In an effort to make roads safer for everyone, two roads in Saskatoon will see speed limits reduced to 30 km/h as of Friday. A new policy pertaining to reduced speeds for designated neighbourhood bikeways was approved by City Council in December and the traffic bylaw was amended in February for these two roads. They are 23rd Street West between Vancouver Avenue North and Avenue C North, Avenue I between the north and south legs of 23rd Street West, and 14th Street East between Saskatchewan Crescent East and Cumberland Avenue.

Transportation Engineering Manager Nathalie Baudais says, “We are trying to make it a comfortable cycling environment for people of all ages and abilities, so when they are sharing the street with vehicular traffic, traffic should be moving slowly and there shouldn’t be too much traffic on the street.” Signage is being installed so everyone using the roads will be aware of the speed limit change.

The 14th Street Neighbourhood Bikeway connects the Meewasin Trail to several residential neighbourhoods and the 23rd Street Neighbourhood Bikeway offers a connection for cyclists traveling between downtown and Blairmore. Baudais says there will likely be more neighbourhood bikeways in the future, but they don’t know yet which streets. There are still some planning studies to do. She adds that the Active Transportation Plan approved by Council in 2016 is the map of where cycling connections should be, to develop a completely connected network.