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Commuters and locals both favoured bike lanes for 109 Street at an open house recently, causing butterflies at City Hall.

City staff hesitated two months before releasing results, and still don’t seem sure what to make of it.

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“Everyone seems to be a little nervous about bike routes for some reason,” said urban designer David Holdsworth, explaining how city officials would rather wait until after Stantec’s study of temporary bike lanes comes out in September to discuss 109 Street.

But for a city that recently saw four new bike lanes removed, the results are interesting. More than 100 people came to the open house in May, half from the adjacent neighbourhoods. Seventy-one per cent said reducing or narrowing the vehicle lanes was important. Sixty-one per cent asked for a buffer between a wider sidewalk and traffic and 67 per cent wanted a bike lane.

When planners turned to a broader public survey using their volunteer Insight Community, 57 per cent of the 2,533 respondents said they wanted a separated bike lane north of Whyte Avenue and 50 per cent said they wanted it to extend south to 61 Avenue.