City plans to build road next to Okanagan Rail Trail in Kelowna
It’s already a tight fit between the foot of Dilworth Mountain and Mill Creek for people traveling on the Okanagan Rail Trail through Kelowna.
The City of Kelowna is moving forward with plans to design an “arterial” road (the Clement Road Extension) from Spall Road to Highway 33 and beyond. That will be right next to the popular recreation corridor in many places.
“Right now, it’s a fantastic recreational facility and, to some extent, it’s a good commuter facility for people who work along there or students who are going to UBCO,” Mac Logan, general manager of infrastructure for Kelowna, told iNFOnews.ca. “But, ultimately, it’s a public right of way and it will be used for its highest and best use.”
That doesn’t sit well with the city’s cycling community.
“We’re building more roads and, we know, all that’s going to do is make it easier for people to drive,” avid Kelowna cyclist Landon Bradshaw told iNFOnews.ca. “The Rail Trail, right now, is a tourist draw because of the fact that you’re riding right along Mill Creek. You’re riding so far away from traffic that you don’t think about it."
Years ago the city developed a vision of “limited access freeway” running from a second crossing of Okanagan Lake near Manhattan Point, along the CN rail line corridor and all the way to the UBC Okanagan campus.
In 2006, that was projected to cost $700 million.
Then the rail line shut down, and in 2016 was sold to local governments and officially opened as the Okanagan Rail Trail in 2018.
A year later, in October 2019, city staff reported back to city council that their plans had changed for the Clement Avenue Extension from a freeway to a $57 million four-lane roadway.
READ MORE: $57 million extension of Clement Ave just one of many potential projects for Kelowna
Last week, Mayor Colin Basran announced the province was contributing $600,000 to study the concept further. The city will match those funds.
The vision has now shifted further away from the original freeway idea and even from a four-lane roadway.
“That was the mindset 10 or 15 years ago,” Logan said. “Really, we need one lane in each direction. A two-lane road can carry a lot of traffic if it doesn’t have intersections and driveways. The intent of the road is to act as an arterial, not as a highway, and to move people longer distances between the north end of downtown and provide that access in a convenient, direct way.”
Nearby Enterprise Way is two lanes but it was always designed to be a service route to the businesses along the way.
“It’s a commercial street but it’s kind of doubling as a parallel to Highway 97, out of necessity” Logan said. “Enterprise is always going to be a fairly slow route. The Clement Extension is in order to let Enterprise do its job.”
The study will look at how the new road can be built while accommodating environmentally sensitive areas such as Mill Creek and wetlands as well as the Rail Trail.
“The Clement Extension is intended to work with the Rail Trail and not replace it,” Logan said.
Logan expects to report back to council in 2024 with a better outline of costs and what land is needed for the new road.
He sees the Rail Trail as separate from the roadway rather than having bike lanes like those that have been built on Ethel Street or Houghton Road.
Still, it will be a tight fit in places.
“When you move east from Spall Road, they’re effectively parallel to one another,” Logan said. “The further north you get, there’s differences in the alignment.”
From Bradshaw’s perspective, as a cyclist, the city should be looking at making things easier for cyclists, such as having more access points from the Rail Trail to shopping areas on Enterprise Way and the other side of Harvey Avenue.
“We’re building more roads to make it easier to drive while we keep saying we should be driving less,” he said. “These two don’t work together.”
The Rail Trail corridor is also being studied as a possible “autonomous” transit route from downtown to Kelowna Airport and beyond.
READ MORE: Driverless bus could become part of the Rail Trail in Kelowna
This is not to say that Kelowna hasn’t been working on improving bike routes throughout the city
It is extending the Abbott Street pathway further south and the Ethel Street route has now reached KLO Road and is heading towards Casorso Road. The Houghton Road corridor is in the process of being connected to the Rail Trail across Highway 97.
READ MORE: Kelowna's Rutland neighbourhood getting a direct connection to the Okanagan Rail Trail
Still, it seems, the Clement Road Extension along the Rail Trail is inevitable.
“That whole corridor is a mobility corridor and what shape that takes over time is going to change as technology changes,” Logan said.
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