If daily bike commutes sometimes make Calgary’s river pathways seem like two-wheeled highways, markings on the paved trails themselves are keeping pace.

Parks crews have painted highway-style double yellow lines at bends and intersections throughout the river path network, in hopes of deterring dangerous passing.

“We all drive, right? And we know when there’s a double line instead of a single line on a highway it means something,” said Duane Sutherland, the city’s pathways and trails lead.

“Instead of cluttering the park space with caution signs with ‘blind corner,’ ‘curve,’ we’re hoping this will have the same effect.”

Although they’ve only begun appearing on trails in the last few weeks, double lines are mentioned in the existing parks and pathways bylaw. Illegal passing around them warrants a $100 fine, the bylaw states.

Calgary’s 2011 pathway safety review urged freshly painted lines throughout the system. When the parks department redid the yellow centre lines in Confederation Park two years ago — where a senior pedestrian died in 2010 after a pathway collision — they tested out double stripes in some key areas.

The measure got positive reviews, Sutherland said. It’s being replicated on pathways along Bow River, Elbow River, Nose Creek and Glenmore Reservoir.

Painted lines have another benefit over extra pathway signs: cost. Sutherland said the short painted stretches cost about $40 each.

But without explanatory signs, it’s up to pathway users to figure them out.

“I guessed at what they were: OK, double yellow, don’t cross,” said daily bike commuter Kris Fruin.

“They might be beneficial, but maybe not much because most people don’t look down when they’re biking.”

And in the winter — Fruin’s a year-round cyclist — he predicted the lines won’t be as visible, he said.

The city’s snow clearing program includes 300 kilometres of pathways — and all the main river trails — nearly double the amount machines cleaned before the 2011 safety review.

Fruin admitted he’s passed slow users on tight pathway corners a few times before, and he often sees speed demons passing anywhere and everywhere on afternoon rides home.

“Those people are just going to do it until something happens to them.”

Major pathway crashes aren’t too common. The city’s legal claims department handled four or fewer collisions or falls a year between 2005 and 2010, the review states.

In addition to double lines, the city has added white stencil symbols with cyclist and pedestrian symbols throughout the network. The unwritten message: share the path, and bikes should be to the left of walkers or joggers.

“I don’t know if that’s enforceable. I don’t even know if people will heed it,” Sutherland said.

“But our thought process on that was if you put the cyclists in the middle by the yellow line, when they go to overtake another cyclist, they’re not zooming around the pedestrians as well.”

jmarkusoff@calgaryherald.com