In the fall of 2020, the City of Kimberley launched a request for public feedback into what would become the City’s Active Transportation Network Plan (ATNP). The plan will guide decision making around ways to improve walking, cycling and other modes of active transport in our community.
READ: City of Kimberley looking for feedback on active transportation
READ: City of Kimberley planning expansion of 4th Ave. pathway
Since that time, staff, and consulting firm Urban Systems, have been working diligently to incorporate that feedback. The result is an ATNP for the City of Kimberley that includes 75 recommendations.
Prior to finalizing the plan, the ATNP team is seeking final input from the public to gauge if there is anything missed. Residents and visitors can view the plan and recommendations online here: http://bit.ly/KimberleyActivePlan.
Active transportation involves all human-powered forms of travel, such as walking, cycling, in-line skating, snowshoeing, skiing and more.
In response to issues with walking around the city, a recurring theme was safety and lack of sidewalks. There was also comment on insufficient lighting, lack of winter maintenance, sidewalk/trail connectivity and more. There was also comment about dogs needing to be on a leash on trails.
As far as cycling is concerned, the top issues were lack of separated bike lanes and safety. Other issues include limited number of bike racks.
Comments included
“Maps at trail heads are confusing….”
“I like the Peak to Platzl trail but since I have had several bear encounters…” “Lack of signage for bike-specific routes (ie trail up townsite hill)”
“winter/snowpack, we can’t groom everything”
Recommendations are separated into several categories including amenities, advocacy, infrastructure, policy, and service and operations improvements. Each category has several tactics that can be undertaken to improve residents and visitors ability to get around using active transport.
The online form will accept feedback until February 17th, 2021. The city thanks all those who are able to view the plan and provide comment and looks forward to presenting the final plan to the public in early spring.
carolyn.grant@kimberleybulletin.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
