the intersection of two public rights-of way, where at least one is a local street.”
Through this project it has become clear that there are many municipalities interested in the design technique. I’d love to see them become the default at local street intersections. Click the link below to view the briefing.
