Edmonton Bike Coalition: 2024 Recap & 2025 Plans

What We Did in 2024

🚴 Advocacy & Engagement

• Directly engaged with City Administration & Council to advocate for better cycling infrastructure, route selection, and policy improvements related to the $100M Active Transportation Expansion and neighbourhood renewal projects.

• Worked on the Complete Streets Design & Construction Standards (CSDCS) to ensure that cyclists’ needs are enshrined in city policy.

• Provided feedback on major City policy initiatives such as Zoning Bylaw Renewal, Priority Growth Area Rezoning, and Wikwentowin renewal.

📢 Public Outreach & Awareness

• Highlighted 179 events across the city to provide cyclists with a centralized place for group rides, advocacy opportunities, and engagement events.

• Grew our email list by 581%, while maintaining open rates in the 60% range, and with only one unsubscriber all time.

• Expanded our social media following, now at nearly 2000 followers, and expanded to Instagram & Bluesky

• Hosted four events, including Halloween Critical Mass and participated in numerous group rides and meetups to engage with riders of all ages and abilities.

• Improved community engagement strategies by attending local rides, speaking with different cycling demographics, and gathering feedback in-person and online.

🛣 Infrastructure Monitoring & Policy Recommendations

• Actively monitored the City’s Active Transportation Rapid Expansion project to call out gaps in design, missing connections, and infrastructure shortcomings.

• Fought against the City’s sidewalk cycling ban by highlighting the incompleteness of the bike network and safety issues related to forcing cyclists onto unsafe streets.

🌨 Winter Maintenance Advocacy

• Addressed major gaps in winter maintenance, particularly after major storms.

• Collected community feedback on snow & ice removal, bringing these concerns to City officials and councillors.

• Highlighted the need for a reactive winter clearing plan that accounts for forecasted weather changes and post-weekend snowstorm priorities.

• Fought against residents and businesses pushing snow into bike lanes.

What We Heard from the Community

🛑 Major Barriers to Cycling in Edmonton

• Incomplete infrastructure network—gaps between bike routes make cycling stressful and unsafe for many riders.

• Winter maintenance remains unreliable—bike lanes are often unusable after major snowfalls.

• Illegal obstructions (cars, construction, and snow piles) are not being enforced properly.

• Some existing infrastructure is poorly designed—multi-use paths lack intersection protections, and local street bikeways do not include real traffic calming.

• Sidewalk riding bans are being implemented despite the lack of a fully connected, always-available network.

• Flexiposts do not provide real protection—bollards or other physical separation are needed.

🚦 Cyclists Want:
✅ A gap-free, safe, and well-maintained network connecting every ward.
✅ Improved snow removal and ice control that enables year-round cycling for all ages, abilities, and bikes.
✅ Stronger enforcement of illegal parking and snow removal violations blocking bike lanes.
✅ Secure bike parking at major destinations—including transit stations, event venues, and grocery stores.
✅ Improved wayfinding and signage to make navigating the bike network easier.
✅ Better infrastructure design—continuous crossings, better traffic signals, and safer intersections for cyclists.
✅ Funding allocations that reflect cycling’s role as transportation, not just recreation.

What We Plan to Do in 2025

🗳 Municipal Election Advocacy

• Identify and highlight cycling-friendly candidates for the 2025 municipal election.

• Encourage voters to ask candidates about their commitments to cycling infrastructure and ATAN.

🚴 Active Transportation Arterial Network (ATAN) Implementation

• Work with council and administration to formally designate and implement ATAN as the core cycling network.

• Ensure that ATAN features:

  • Connections between each ward and its adjacent wards.

  • Priority 1 snow clearing year-round.

  • Proactive bylaw enforcement to prevent blockages.

  • Cyclist priority over other modes at key intersections.

❄️ Winter Cycling & Snow Removal Improvements

• Push for a formalized, responsive snow clearing strategy based on forecasted conditions.

• Ensure icy hills and high-risk areas are prioritized for de-icing and clearing.

• Advocate for businesses and residents to be fined for pushing snow into bike lanes.

• Push for dedicated snow-clearing equipment for bike lanes to improve reliability.

🚏 Better Infrastructure & Policy Changes

• Continue advocating for fully protected bike lanes—no more painted lanes or flexipost-only solutions.

• Push for Local Street Bikeway upgrades—real traffic calming, modal filters, intersection daylighting, and no unnecessary stop signs for cyclists.

• Advocate for bike parking at major transit stations, large events, and in underused parkades.

• Work to improve wayfinding, install better cyclist detection at intersections, and prioritize real safety over perceived safety.

• Work towards replacing flexiposts with real barriers to improve cyclist safety.

• Advocate for better intersection designs and more cyclist-friendly traffic signals.

• Ensure that the remainder of the City’s Bike Plan gets funded properly before the end of 2027.

📢 Community Engagement & Visibility

• Host more events and meetups to bring in a wider variety of riders.

• Expand public campaigns on winter cycling, safety issues, and policy changes.

• Continue highlighting engagement opportunities for neighbourhood renewal and city-wide infrastructure planning.

• Keep building relationships with City Council and administration to ensure cycling remains a top priority.

📊 Holding the City Accountable

• Push for transportation spending to be tied to modal share—so that cycling receives funding proportionate to its actual and potential ridership.

• Demand greater transparency in cycling-related spending, project delays, and route selection.

• Continue tracking missing links and gaps in Edmonton’s cycling network and pressuring the City to fix them.

🚴‍♂️ We’ve made big strides in 2024, but there’s still work to do. Let’s make 2025 the year Edmonton finally delivers a real, safe, and connected cycling network.