If you ride a bike in Edmonton's core, you already know that 102 Avenue has been under construction for months. What you may not know is how badly the detour has been handled — and how much worse things are about to get.
102 Avenue is currently closed between 108 Street and 103 Street. Cyclists are supposed to be detoured onto 103 Avenue. That detour includes a dismount-and-walk section. Let that sink in: the official detour for one of Edmonton's primary east-west cycling corridors requires you to get off your bike and walk. It is poorly signed, poorly connected, and dangerous. This was not an accident or an unforeseen complication. It was predictable. It was avoidable. And it happened anyway.
This isn't the first time.
Last summer, the problems on this corridor stacked up one on top of another. 102 Avenue was closed at 100 Street for the library construction vehicles to park in. The 99 Street section — where the 102 Avenue bike lane reconnects to 103 Avenue — was repeatedly closed for festivals. And 103 Avenue itself was blocked for much of the summer by a large piece of construction equipment that sat in the bike lane and barely moved.
That closure forced cyclists to make an unsafe crossing at 97 Street, moving from the south-side bidirectional lane back to the westbound lane on the north side — at a busy intersection, with impatient drivers, and no meaningful protection. It was dangerous. It was unnecessary. And it was entirely within the City's and Marigold's power to prevent.
Making things worse, winter maintenance on 103 Avenue has been noticeably worse than on 102 Avenue — the very route it is supposed to replace. A detour that is less safe, less connected, and less maintained than the road it stands in for is not a detour. It is an afterthought.
Throughout all of this, the Coalition asked the City and Marigold to extend the 103 Avenue connection all the way to Churchill Square. This isn't a radical ask — it's the most direct route along a wide and over-built roadway that rarely gets much car traffic. The 102 Avenue bike lane already returns to 103 Avenue at 99 Street, so a continuous 103 Avenue connection would simply complete the logical path. We documented the problems and proposed solutions in detail last November. The City and Marigold declined to act.
On or around March 16, 102 Avenue will be fully closed to all traffic between 107 Street and 102 Street — a significantly larger closure than what is currently in place. Phase one alone is expected to last 20 weeks — nearly five months, covering the entire spring and summer riding season. But here's the part the notice buries: 102 Avenue is expected to remain closed until the end of 2026. That is not a temporary inconvenience. That is an entire year of severed cycling infrastructure through the heart of the city.
Twenty weeks. Nearly five months. The entire spring and summer riding season.
The section between 103 Street and 102 Street — where cyclists coming off the broken 103 Avenue detour were supposed to reconnect to the main bike lane network — will be replaced with a temporary Shared Use Path. In practice, this means a narrow sidewalk, hemmed in by construction hoarding and other obstructions, shared between cyclists and pedestrians. This is not an infrastructure solution. It is a liability disclaimer dressed up as one.
And it gets worse still. The notice states that cyclists will be asked to dismount and walk their bicycles at two points: across 102 Avenue at 106 Street, and between 103 Street and the SUP. Two dismount sections. On the same corridor. One of which already exists on the current broken detour.
This is not a cycling detour. It is a cycling obstacle course.
The YEG Bike Coalition has been raising concerns about the 102 Avenue corridor for months. The problems with the 103 Avenue detour were flagged early. They were not addressed. And now, instead of fixing what was already broken, the City and Marigold are compounding the problem with a closure that will last the rest of the year — with dismount sections, a downgraded SUP, and no continuous safe route for people on bikes.
Edmonton has a Bike Plan. It has a Vision Zero commitment. It has Complete Streets design standards (not that they are exaclty good standards). None of that matters if the City allows active transportation infrastructure to be severed for an entire construction season without a meaningful detour.
And lest anyone think this is an isolated failure — this is the same administration that recently told the Wîhkwêntôwin Neighbourhood Renewal team that the painted bike lanes on 106 Avenue and 121 Street are safe enough to leave as-is. Painted lines that disappear under snow for weeks on end. Painted lines that force close passes. Painted lines at a dangerous corner with a difficult crossing. Safe enough, according to the City — in a city that claims to be committed to Vision Zero.
A pattern is a pattern.
The City and Marigold are holding a public information session on March 10 at the Don Wheaton Family YMCA (Studio 1), anytime between 2–7 pm. Show up. Ask hard questions. Demand to know what the safe cycling detour looks like — in detail, on a map, with a maintenance commitment attached.
You can also contact the City of Edmonton directly at lrtprojects@edmonton.ca or call the LRT Projects Information Centre at 780-496-4874 and you should absolutely send an email to your city councillor.
The Coalition will be there. We'll be watching. And we'll be reporting back.