Category — Cycling

The first round of Hornby bike lane statistics is in and the results give grounds for optimism: traffic travel times remain the same in the morning, are about 60 seconds longer in the afternoon, and bike trips are a solid 600 a day, even in miserable January weather.

The story in brief:.

• Based on preliminary findings, cyclists are using the separated bike lane on Hornby Street regularly;
• Usage is growing, and the latest mid-week average ridership was 600 bikes per day in January, with numbers expected to rise heading into the spring and summer;
• vehicle travel times along Hornby Street are unchanged on weekday mornings; and
• travel times have increased by one minute (from 5½ to 6½ minutes) on weekday afternoons . . . equivalent to one traffic signal cycle. 

The city has also installed new digital parkade signs at EasyPark lots at Pacific Centre and another at 900 West Cordova. The signs, connected to on site parking-space monitoring equipment, indicate how many parking spaces are currently available inside each parkade.

The latest kerfuffle over separated bike lanes — here’s my reply to Rob Macdonald’s recent broadside — has focussed on three issues: consultation, business impacts and improved safety for cyclists.

The consultation began with Gregor Robertson’s election platform commitment to improve cycling infrastructure. The study of business impacts continues.

Now a new peer-reviewed study confirms the safety margin provided by separated bike lanes, with accidents reduced overall by as much as 28 percent despite increased numbers of cyclists.

The study, from Montreal, found cycling volumes were 2.5 times larger on one route with no discernible increase in accident rates. In fact, in one comparison the accident rate was almost halved when larger cycling volumes on the bike path were taken into account:

“There were 74 injuries reported during that nine-year time period on Berri St. where there is a bike path, and 27 were reported on St. Denis, where there is none. Relative risk was then analyzed, taking into account the different levels of use by cyclists, and Berri St. was found to be about half (48 per cent) as risky as St. Denis St.”

The study attributes the decline in accident rates to the separated lanes. Safety concerns are, of course, a key factor in depressing the number of cyclists.

Pedestrians, cyclists and almost every city neighbourhood will benefit from $2 million in strategic “active transportation” investments proposed in this year’s capital spending program, headed to council for approval next week. (Details are in Appendix 6.)

These new bikeways and traffic calming measures will dramatically improve walking and cycling on the North Arm Trail Greenway, generally along 59th Ave. from Angus Dr. to Vivian Dr.; the 45th Ave. Bikeway; the Dumfries St. Bikeway; thePrince Edwdard St. Bikeway and the long-awaited first phase of the Comox-Helmcken Corridor, which will ultimately link Stanley Park to the Seawall near the Roundhouse, then to the Central Valley Greenway.

It’s all part of the $20 million in capital investments promised last year as the city prepares to rewrite its transportation plan for the next decade. As the title of these investments imply, the city’s engineering department is focusing now on “active transportation,” not just cycling, to ensure pedestrians get their due as one of the largest and most sustainable participants in the city system.

Consultation has been extensive on all the routes and none involves a separated bike lane.

According to Danish architect Jan Gehl, a global leader in the development of active streets and successful public space, those who want to improve the lot of pedestrians and cyclists should follow the example of traffic engineers. They should assemble data.

By studying what people were doing on streets — for example, that they walk in spaces and stop at edges — Gehl was able to predict and plan what would enliven and animate streets.

“We asked why people stop walking, what they are doing was that means for homo sapiens, democracy, social inclusion.”

In an engaging workshop today with faculty and students from the UBC School of Architecture, Gehl urged his audience to “focus on people.” It is easy to discuss buildings, he told them, but much more difficult to understand the “life and interaction” of the people in and between them.

Gehl’s work, summarized in his new book Cities are for People, emerged from his experience in Copenhagen, where the data collected from a street closure inspired politicians to “clean up the city” to make it more useful to pedestrians and cyclists. Traffic engineers had long used data to move the political agenda, Gehl noted, and facts were needed to help other city users.

The result is an emerging global movement in many cities to “have citizens, face to face, getting to know each other,” in public space and streets. The results are good: for people, for business, for the community overall.