Category — Cycling

City engineers are beginning consultations on a proposed Hornby St. separated bike lane, the last link in the improved safe cycling route across the downtown core approved by council earlier this year.

If problems identified by residents and businesses are manageable, the new lane could be in place before the end of the year. Cycling trips, meanwhile, are jumping as a share of overall traffic, rising 24 percent across the Burrard Bridge and up 400 percent to about 2,000 a day on the Dunsmuir route since the downtown Dunsmuir lane opened.

According to staff estimates, the 3,500 cycle commuters are already saving Translink the trouble of finding capacity equivalent to another 65 to 75 full transit buses a day. That saving will only grow.

Today’s news that Vancouver’s downtown parking is the cheapest in Canada is not news at all, but says a great deal about the region’s successful shift to transit and, to a lesser extent, cycling.

Traffic to the downtown peninsula has been decreasing for the last decade, despite perceptions of gridlock. Why? Undoubtedly more commuters are using transit, as parking operators note. Soon, we hope, more will be cycling.

It’s hard to credit, however, the claim here that the new bike lanes are emptying the lots. Would that it were so.

Driver traffic violations on the Ontario bike route.

The war of words between drivers and cyclists shows little sign of abating.

In the wake of cyclist outrage about a “crackdown” on riders by ticket-issuing members of the VPD, a group of cyclists has staked out the Ontario bike route at 10th Ave. to monitor drivers for violations.

The results, distributed to media outlets today, were unsurprising. Citizens for Safe Bikeways claimed to have documented 18 dangerous incidents in a few hours.

(No doubt a similar stakeout by driver could produce worrying results for cyclist.)

As I learned late last month, when I brought together several VPD officers responsible for traffic enforcement for a discussion with some leading members of the cycling community, it comes down to resources.

My mailbox receives demands daily, from both motorists and cyclists, for a crackdown on the other side. To crack down on everyone, everywhere, would require a second police department. [Read more →]

Interest is growing in this motion I’m proposing at council today for a BC Cycling Development Program with the view of co-ordinating cycling policy and investment province-wide. Drafted with the advice of some leading cycling advocates, it seeks to create a new relationship between municipalities and Victoria to tackle many issues that local governments can’t deal with on their own.