Lexi Pendzich loves to ride her bicycle to work and she’s convinced other St. Albertans do too, so much so she’s lobbying the city to get its entire bus fleet equipped with bike racks.
The 23-year-old MacEwan College student wants a convenient, safe and cheap method of transportation to and from St. Albert. Over the last few months, Pendzich has lobbied for her cause, although her quest to augment the city’s transit system began in another city.
“It started after I came back from living in San Francisco, which was in February,” Pendzich said, who’s also a sales associate at Cranky’s, a local bike shop downtown.
After a little research she discovered that even some Canadian cities had picked up the trend of installing bike racks on buses in Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton and, most recently, Fort McMurray.
“Living in an area where I saw a lot of people be active on their bikes,” helped inspire the cause, explained Pendzich. “And just thinking about that, that we really have to ramp that up.”
With visions of an eco-friendly commute in mind, Pendzich contacted Sportworks, a U.S.-based company that supplies and installs bike racks for buses, and discovered a free trial could be set up for a bus here in St. Albert.
But the city wasn’t interested.
The problem, said city manager Bill Holtby, is that one bike rack on one bus doesn’t help most cyclists.
“You can’t just try them on one bus,” Holtby said. “If you’re going to be a bicycle commuter, and you want your bike once you get downtown to the university or something. You can’t just hope that the same bus is going to appear.”
According to the city’s transit director Bob McDonald, it would cost approximately $75,000 to outfit the city’s buses with bike racks.
Holtby believes when it comes to bike racks, you’re either all in or all out, but the city also took into consideration the region’s notoriously harsh climate.
“One thing that was a consideration was, what is the net benefit of that in terms of our climate and utilization of the service?” said Holtby. “A big portion of our commuter service is from September through April, of which four or five of those months are winter months.”
He said the climate, coupled with the cost of such a project during a recession, placed bike racks low on the priority list.
Pendzich, however, is convinced people would use the racks in the winter. She believes the racks would also bring people to the city during the summer.
“Even people in Edmonton, I’m sure, would come to St. Albert to use the trails,” Pendzich said.
Mayor Nolan Crouse believes bike racks on buses are inevitable in St. Albert.
“Realistically, we will add them someday, winter or no winter,” Crouse said.
But the mayor agrees with Holtby that if it’s going to be done it needs to be done for the entire fleet, and for that the city needs to set aside the money.
“It’s one of those benefits that we have to add, but at this point we don’t have any money budgeted for it,” said Crouse, adding it’s an issue council will revisit at budget time this fall.
In the meantime, Pendzich will continue to peddle toward her goal and has even considered fundraising, but if it’s going to happen, she said, the city has to be on board.
“I’m still corresponding with them before I take another huge step,” Pendzich said. “It’s definitely a lot of effort … you have to get them to meet you halfway.”
