By Steve Hubrecht

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In recent years, the lack of designated bike lanes in downtown Invermere, particularly along main street, has become a source of occasional complaints from local residents and sometimes, from visitors, who are upset about what they see as a safety hazard.

Earlier this fall the matter was briefly discussed by members of Invermere’s outgoing council, sparked by Invermere councillor Greg Anderson (who did not seek re-election in October’s municipal election, and who will no longer be on council once the new council is inaugurated on Nov. 15).

Anderson noted he saw a number of youth riding their bikes on the sidewalks along 7th Avenue (Invermere’s main street) a few times during the summer, when the sidewalks are quite crowded with pedestrians on foot. He noted that really young kids sometimes do the same, but they tend to roll along the sidewalks with much more caution, while the teens were moving at a pretty good clip, which is obviously dangerous.

When the Pioneer followed up with Anderson, he reiterated that hazard.

The new council will have to decide to do something about, or to not do something about it. But I think we as a district, have to do something more than what we have been doing so far, which is not much,” Anderson told the Pioneer.

Part of the complication is that adding bike lanes to main street would necessarily mean removing some of the current angled vehicle parking and replacing it instead with parallel parking, and a majority of the downtown business community has long been vocally opposed to losing any parking near their storefronts, pointing out it could result in a loss of customers for them.

It is probably at least feasible to add more places to park and lock up your bikes downtown,” said Anderson. “Right now we don’t even have any signs up.”

He said he understands the hesitancy of some bicyclists to roll right down main street, given how busy with traffic it can be during the summer, and given that the angled parking means it can sometimes be hard for cyclists to see drivers backing up and vice versa. At the same time, said Anderson, “If I was biking, I’m not sure I would try to go on the sidewalk. It’s a problem.”

Councillor Kayja Becker, who, unlike Anderson, will be back on council for another four year term, also spoke to the topic during the council meeting.

The lack of bike lanes — that’s the thing,” Becker said when the Pioneer followed up with her. “The odd person on a bike on the sidewalk can be okay, but not too many. But I understand if cyclists, especially the younger ones, are not comfortable on main street out among the cars…Maybe we do need to put in more bike lanes in some parts of downtown, because the current situation is not safe.”

Becker noted that as e-bikes continue to become popular — and more prevalent — things could easily get worse downtown, especially since it is quite easy for people to inadvertently get e-bikes moving fast.

She did acknowledge however, that adding bike lanes on main street itself would be very tricky, given that it would mean fewer parking spaces.

We don’t really have the space for bike lines on main street without losing parking. So we may have to get creative. It’s complicated. But while we figure out a long term solution, we should at least be able to put up some signs helping educate everybody that the road is not just for vehicles, and that drivers need to be share the road with cyclists.”

Invermere mayor Al Miller shares Becker’s and Anderson’s worries.

Certainly there’s a concern there. We need to try to develop a proper active transportation network right through town. But implementing it will take some time, because we do, unfortunately, have very narrow streets,” Miller told the Pioneer.

He also pointed out the angled parking conundrum that inhibits bike lanes and noted that the district can theoretically make the downtown more cyclist-friendly without necessarily have bike lines right on main street.

If we do want to have bike lane right through main street, parking may have to change, and we want to be careful about that…There’s only so much you can squeeze into a main street downtown, but we may need to look a different options. The need is there, biking is becoming more popular. We’re going to have to take a look at it, but we need to do a proper traffic and parking analysis to figure out the best way to have an active transportation network right through town…It is something that is important for the future.”