A report from City of Victoria Staff says they can streamline the development of bike lanes, by hiring more staff and cutting down on the engagement process.
The completion of All Ages and Abilities Cycling Network, the 32 kilometre network of bike corridors, is currently slated to be completed in late 2023 or 2024, but the report to Victoria City Council says they could have it finished by 2022. They are asking Council to give them an additional $350,000 to hire more staff, and allow them to streamline the public consultation process.
Fraser Work, Director of Engineering and Public Works for the City of Victoria, says they still want meaningful engagement with the public, but in a shorter timeline.
"That might mean that we actually do engagements for a few different corridors at the same time, and actually have maybe less duration. Like, say instead of it being four months it goes down to two months, but we actually do it with more intensity, and that's why we've asked for staff. So it's really about how do we squeeze a lot of engagement activities into a shorter program."
He adds that the project will become easier when they begin working on bike lanes on residential streets. There are less stakeholders than on downtown streets, and less complications.
"You have less utility conflicts underground. You have less restrictions with how much space you have horizontally in the right of way, so you know, some buildings are built right to the back of sidewalks, or very constrained with respect to parking, sidewalk boulevard and pavement. And what's above you, whether that's electrical infrastructure, or signage, or awnings, or tree canopies, and all this kind of stuff. So there's a lot of different challenges in the downtown that will make things a little bit easier, and that actually makes fewer trade offs every single day when you have to make decisions. So when I say it's going to be a little bit easier when we get out of town, I'm speaking from a purely engineering perspective."
He says they will still be holding consultations with residents along those corridors, but expects them to be easier and quicker than the ones for the downtown core roads.
He adds that they have learned a lot about public engagement when the Fort street bike lane was established, and they want to make sure they involve key stakeholders, so that business owners and residents are able to voice their concerns, desires and ideas. Work adds that they have been doing more front-end engagement with the key influencers, and that will remain throughout the next consultation phases.
Work says in order to streamline the project and have all the bike corridors completed early, they will have to be working on multiple projects simultaneously. He says that by holding consultations for different corridors at the same time will allow them to cut back on the timeline, and complete the project sooner. He says public consultations are key to the project, but it could be done quicker than in the past.
Work says they're also asking for $350,000 to hire temporary staff members. The report asks council approve hiring two transportation technologists, who would help with the design process, a project communications staff member, and an administrative staff member. He says design and construction on different projects needs to be completed simultaneously in order to accelerate the timeline.
He says accelerating the timeline and finishing the bike lanes will free up the resources being used, and allow them to tackle the next big project.