The Township of Esquimalt hosts an open house on Thursday to discuss the installation of bike lanes along Lyall Street.
The corridor would run between Grafton and Head Streets, and offer uni-directional, protected bike lanes on both sides of the street.
Will Wieler, engineering manager for Esquimalt, said multi-use corridors or bi-directional lanes – like those in Victoria – were investigated, but neither were ideal.
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“It’s difficult to implement on Lyall Street, and my preference is to not have the bidirectional option,” he said. “Not to say it doesn’t work in other corridors.”
| The Township of Esquimalt is hosting an open house on Thursday to discuss an All Ages and Abilities corridor along Lyall Street. The corridor would run from Grafton to Head Streets. (Google Maps) |
The corridor would be part of Esquimalt’s Official Community Plan which has seen the refinement of main arteries in the Township including Craigflower, Esquimalt and Admirals roads. Now, Wieler said, they are looking at collector routes, starting with Lyall Street and proceeding to Lampson and Colville Streets.
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The Lyall Street Corridor alone will likely cost around $4 million to complete.
“The only secure funding we have is the $900,000 from amenities from the sewage treatment plan,” Wieler explained. “It would need triple or quadruple to finish.”
Wieler added that this would definitely be a multi-phase project, both for funding and construction scheduling purposes.
After Thursday’s open house, the engineering team will analyze the feedback and present their findings to Esquimalt Council.
If everything goes smoothly, construction could begin in spring 2019.
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