Editor:
According to the City’s website, Delta’s Tree Bylaw notes that when removing a tree, “the number of replacement trees required has increased to help offset the loss of ecosystem services provided.”
It is, therefore, even more ironic that the city is now proposing, without any noted plan to replace, to remove many of the large trees along 56 Street adjacent to a neighbourhood called “Forest by the Bay.”
While the idea of constructing a Multi-Use-Pathway (MUP) is commendable, the reality is that cyclists will and should largely continue to use the roadway.
As I noted to the city during the online feedback period, a cyclist travelling between 20 and 30 km/h will face more hazards on a MUP with joggers and pedestrians, people walking in groups and side-by-side, dog walkers, and people using mobility devices.
As a cyclist myself, I know that it is safer to use the roadway.
To this end, we have an opportunity to reconfigure the proposed section of 56 Street between 6 and 8a avenues. The west side of 56 Street is not wide enough for two lanes of traffic but is certainly wide enough for the existing one lane plus a new dedicated southbound bike lane.
On the east side, the existing sidewalk could be reconfigured into a northbound bike lane and the existing pathway through the trees could be reconstructed with minimal impact to the trees and could retain, as Peter Pichler noted in his letter, “a charm of its own”.
Mark Schoeffel
