Central Avenue Cycling Improvements

The City of London will be installing new cycling infrastructure on Central Avenue 2024 and 2025. This includes new cycling facilities on Central Avenue between Richmond Street and William Street and an expanded plaza on the southeast corner of Richmond Street and Central Avenue. Resurfacing of Central Avenue from Maitland Street to William Street was completed in 2023.

The cycling facilities will be physically protected from vehicles between Richmond and Colborne Street. This includes concrete medians in the Victoria Park block, and green flexible bollards from Wellington to Colborne Street.

East of Colborne to Adelaide Street, the bike lanes will be painted. The different treatments are due to the higher traffic volumes closer to Richmond Street.

Next Steps

Construction activity to replace the traffic signals at Central Avenue and Richmond Street will recommence in April 2025. Landscaping, pavement markings, and signage will also be completed at this time, with the project expected to be finished by June 2025.

New: Landscape Design

Learn about the landscape design features being added as part of the Central Avenue cycling improvement project by watching the video below.

Overall Project Design

Through public engagement on the proposed design for new bike lanes on Central Avenue, the City of London’s transportation planning and design team heard from the community:

• support for improved cycling infrastructure along Central Avenue
• concerns relating to loss of parking on the north side of Central Avenue, in particular within the Richmond to Wellington Street block
• desire to see both safe cycling infrastructure and preservation of parking next to Victoria Park

After reviewing community feedback and further investigating opportunities to accommodate parking and improved cycling infrastructure, the design has been updated as follows:

• Westbound bike lanes located on the north side of Central Avenue (previously designed to be installed on-street, with curb protection) will be installed in-boulevard, next to the sidewalk.
  • The existing sidewalk in this block of Central Avenue is in need of repair and the City will use this opportunity to replace it at the same time

This change will result in:

• Removal of 9 trees from City of London right of way
  • Replanting of trees behind the sidewalk will occur where possible
• Preservation of 12 parking spots on north side of Central Avenue, which were impacted by the previous design

Above: A cross-section showing the updated design on Central Avenue between Richmond and Wellington Street

Additional Parking Locations

In addition to preserving parking spots on Central Avenue, additional on-street parking locations spots will be implemented on Richmond Street between John Street and Dufferin Avenue. This will involve converting some temporary parking to permanent and some sections of the vehicle curb lane to time-restricted parking.

The bus bay located northeast of the Richmond Street/ Central Avenue intersection will also be converted to parking spaces. This is made possible by closing the slip lane from Richmond Street to Central Avenue as part of the project.

The original design presentation is below.

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