Advocate says more needs to be done for cyclists travelling between north end and downtown

A bike advocate says upgrades to the North End Bikeway Corridor won’t do enough to protect cyclists in the city.

Jillian Banfield lives in the North End and says the city is building curb extensions and painting crosswalks on streets like Isleville, Maynard and Bloomfield.

The former bike mayor of Halifax tells CityNews Halifax the municipality should instead be focused on a corridor like Agricola Street.

“It is a really perfect North End connection to downtown and it doesn’t have bus on it so it is pretty good in that way, that you don’t have to worry about interactions with bus stops,” says Banfield.

“More than that, Agricola Street has a lot of businesses, services and residences so it is the kind of place that if you put a bike lane in, you’ll see a ton of bike traffic, a lot of people spending money at local businesses and people getting where they need to go.”

Banfield also says she’d prefer the municipality build more robust cycling infrastructure like protected bike lanes.

She adds measures like painting crosswalks are more focused on pedestrians than cyclist safety.