The Alberta government has opened a bike lane complaint line of sorts, but one city councillor said that this is a local, not provincial, issue.

Fall legislation informed by the data collection could allow the province to remove bike lanes that are already in place and having a negative impact on the traffic network, according to Alberta’s transportation minister.

The online portal, with the simple moniker, “Report concerns about bike lanes,” was launched on Wednesday by the Alberta government as a way to collect grievances about bike lanes in communities around the province.

Alberta Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Devin Dreeshen said that he wanted a way to summarize the complaints his office had been receiving about the routes in Calgary and Edmonton.

“It’s really going to help us having the conversations with Edmonton and Calgary councils going forward, because I think it was anecdotal information that we’d always get from people,” he told LWC.  

“This kind of helps focus the concerns with individual bike lanes, so that we can share this information with councils in Edmonton and Calgary to show certain bike lanes that are having negative impacts on businesses, or with seniors, or emergency response times, or traffic congestion.”

When a visitor lands at the online portal, they’re asked where they live, where the lane is located, a drop-down box with specific concerns, and then an open-ended, 500-character response box. A photo (max 10MB) can also be uploaded for a visual.

Minister Dreeshen said he’s had difficulty getting any cycling-specific data from the City of Calgary.

(The City of Calgary was contacted late Wednesday for comment on this statement, and the story will be updated when a new response is received. The City has said in the past that they prepared a data package but would seek further clarification on the data the province needs.)

“This is our way of being able to try to get that data consolidated into one spot, and that’s why we encourage Albertans that are being affected by bike lanes to provide their input,” Dreeshen said.

Minister Dreeshen said the collection of this data from complainants will advance ongoing conversations with city officials about bike infrastructure in Calgary.

It’s the latest development in an ongoing debate between the province and its two largest cities over the installation of alternative wheeled transportation infrastructure.

Leave bike infrastructure to the city: Atkinson

Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson said that bike lanes need to be dealt with at a local level.

“It is city council’s job to make sure that we are delivering safe, accessible ways for Calgarians to get around, and that is not a provincial something that folks across the province need to weigh in on,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson said that there are many studies out there that show cycling infrastructure helps with congestion. He said it’s the city’s job to find the most efficient and effective way to move commuters around Calgary.

“We have a geometry problem on our roads. There is a certain amount of cars that you can fit on roads and in that space,” he said.

“Having people all driving cars is one of the least effective ways we have to move people around. We need to be focusing on how we move people around on transit, how we get people to walk about safely, and how we get people to bike around our city safely.”

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said there are already too many cycling lanes in Calgary. He’s happy to see the provincial complaint portal open up.

“My experience is that people, an overwhelming majority, do want to see some dialogue and discourse and more discussion on bike lanes,” he said.

McLean said he often hears about the dedicated infrastructure taking out parking, being empty in the winter while still being plowed first, and millions poured into building them.

“That’s a lot of money on biking infrastructure when we’ve got a lot of potholes to fill in this city,” he said.

Minister Dreeshen said that he’s not opposed to alternative modes like cycling. He just thinks there are bike lanes in the wrong places in both Calgary and Edmonton.

“I think expanding park access, going into right of ways to increase beautiful green spaces that both Edmonton and Calgary have, especially in the river valleys, makes all the sense in the world,” he said.

“But I think when you have roads being ripped up and bike lanes replacing driving lanes, when a civil engineer has designed a road to accommodate for population growth and for the current population growth when it was built, and then obviously future population growth when it expands — and these cities obviously have been expanding — when you see lanes being removed through bike lanes, that’s obviously one too many.”