Looming construction of bike lane in Kelowna prompts launch of petition

The proposed bike lane along Leckie Road in Kelowna will mean the loss of on-street parking.

Leckie Road between Dilworth Road and Highway 97  in Kelowna is home to plenty of businesses.

Those businesses are now banding together to fight city hall as it gets set to construct a bike path.

“I think the bicycle path is a great idea, but I think they should revisit the way they’re going to do it,” said Theo Pauls, owner of Okapro Automotive.

With parking already at a premium, business operators worry that if parking capacity is further reduced, it will lead to a loss of customers.

“If I have customers coming in here and they can’t find a place to park, they’re just going to leave,” Pauls said. “So that would be lost revenue for myself.”

Business operators say they support bike lanes — but the kind the city is proposing to build will take away much-needed, on-street parking.

“We have such a lack of parking in this area and the parking that is already here is overwhelmed as it is,” said Rob Rickard, owner of Hotwire Electric.

The city plans to build a separated and protected bike path, with patches of grass along it and even some trees.

“I mean, this is an industrial area. Do we need trees?” Pauls asked.

Business owners are instead urging the city to tweak the plans, calling for a simpler, multi-use path that can accommodate cyclists and pedestrians while retaining much-needed, on-street parking.

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“This has been brought up to us of summer last year, so it’s been festering for a while and now that the reality is getting close,” Rickard said.

The bike lane will connect the rail trail to the Mission Greenway.

The owners of the Great Way Martial Arts Studio have spearheaded a petition against the protected bike lane design.

“It’s joining up with two multi-lane or purpose pathways on either side of it, and the plan kind of seems overkill to take out all of our street parking or most of it, to put in more bike lanes and make our road smaller,” said James Heinrich, owner of Great Way Martial Arts Studio.

Concerns are also being raised over safety.

That stretch of Leckie Road is home to not only the martial arts studio but three dance schools as well.

Operators fear that parents dropping off and picking up children for classes will have nowhere to pull over.

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“They all have people coming and going all day long, and a lot of people just drop off and go. But there won’t be a drop-off,” said Esmeralda Heinrich who owns Great Way Martial Arts.

The City of Kelowna said the projet is part of a long-term plan to connect the Okanagan rail trail to the Mission Park Greenway.

“Back in 2022, as part of the Costco redevelopment, a portion of improvements were done on that section of Leckie through to the highway, and then this project is to finish that connection from the highway through to Dilworth, ” said Gordon Foy, manager of transportation engineering with the City of Kelowna.

“And then we’ll have a continuous connection between those two important routes.”

Foy said that a separated bike lane is the best, long-term option for a growing city.

“Multi-use paths are a good interim step and we use them a lot of places across the city. But as they get busier, we often see more conflicts between people walking and biking,” Foy told Global News.

“So we are pushing more of our projects towards that separation, as we expect more people to be using them in the future.”

The city is planning to start construction on the project this spring.

Business operators are still hoping the city finds a way to construct the bike path and keep the much-needed, on-street parking.

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