HALIFAX—Millions in new funding will put Halifax’s bike network on the fast track to being safe and accessible for cyclists of all levels.

In a Monday morning event on the Halifax waterfront, politicians including provincial MLA Rafah DiCostanzo, MP Andy Fillmore and Mayor Mike Savage announced the Halifax Regional Centre All Ages and Abilities Bikeway Network project will receive $25 million from all three levels of government.

“We’ve seen political will and we’ve seen some really fantastic work from HRM staff and so I think the missing piece has really been the funding, so this is excellent news for the city and being able to really implement the AAA network of bike lanes,” said executive director of the Halifax Cycling Coalition, Meghan Doucette, in an interview Monday.

The federal government will contribute $12.5 million to the project, while the province will chip in $8.25 million and Halifax Regional Municipality will invest $4.25 million.

The $12.5 million investment from the federal government comes as part of a 12-year plan to invest $180 billion in a variety of infrastructure projects, including public transit, green infrastructure, social infrastructure and trade and transportation routes.

“This is a significant investment to improve the way we live and move around in these communities,” DiCostanzo said in a provincial release. “The network is an investment in our green economy that will create jobs while also encouraging clean and healthy transportation choices that connect people to places and take cars off the road.”

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The AAA bike network project will be accelerated over the next three years and create a comprehensive bikeway system by 2022, linking all corners of the city “from north to south and east to west” with 30 more kilometres of updated or new infrastructure.

“Work that previously would have taken a long time will now be done much more rapidly, and that’s really important because we’re looking at switching the modal transportation uses,” said Mayor Mike Savage in an interview Monday.

“We want to get people out of cars and onto public transit, but also onto bikes and walking, and this makes that much easier and much faster.”

Savage estimates the new funding makes it possible to shorten the AAA bikeway network timeline from eight to 10 years to only three or four.

“(The network) was approved in the Integrated Mobility Plan, but when you attended the budget discussions at regional council, you could kind of tell that there were certain key pieces of infrastructure that would probably take a bit longer to get built, or the funding was in question,” said Kelsey Lane, sustainable transportation co-ordinator at the Ecology Action Centre, in an interview Monday.

Lane said she’s confident now that the network will be well underway in the next couple of years.

“It’s a complicated project so we can imagine the detailed design will maybe take a little bit longer than normal but ... I have to say the staff have done a fantastic job of prioritizing projects, understanding what it will take to make it happen, and then with this funding announcement will be better able to execute,” said Lane.

One of the expected projects includes improvements to the notorious Macdonald Bridge bikeway connector on both sides of the harbour. Cycling activists have been pushing for a flyover ramp connecting the bridge to North St., and bike lanes on either side of the bridge itself, in order to make navigating the steep inclines and congested points of the bridge easier for cyclists.

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“It’s functionally really important, but it’s also a symbol here in the city where we’re divided by the harbour,” said Savage. “It’s a stake in the ground to sort of say ‘we are going to make it easier for people to travel by bike, and particularly across the harbour.’ ”

The network forms part of Halifax’s sweeping Integrated Mobility Plan (IMP), which outlines specific goals for active transportation in the city. One of the IMP’s main targets is to reach a total of 30 per cent of trips being made on foot, bike or bus by 2021.

“We need to make sure that more people are using sustainable modes of transportation to get around because we actually can’t afford to have increased traffic in the city,” said Lane. “So it’s as much of an economic plan as it is a health and sustainability plan.”

The funding announcement comes on the heels of a number of serious collisions between cyclists and vehicles over the past week, including one just hours before the announcement was made.

Early Monday morning, RCMP responded to a collision involving a cyclist struck by a driver on Highway 2 in Waverly. The cyclist sustained minor injuries, and the driver, a 33-year-old woman from Waverly, has been charged with failing to yield to the cyclist.

Last Wednesday, a Halifax cyclist suffered “severe” injuries after a collision with a truck driven by a young man. Police say they were called to the incident in the 1400 block of John Bracket Dr. in Herring Cove around 6:20 a.m.

A 54-year-old woman was on her bicycle when the collision happened. She was taken to hospital by paramedics with life-threatening injuries, and now has what are described as severe, but non-life threatening injuries.

Soon after, RCMP responded to a collision involving a cyclist and a pickup truck at the intersection of Waverley Rd. and Rocky Lake Dr. in Waverley just before 8 a.m.

The 63-year-old male cyclist from Dartmouth was taken to hospital by paramedics with non-life threatening injuries. The driver of the truck, a 46-year-old man from Middle Sackville, was charged for failing to obey the one-meter rule when passing someone on a bicycle.

“There really is a major lack of infrastructure for bikes in Halifax and that’s definitely a factor in all of the injuries that we have been seeing recently with people on their bikes, which is absolutely tragic,” said Doucette. “Having fully separated and protected bicycle infrastructure is the best thing that we can do for the safety of people on bikes in Halifax.”

Savage, who leads an annual bike ride to raise awareness about cycling during Halifax’s yearly Bike Week, said he’s not always comfortable on the busy roads.

“Most of the biking I do is in my basement ... so I’m like a lot of people, if biking is safer and easier, then it’s something I would absolutely like to do a lot more of,” he said.

“All these improvements are not about who’s on a bike now, but about who’s going to be on a bike in five years, and I’d like to be one of those people.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a Halifax-based journalist and a freelance contributor for Star Halifax. Follow her on Twitter: @jsrutgers

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