Councillor chips in cycling plan

Photo: Contributed - UBCM Twitter

Cycling could be the new golf in the South Okanagan if one councillor's plan gains traction from the province.

This was the second year Penticton council brought the idea of designating the South Okanagan an official cycling destination to the UBCM conference.

Coun. Andrew Jakubeit said they're making more progress after each meeting.

"Part of last year's success was getting the Ministry of Transport to meet and designate common routes that cyclists use," he said.

Now council is at the next stage with the ministry, pushing for funding for way-finding signage, improved route maintenance and branding. 

"We wanted to move it forward from being a self-proclaimed destination, to a provincially recognized area and that's why we met with tourism and other stakeholders like Destination BC to help us with branding. It would be like the wine route signs already out there."

With designated routes and proper signage, Jakubeit said they could further develop those routes and increase rider safety. 

Jakubeit said Penticton should be capitalizing on sport tourism which works together with unique features of the local environment.

"There are not that many regions in BC that are like us: beautiful lake views, scenic vineyards, country roads and a car culture that is used to people out there training," he said. "People could come ride their bike in the morning and then go shopping or wine touring - it's adding to diversity."

Another part of encouraging sport tourism is to look into developing a provincial traffic management plan for sporting events. The goal would be to reduce costs for larger events, which might be discouraged by having to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars devising their own plan.

"Cycling is the new golf and people are jumping on that bandwagon. There's huge potential here and we have an opportunity of leveraging it better than many other local communities."