The city says it needs to provide transportation choices for Calgarians and believes better bike routes will help people get around the downtown easier.

“We’re quite certain there are lots of people interested in biking but feel afraid of mixing with traffic, we know this from a random phone survey we did back in 2011, about two thirds of the people who responded said I’m interested in biking, I’m a little concerned about mixing with traffic, I’m not that brave. So we know if we provide the dedicated facilities more people will try it out” said Blanka Bracic, Transportation Engineer for the City of Calgary.

For those who do it all the time, cycling through downtown Calgary is second nature.

“It's pretty simple really, it's small it's tight it's a grid, and if you do this long enough it becomes automatic,” said Darcy Scott, West Direct Courier.

But some say it can be risky if drivers aren't paying attention

“They don't look. They don't use their signals properly, they have no awareness of anything around them ,” said Jason Yaholkoski, Courier.

The city is hoping to make the streets safer for cyclists and plans to build more barricaded routes downtown to give bikers a safe path through the core.

One idea is to divert cyclists down Stephen Avenue but business owners in the area say that's not safe either.

“Pedestrians feel very safe here and they don't necessarily pay attention to where they're going and that really concerns us when you mix cyclists and pedestrians, it's generally not a good thing to do,” said Maggie Schofield from the Downtown Business Association.

The city says no decision has been made yet about Stephen Avenue.

“We’re just starting a conversation of how cycling could work there and if it could work what would it look like?” said Bracic.

Some cyclists say it would be easier and cheaper to simply allow them to bike carefully down the sidewalks.

“A cyclist can do the Tour de France or they can be five years old, you can be very responsible as a cyclist if you want to do 30 kilometers an hour down Stephen Avenue, you can do that and if you are on a sidewalk, you slow down and be responsible,” said Scott.

The city says that’s not an option because the sidewalks are too small to share.

“In the downtown we’ve got so many people already walking, we need to provide dedicated space for people walking and dedicated space for people biking, we generally want to provide enough space for everybody to do what they need to do,” said Bracic.

An open house is being held on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. at Hotel Arts so people can view draft plans of a cycle track network.

Two additional sessions will be held on February 10 at CORE Shopping Centre and on February 11 at Suncor Energy Centre.

The city is also collecting feedback through an online survey until February 22.

For more information, visit the city’s cycle track network page on its website.

(With files from Chris Epp)