Improvement Made to Stuart Street & Lemay Avenue Intersection

After surveying the community back in December 2021, asking about any incidents or unsafe experiences people have had at the intersection of Stuart Street & Lemay Avenue, this past spring, as part of our Intersection/Facility Focus initiative, we also brought the intersection to the attention of city staff, as well as presented it to the Bicycle Advisory Committee.

The issue or problem that we presented was how both, the westbound and eastbound directions on Stuart Street at the intersection of Lemay Avenue lack safe bicycle facilities. While the bike lanes in each direction on Stuart Street through this intersection, and along the entire stretch of Stuart, are relatively nice (would love them to be buffered too), the bike lanes disappear at the intersection–the very place where most vehicle-bike conflicts occur. Here’s an example of an open-ended repsonse we received from our survey:

“Going westbound on Stuart….once across the junction the care home on Stuart always has parked vehicles which forces bikes to merge into traffic as the bike lane starts 15′ further down the road.”

While we are still advocating and working with the city on how to provide more bicycle infrastructure to the intersection, like adding our recommended bike boxes, as a result of our efforts, we are happy to report that in June the city did install an additional portion of bike lane on westbound Stuart that begins immediately at the intersection (see the video below that showcases the BEFORE and AFTER experience). This should mitigate any illegal parking outside the care home, thus blocking the bike lane, as well as better mark the travel lane for westbound vehicular traffic, enabling bikes and vehciles to travel through that throat of the intersection more safely.

Thank you to the community for your input and to the city for sharing the same concern and desire we had to improve this intersection. Hopefully additional improvements to the intersection are still yet to come, such as our recommended bike boxes and/or a “No (right) turn on red” from eastbound Sturart on to south Lemay Avenue. Stay tuned.