The city is closing down one lane of the Victoria Park perimeter road this summer to create a bike path, pending a legal opinion that it can do so without a public meeting.
Charlottetown City Council held a special open meeting on the bicycle path plans Thursday but no one from the public attended, other than The Guardian.
Sue Hendricken, manager of the city's parks and recreation department, presented council with recommendations from a report looking at encouraging "active transportation" in the whole of the city.
One recommendation was to create a lane in Victoria Park for self-propelled transportation such as bicycles and roller blades.
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The inside lane will be reserved for bicycles and rollerblades and other self-propelled transport. The inside lane will itself be split in two with a painted traffic line on the pavement, setting aside opposing lanes for two-way bicycle traffic.
Where there is no median, such as the centre road to the tennis courts or the playground and pool area, the division between the car lane and bicycle path will be marked with concrete flower planters.
Vehicles wanting to turn into the Kiwanis canteen or the tennis courts will be required to yield to bicycles and others using the inside lane.
"This temporary closure will be a pilot project to establish the level of use of the inside lane by the cycling and wheeling public," said Hendricken. "If at the end of the two or three months we don't find that it is being used all that much then we can just go back to business as usual. There is no harm done."
Council decided to change the traffic flow staring July 1 and running until the end of the September.
Mayor Clifford Lee asked if a public meeting is required to take the road closure action. It was decided by council to make inquires of that issue and if yes, a meeting will be called and if no, the closure will go ahead starting July 1.
Councilor after councillor spoke in favour until it came to Stu MacFadyen.
"You people don't know how many people go to that park in cars who are not able to go anywhere else," said MacFadyen. "Their whole life they have been there. I have seen people there for over 50 years, the same people.
"They are there just because they love the park. It's a quiet spot. I know that we are going to have a lot of seniors that are not going to like this decision and I am one of them."
He and councillor Peter McCloskey were the only two to vote against the lane closure.
Other parts of the active transportation study presented by Hendricken included a decision to look at closing one lane of Fitzroy street to make it a cycling lane in the future.
Immediate action not requiring a vote from council include putting bike racks in the parkades, putting up signs to show bike routes leading to the Confederation Trail and a host of small promotional actions to encourage biking.
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