Unsanctioned bike lane painted at Saskatoon intersection where cyclist was killed

Nearly five months ago, the Saskatoon city council voted to create a bike lane and bike box along the College Drive-facing section of Wiggins Avenue, where a cyclist died in 2023.

That hasn't been done, but someone who is handy with a can of spray paint decided they didn't want to wait any longer.

There is now an unsanctioned bike lane, represented by a line of white paint spanning about half a block along Wiggins Avenue, punctuated by a bike box marked with horizontal lines where Wiggins meets College Drive.

LISTEN | Someone with a can of spray paint has taken bike safety into their own hands in Saskatoon:

Saskatoon Morning6:41Someone with a can of spray paint has taken bike safety into their own hands

After a whole summer without a promised bike lane on Wiggins Avenunue, an entrupaning activist with a spray can decided they couldn't wait any longer. They painted one of them on the road themselves. Host Stephanie Massicotte speaks with Nick Pollett from Strong Towns YXE, who supports the spray paint as a form of "tactical urbanism."

College Drive is a key commuting link that leads into the University of Saskatchewan, Royal University Hospital and across University Bridge and into the downtown core.

Natasha Fox, 33, was hit and killed by a cement truck while cycling through the Wiggins Avenue and College Drive intersection in May 2023. It's the most bicycled intersection in the city, according to a report brought to city council after her death. It also has the second highest volume of pedestrians in Saskatoon.

The driver was not charged in her death.

Since Fox's death, her family has advocated for significant changes to make biking safer in Saskatoon. A memorial for Fox stands on the grass nearby the intersection, within several metres of the bike box.

"It's a little bit of paint and if we could get a couple of pylons to protect the bike lane, maybe that would save somebody's life. Maybe for a few thousand dollars we could have saved my daughter's life last year," Doug Kramble, Fox's father, said Monday.

In April, city administration recommended that city council vote against the bike lane and bike box set-up, but councillors voted in favour of those measures and restrictions to right turns on red lights.

At the time, Saskatoon's director of transportation Jay Magus was adamant that adding a painted bike lane and bike box would create a perceived level of safety that could be false, given it would not be a protected bike lane without widening the street.

In an emailed statement on Monday, Magus said in part that, "while seemingly well-intentioned, the lines painted on the road are not City designed and could pose an eventual risk to cyclists."

Magus said he expects the city's official bike lane and box setup to be done by mid-October.

Kramble said he still believes that while city administration may not consider the solution "perfect," the bike lane painted on Wiggins Avenue is "a heck of a lot better than what we have."

Nick Pollett of Strong Towns YXE referred to it as "tactical urbanism" in a video posted to YouTube.

He defined the term as small actions by the community to inspire change in government, like painting murals over four-way stops to encourage cars to drive slower.

"I don't think, with tactical urbanist projects, they're not to be permanent, they're meant to inspire a bigger, more permanent, change," he told Stephanie Massicotte, host of CBC's Saskatoon Morning.

Pollett said he's heard of an elderly woman who was injured at the intersection since Fox's death.

"I'd applaud [the painted lines] just because the city took a long time to do it, more people got injured, more people could have died," he said.

In an emailed statement on Monday, a Saskatoon Police Service spokesperson said the act would generally be considered mischief and would be illegal, however they were not aware of a report being made about the lane and box painted onto the sidewalk.