Cyclists trying to access the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus in Kelowna could soon be forced to take a dangerous highway to school, if a lawsuit by the university's neighbours succeeds.
UBC Okanagan is located at the north end of Kelowna. It is flanked by Highway 97 on the east and farm land on the west. Access from the west is through a private dirt and gravel road that cuts across 10 farms and is considered by many to be the only safe cycling route onto campus.
But in the latest chapter of a continuing dispute, owners of four of those farms are asking the Supreme Court of B.C. to block the university's use of the road.
Kathy Lafontaine's horse farm is the last property along the road before the campus. "It's our driveway," she said. "I've had people almost run into me and my horses on my own driveway."
The road was built in the early 1980s and collectively belongs to the properties adjacent to it. A hayfield at the end of the road was absorbed into the nearby Okanagan University College campus in the 1990s, which gave it the right to use the road. The province turned the campus over to UBC in 2005.
Ms. Lafontaine said that before UBC took over, "the occasional person came through but it wasn't overwhelming."
But what was once a trickle has turned into a flood, she added. In the half hour before classes started on a Monday morning during the summer semester - the university's slowest time of year - about 15 cyclists and pedestrians went by Ms. Lafontaine's property.
But in the spring and fall, when the university is at its busiest, those numbers swell to "several hundred people a day," she said.
And while the university doesn't allow motorized access from the road, Ms. Lafontaine said motorcycles, mopeds and cars frequently park on her property while their drivers dash up to the university.
UBC has effectively turned "a private road into a public road," she said.
Because it is a private road, it's not policed. "We can ask nicely but we have no ability to control behaviour of vehicles or pedestrians on our own property," Ms. Lafontaine said.
The university and its neighbours have had continuing discussions about the road for several years. But in December, residents decided things had dragged on long enough and put a gate at the end of the road to control access. The university got an injunction forcing the gate to remain open. The current lawsuit, filed in mid-June, is the residents' latest salvo.
UBC Okanagan's deputy vice-chancellor, Doug Owram, said that while the university does not encourage use of the road, it has the right to access it. He added that UBC conducted a survey and found that about 40 or 50 people a day use the road. "It's actually been a pretty limited use." He said the bigger issue is "we need good bicycling access to campus."
Trying to bike along Highway 97 to the university is "really dangerous," said Robert Whiteley, a UBC Okanagan faculty member who rides to work. He said when he tried it five years ago, a passing transport truck came so close to him, he almost touched its wheel. "I was scared. … I was shaking when I got to the other side."
Since that day he has mostly used the private road.
Ms. Lafontaine said she hopes that if the lawsuit succeeds, it will put pressure on the City of Kelowna to develop additional public routes onto campus.
A plan to build a bike path next to a set of railway tracks was thwarted last year when CN Rail refused to allow it because of liability concerns.
Kelowna's director of regional services, Ron Westlake, said the city will continue to lobby CN and, if that doesn't succeed, it will look at partnering with UBC and the provincial government to build a separated corridor.
He also said there are plans to build another public road on the university's west side. However, it won't be as direct a route as the private road and there is no firm timeline for its construction.
Special to The Globe and Mail