WATERLOO — Volunteers put their bodies on the line during rush hour Thursday afternoon in uptown Waterloo to raise awareness about a lack of protected cycling infrastructure in this region.

About 50 people of all ages lined up along the new bike lanes on the west side of King Street North, from Princess Street to Dupont Street, between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. to highlight the importance of using physical barriers to separate cyclists and motorists on the roadway.

"The region seems to be directing a lot of attention and resources toward cycling, which is great, but it seems like the final product falls quite short of what is a real, safe network," said Scott Weldon, a cyclist commuter for the past ten years whose daughter was almost struck when a pickup truck pulled onto the bike lane this past July near the Huether Hotel.

The protest, organized by Weldon and fellow cyclist Jeff Fedor, was inspired by a similar event in Boston last year, and the concept of using a human barrier — referred to as a "people-protected bike lane" — has emerged in cities around the world in recent years to demonstrate the importance of physically separating cyclists from traffic.

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Weldon and Fedor starting recruiting volunteers in early August through their Twitter account, @PeopleWr, and didn't want motorists to think they were planning to block entire lanes of traffic to make their point.

"We want this to be a positive, peaceful process," Weldon said. Volunteers were asked to sign a waiver before standing on the bike lane Thursday, but no incidents occurred and only a few passing vehicles honked at the volunteers.

The protest occurred along the same span of cycling lanes that opened earlier this summer in the city core. Stretching from the uptown square to Bridgeport Road, the lanes are visually distinct from the road but the infrastructure does not physically divide motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, although the cycling lanes on the east side of the road are separated from traffic by a row of parked cars.

Yet vehicles are routinely spotted parked in the bike lane, and cyclists and pedestrians have taken to social media over the past few months to vent their frustration, often using the hashtag #CycleWR. Other issues, such as local businesses and residents stacking their garbage in the bike lane for pickup, are also cause for concern.

According to a bi-annual active transportation report released by the City of Waterloo in 2017, over the previous three years, "Waterloo has had an average of 24.6 collisions per year for pedestrians and 8.6 per year for cyclists, however little data exists on how frequent near-misses are."