It’s no longer illegal to ride a bike in a bike lane during winter

In a decision that may confuse many, the City of Sault Ste. Marie has lifted a winter ban on riding bicycles in bike lanes, while leaving intact a bylaw that closes all bike lanes from Nov. 1 to April 30.

City councillors voted this week to delete an eight-year-old provision in the city's traffic bylaw stating: "No person shall ride a bicycle on any bicycle lane during this time period.”

But they declined to remove an adjacent provision authorizing "the closing of all lanes designated solely for bicycle use within the City of Sault Ste. Marie from Nov. 1 each year to April 30 of the following year."

As SooToday reported last month, Ward 1 Coun. Sonny Spina, an avid cyclist who organized the DU283 duathlons supporting the Algoma Family Services Foundation, has been pushing for year-round use of bike lanes.

Spina and fellow Ward 1 Coun. Sandra Hollingsworth asked the city's legal department to look into repealing the winter restrictions.

At this week's city council meeting, city solicitor Karen Fields was willing to go halfway on Spina's idea.

"As people continue to use bicycles in the winter months, the section that makes it a violation to ride a bicycle in a bicycle lane should be removed," she said in a report to Mayor Shoemaker and councillors.

But Fields balked at opening bike lanes year-round, for liability reasons.

"The section closing bicycle lanes from Nov. 1 each year to April 30 of the following year should remain as is for liability purposes, since the city does not currently maintain bicycle lanes for the noted period," she said.

Provincial regulations set out detailed minimal standards and timelines for maintaining bike lanes on different classes of roadway, including:

• plowing the bicycle lane
• salting the bicycle lane
• applying abrasive materials to the bicycle lane
• applying other chemical or organic agents to the bicycle lane
• sweeping the bicycle lane; or
• any other prescribed combination of methods

At Monday's city council meeting, Coun. Spina asked Fields whether the city's liability is really affected by whether or not bike lanes are maintained during winter months.

"As the owners of the land, do we not own liability anyway, no matter what?" the former police officer asked.

"If we say that we're opening the bike lanes and we allow people to understand that we're going to keep those clear enough to cycle on, and then somebody takes snow from their driveway and pushes it into the road and we don't get there to clear... and somebody has an accident in the bike lane because the bike lane is open, we open ourselves up to liability," Fields responded.

Spina then asked, if the bike lanes are closed, whether physical steps must be taken to close them.

"Once that date has come into play, we're saying we're not maintaining them for bicycle purposes," Fields said.

"We're maintaining our roads, but we're not maintaining them for the minimal maintenance standards for a bike lane."

In the second quarter of 2023, city staff are expected to return to city council to advise on any further steps that city council and community partners might take to allow safe operation of bicycles year-round.

Those recommendations will be made as part of the Sault's active transportation master plan initiative.