A lot more Sunshine Coast cyclists are using their bikes for commuting, shopping and going to and from school than people outside the cycling community might think. Less surprising is the fact that most of those cyclists are worried about safety along Highway 101 and the state of cycling infrastructure on the Coast.
Transportation Choices Sunshine Coast (TraC) presented the results of a recent survey to the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s (SCRD) planning and community development committee on Jan. 12.
“[It’s] not necessarily a statistically valid subset of data,” said TraC’s Tim Howard of the 164 responses. “But I think [it’s] enough input to give us a valid snapshot of the interests and needs of cyclists on the Sunshine Coast – and frankly the best data we’ve got.”
The highest percentage of bike use (88) is for recreation, but 71 per cent of the respondents said they used their bicycles for commuting to work, shopping and related activities, and 11 per cent said they cycled “transporting children to school or activities.”
Howard said TraC considers those uses “active transportation purposes.”
The survey also asked cyclists about the biggest barrier to using their bikes more, and that’s where the concerns about safety and infrastructure came up. Ninety-one per cent said it was poor bike lane design, or lack of bike lanes, and 76 per cent said it was safety concerns on bike routes. More than half also said cycling routes are busy and shared with vehicles.
“Interestingly, hills and weather are not the top barriers to increasing cycling use on the Sunshine Coast, and I see that as a positive,” Howard said. “We can’t change hills and we can’t change weather. The factors that are influencing the uptake of cyclists on the road are factors we can influence – they’re about infrastructure.”
Howard also said the survey shows some concerns about bike lane maintenance. “I consider this low lying fruit. This is not expensive stuff to maintain existing infrastructure, to sweep, to cut back foliage that’s impeding use of the shoulder.”
Howard praised the SCRD for its work to bring stakeholders together last year for a series of meetings and an open house on cycling infrastructure, and he urged directors to go forward with some of the key recommendations that came out of those sessions. “It would be a shame if those recommendations were not picked up and implemented by the various government agencies,” he said.
He said the four that stood out for him were more frequent sweeping and clearing of bike lanes, that stakeholder meetings continue at least once a year, developing shared design guidelines for bike lanes and shoulders, and having a minimum one-metre shoulder on Highway 101 all the way from Langdale to Earls Cove.
