Bidirectional bike lane project completed on Park Street

Regina’s Park Street rehabilitation and bike lane project has been completed.

Diana Hawryluk, the City of Regina’s executive director of city planning and community development, unveiled the bidirectional bike lane Tuesday to reporters and other attendees of a media conference on Park Street.

The bidirectional bike lane is on Park between Douglas Avenue and 17th Avenue East.

The northbound roadway has been altered to allow vehicles to continue to drive in the left-hand lane, with parking and bus stops in the middle and the bike lane on the right side of the road.

The southbound lanes remain the same.

“With a focus on providing safe, accessible and active transportation, the city is progressing on the transportation master plan with significant infrastructure improvements for bike lanes, pathways and new sidewalks,” Hawryluk said.

“The bidirectional bike lane on Park Street helps to improve cyclist safety and create a more inclusive, cycling-friendly community.”

The entire project featured sidewalk improvements, road work and underground infrastructure improvements that were also completed in the neighbourhood.

Shanie Leugner, the city’s infrastructure and engineering manager, hopes this project will help set the tone for similar projects to be done throughout Regina.

“The city has a transportation master plan that has a map that shows all the potential locations that we would be looking at for bike lane installation over the next 25 years,” said Leugner.

“We will definitely continue to look for opportunities to combine our bike lane efforts with roadway rehabilitation projects going on similar to this project on Park Street.

“We are looking at a prioritization program so we will focus our priority on projects like this in the centre of the city before moving outwards.”

Park Street will remain a transit route, with bus stop locations being slightly altered so passengers who need an elevated curb to get on the bus will be able to do so.

The project, which started in June, took roughly 14 weeks to complete and cost $1.5 million.