Charlottetown adopts new plan to make streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians

The City of Charlottetown has adopted a new active transportation plan aimed at better connecting walking and cycling routes across the capital, and improving safety for everyone who uses them.

Anna Keenan, the city’s sustainable transportation officer, said the plan is a long-term project that will unfold in stages.

“We're going to have some projects that are getting going, you know, in the next few months, we'll be starting planning for construction for next year,” Keenan told CBC’s Island Morning.

“For full implementation of this plan, there'll be construction every year for the next 10 to 15 years to really complete a network.”

Keenan said the current network has some strong foundations, but also gaps that the plan aims to fix.

One of the biggest strengths, she said, is the Confederation Trail, which functions as a multi-use route for both cyclists and pedestrians. Another is the active transportation path, completed in 2023 and now named the Josh Underhay Way, which was built along Charlottetown’s arterial highway.

But when it comes to connections into downtown and residential neighbourhoods, Keenan said "that's where we've been weak."

Keenan said the last active transportation plan for the capital region emphasized links between Charlottetown and surrounding communities, including Cornwall and Stratford. Those connections are now in place, but how they meet city streets remains an issue.

“You've got these paths, but then they just sort of spit people out onto... traffic-heavy roads,” she said. “We want to make sure that cycling is a safe choice for everyone to have complete journeys, and that includes kids who are cycling to school on the bike bus, for example.”

Jordan Bober, executive director of Cycling P.E.I., is in favour of the plan. He said the challenge will be to keep the momentum going over the next decade, since the city hasn't adopted a budget to ensure the plan is implemented long term.

But if all goes well, Bober said Charlottetown has the potential to be a "highly bikeable city."

"We really don’t have an interconnected network. We’ve made a lot of progress in terms of bike lanes," he said. "But other than that, if people want to get efficiently from one part of the city to the other, it’s hard to do that... on bike-safe routes.

“It should be as easy, if not easier… to hop on a bike and go somewhere as it is to take a car.”

Keenan said the new plan sets updated technical standards based on national and international best practices.