The ride went from the North Nechako Public Market to Toombs Drive and back.
The message, Steve Wyer hopes, will go all the way to city hall.
About 70 riders took part in the Prince George Cycling Club event Sunday morning to highlight the need for for wide shoulders to allow bike lanes on both sides of Nechako Road when the city begins repaving it this summer as part of its $7 million road rehabilitation projects.
Kids road their mountain bikes in the ditches, taking advantage of the chance to ride alongside their parents, who took up most of one lane. Wyer said only one motorist expressed displeasure about having to wait to pass the long line of two-wheelers.
"It was a pretty visible demonstration, we stretched it for a long way down North Nechako," said Wyer, the cycling club president.
"Most people were supportive, so I think they know what's going on in the community. Regardless of the politics of the issue I was surprised how many people brought their families out for a group ride."
The event gave riders a chance to sign the club's petition it will present to city council at the public meeting May 26 to remind council of the need to support the widening of North Nechako as part of the Active Transportation Plan.
Residents who formed North Nechako Bike Paths Committee in 1990 and club members let councilors know they weren't happy to learn the repaving project was not budgeted to allow road widening and paved shoulders the entire length of North Nechako, from Foothills to Toombs.
Wyer says it shouldn't take a public protest to force the city to follow policies highlighted in the Active Transportation Plan, a product of 12 years of studies on the city's pedestrian, cycle, trail, and transit networks, which council adopted as policy in October 2011. The plan identifies North Nechako as a high-priority road in need of bike lanes to provide connections to other city bike routes.
"The whole idea behind the Active Transportation Plan is that you didn't have to find the cash because it was a plan that had a time-implementation component to it where those things would be set aside," said Wyer. "So to say you don't have the cash is analogous to saying you've ignored the plan. If you hadn't ignored the plan you would have set aside the $208,000 to do the work. The city has had five years to plan for that project."
In response to the concerns of the cycling club and group area residents, council in December asked administration to provide detailed information on the costs of repaving North Nechako between Foothills Boulevard and Toombs. Coun. Garth Frizzell was among the crowd of riders Sunday.
"Council supports a plan for safe active transportation there but is it the city or is it council that presented the idea to not to have [bike lanes] included when the project went to tender and who is going to backpedal if they in fact do it?" asked Wyer.
"I'm confident they're going to come through with it. But with everything in that plan are we going to have to have a demonstration to get it done. North Nechako is just one spot and it's an affluent area so they have quite a good voice. But what about some of the other areas who are also part of the plan that don't have the same political mobility and aren't cohesive that way?"
