[Locked] Burrard Street Bridge Cycling Improvements | Completed

[DKaz]

Man a lot of angry callers on to News 1130 about the Burrard Street Bridge! We're a tame bunch in comparison.

[Locked In]

WBC mentioned the result yesterday, but here's some more detail on the approved trial:

Cyclists win sole access to lane, sidewalk on Burrard Bridge

By Rebecca teBrake, Vancouver Sun - May 7, 2009


Cyclists ride along the Burrard St. Bridge. Photograph by: .., Vancouver Sun files

VANCOUVER - Motorists leaving the downtown core will lose one southbound lane on the Burrard Street Bridge by mid- to late-June.

City council voted Thursday to close the lane to make it safer for cyclists, who until now have been sharing the 2.6-metre sidewalk with pedestrians.

The new plan creates one-way cycle lanes for bikes on either side of the bridge.

Bikes headed northbound will get sole access to the sidewalk, while southbound cyclists will takeover the street’s curbside lane. All pedestrians will be routed to the west sidewalk. Barriers will also be erected to keep cyclists out of traffic.

“We need to make the bridge safer as soon as possible, and a one-lane trial that separates pedestrians, bikers and vehicles is the pragmatic option,” said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

“A substantial trial will improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians, while providing a more timely and financially responsible option than widening the sidewalks at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.”

Lone NPA councillor Susan Anton was not present at the vote. COPE councillors David Cadman and Ellen Woodsworth voted against the proposal, saying two full lanes of the bridge should have been dedicated to bikes.

“It’s not the solution we need,” Cadman said. “It’s basically saying we want a solution that wouldn’t compromise motor vehicles. It’s an accident waiting to happen.”

Traffic leaving downtown will merge at Pacific Street before crossing the bridge. City engineers will be considering dozens of traffic diversion measures like signal changes, turn restrictions and curb shrinking to reroute traffic towards the Granville and Cambie street bridges.

The trial keeps open three northbound lanes, which carry the most concentrated flows of traffic during the morning commute, assistant city engineer Jerry Dobrovolny said.

Pedestrians, 2,300 of whom use the bridge daily, will cross Burrard Street at Pacific Street and First Avenue.

“We will have signage showing them the easiest routes to redirect and go around.”

Changes will also be made to maintain transit times.

“Once the buses are on the bridge then they’ll be flowing at the same speed of traffic, but there will be queue jumpers to get them up to the front of the line,” Dobrovolny said.

“We are also looking at a separate signal phase so buses can advance first,” Dobrovolny said.

City staff will monitor traffic flows around the bridge throughout the trial. They will submit an interim report to council in July and could make adjustments during the course of the trial.

“We will have achieved success if the number of accidents go down. We will have achieved success if people find other ways in and out of the city. We will have achieved success if cycling continues to go up the way it has in the recent years,” Coun. Heather Deal said.

According to city statistics, cycling trips into the downtown core increased by 180 per cent over the past decade, reaching 60,000 daily trips. But bike trips over the Burrard Bridge plateaued in 2001.

The trial does not have a specified end date. In Tuesday’s meeting, city staff said they hope the trial will last at least six months.

This option was one of three proposed by city staff. A plan to close two lanes of the bridge was rejected as too disruptive for motorists. Another option, which left pedestrians and cyclists sharing the east sidewalk, was also rejected because councillors decided it didn’t address safety concerns.

Arno Schortinghuis, president of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, saw the decision as a tempered victory.

“I would have been overjoyed if they had gone for the two-lane trial. It would have shown vision and courage,” he said.

[email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Source: Vancouver Sun

[zivan56]

What's with Gregor's Hitler mustache/goatee mix during the press conference today?

[racc]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Man a lot of angry callers on to News 1130 about the Burrard Street Bridge! We're a tame bunch in comparison.

One of the 20 lanes over False Creek is reallocated and people panic. The sky is falling.

[jlousa]

Originally Posted by racc

Amateur engineer hour is getting a bit tiresome. The city looked into this and came up with the estimates of actually $50 million for a basic bridge to $250 million for a signature bridge. That was a few years ago, so the cost would be greater by now.

Amateur engineer? Wow that's a new tittle for me, care to show me the report with the $50Million quote please. After you've done that I'll show you dozens of new bridges built recently to similar spec and in north america for under $20Million.

PS I'm not saying that report doesn't exist, if it does I want to read it and pick it apart as ridiculous.

[racc]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Amateur engineer? Wow that's a new tittle for me, care to show me the report with the $50Million quote please. After you've done that I'll show you dozens of new bridges built recently to similar spec and in north america for under $20Million.

PS I'm not saying that report doesn't exist, if it does I want to read it and pick it apart as ridiculous.

Yeah, you and all the bright sparks that think after 16 years somehow they have come up with the solution that no one else has thought of especially one as obvious as a new bridge. Then you ask others to do the research into what has happened over the last 16 years. Give me a break. Throughout the process, new councillors consistently bring up a new bridge and ask staff what it would cost.

With google and the internet there is no excuse for not finding the answer yourself.

Just to help you, it is stated on the city's web site, I guess not the obvious place for it.
http://vancouver.ca/projects/burrard/faq.htm

Why not build a new bridge?

A new bridge would cost at least $100 million to build and that's just for the structure itself. Land acquisition could drive the cost up even higher. Locating a new bridge in a heavily built-up urban environment also presents major challenges, on top of the need to meet federal requirements for navigation in busy False Creek.

If you want more info, poke around the city's web site or phone them yourself.

And at the risk of repeating my other posts, the other issue with a new bridge is that it might be difficult to site it close enough to Burrard Bridge so that it serves as a convenient alternative to Burrard. While it would be great to have a new bridge, quite likely improvements would still be need to Burrard Bridge.

[jlousa]

That is the price of a new full bridge, not a passerelle. What I am talking about is a bike/ped only bridge racc.

Here are some recent examples, the first one is in San Jose and cost $15Million, it would more then suffice.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12256132

This one is proposed for Eugene Orgeon and will be 1500ft long, twice the length of the burrard bridge, the cost a whopping $6.2Million

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/updates/12556266-55/story.csp

This one is again in California, and only cost 3.5Million but it was a decade ago, but again it's 900ft long.

http://home.comcast.net/~kenseq/bridges/bike.html

Again don't be so defensive, I'm not arguing against expanded bike infrastructure, I'm actually arguing in spending the money right and building proper infrastructure.

[racc]

Originally Posted by jlousa

That is the price of a new full bridge, not a passerelle. What I am talking about is a bike/ped only bridge racc.

Here are some recent examples, the first one is in San Jose and cost $15Million, it would more then suffice.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12256132

This one is proposed for Eugene Orgeon and will be 1500ft long, twice the length of the burrard bridge, the cost a whopping $6.2Million

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/updates/12556266-55/story.csp

This one is again in California, and only cost 3.5Million but it was a decade ago, but again it's 900ft long.

http://home.comcast.net/~kenseq/bridges/bike.html

Again don't be so defensive, I'm not arguing against expanded bike infrastructure, I'm actually arguing in spending the money right and building proper infrastructure.

Not defensive, annoyed. Who cares about the cost of projects elsewhere in different contexts. It won't make a new bridge here any less expensive or more practically.

First of all, don't forget to convert feet to metres. Another is that many of the bridges you quote are over land not water. And still you haven't even bothered finding anything about the requirements for a bridge over False Creek to determine if the bridges you are finding are in anyway comparable to what would be built over False Creek.

I guess I'll have to spell it out for you. Due to Transport Canada regs, the bridge would have to be almost as high as the Burrard Bridge and require long approaches to keep the grades below 5% for cyclists and wheelchairs. If it was lower, it would have to be a draw bridge which would be expensive and have ongoing operational costs. If it was opened often, people would not use it and simply keep using Burrard.

The bridges you quote would also be too narrow. The one from San Jose was only predicted to carry 265,000 people per year while the Burrard Bridge carries around 2 million. Ideally it would have a 4 metre path for peds and a 4 metre path for cyclists to handle the volumes of traffic that would be expected. That is probably at least twice as wide as the San Jose Bridge.

So please, again, do your research so we can have an informed discussion.

[WBC]

Originally Posted by racc

Not defensive, annoyed. Who cares about the cost of projects elsewhere in different contexts. It won't make a new bridge here any less expensive or more practically.

Yes, well we here tend to be champions of expensive and impractical (see Olympic village). It still boggles the mind that it would "cost" somewhere around $60 mill to widen the sidewalks on the Burrard bridge. Didn't Lion's gate bridge entire deck get replaced for something like 100 mill? Can't we do something for cheap in this town? Instead of asking the city's engineering department on how much the bridge would cost how about an open competition for design and construction of a bridge that would cost under $20 mill? It does not cost anything to listen to ideas from private sector. One thing I learned in my line of work (IT) is that if you listen to governments at various levels nothing is ever possible or doable, but if you present them with a solution they will tend to go along with it...

[racc]

Originally Posted by WBC

Yes, well we here tend to be champions of expensive and impractical (see Olympic village). It still boggles the mind that it would "cost" somewhere around $60 mill to widen the sidewalks on the Burrard bridge. Didn't Lion's gate bridge entire deck get replaced for something like 100 mill? Can't we do something for cheap in this town? Instead of asking the city's engineering department on how much the bridge would cost how about an open competition for design and construction of a bridge that would cost under $20 mill? It does not cost anything to listen to ideas from private sector. One thing I learned in my line of work (IT) is that if you listen to governments at various levels nothing is ever possible or doable, but if you present them with a solution they will tend to go along with it...

Well, $100 million was the initial estimate. It came in at $150 million. That was 10 years ago and costs have gone up since. The Central Valley Greenway Bridges came in at almost double the estimated costs. The Port Mann Twinning came in at almost double the initial estimate.

It is not like IT. A competition would not reduce costs much as a large portion of the cost is the materials, steel and concrete basically. To to a rough estimate, you take the length of the bridge times the width and go from there. A competition might result in a more attractive design but it would not save money. It might actually cost more.

[racc]

Back to the Lions Gate, the amount of material required for the sidewalk widening would be similar. They would be replacing the current sidewalks as well, so the width of the material required is 6m for each side and 12m for both sides. The Lions Gate has 3 3m lanes + 2 3m sidewalks for a total of 13m (probably a bit more) but the amount of steel would be similar for both so the material cost would be similar.

[jlousa]

Racc, I'm not sure what you think I do for a living, but I am very aware of what it costs to build something. Those bridges I quoted are comparable in length, the fact that the bridge needs to be a certain height only increases the length of the bridge by starting the bridge further back on higher ground in order to provide the clearance needed. The crossing at Burrard is ~700ft, with brining the start point back it's still well under the 1500ft of the Eugene bridge. Comparing costs of revitalizing existing bridges to building something new is irrelevant, it is almost always cheaper to build from scratch then to rework an existing project. A bike/ped bridge could be built for under $20Million, we would know that if the city put this out to tender.

It wouldn't need to be 8m wide, the standard for shared bike/ped bidirectional traffic is 3.0m as per build guidelines, even if we become very generous and double that it's only 6m wide. Again comparable to the bridges I posted.

Here's a good read on the issue by someone that is a user on here

http://www.pacificmetropolis.com/2007/02/vancouver_bike_.html

[racc]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Racc, I'm not sure what you think I do for a living, but I am very aware of what it costs to build something. Those bridges I quoted are comparable in length, the fact that the bridge needs to be a certain height only increases the length of the bridge by starting the bridge further back on higher ground in order to provide the clearance needed. The crossing at Burrard is ~700ft, with brining the start point back it's still well under the 1500ft of the Eugene bridge. Comparing costs of revitalizing existing bridges to building something new is irrelevant, it is almost always cheaper to build from scratch then to rework an existing project. A bike/ped bridge could be built for under $20Million, we would know that if the city put this out to tender.

It wouldn't need to be 8m wide, the standard for shared bike/ped bidirectional traffic is 3.0m as per build guidelines, even if we become very generous and double that it's only 6m wide. Again comparable to the bridges I posted.

Well, I must admit, you are very good at proving how little you know. Please follow my advice and do your research so we can have an informed discussion.

3m paths only work in very low volume applications, no more than a few hundred users per day. 4m is the current standard being used in the region and even that is proving problematic. Shared paths in general are a poor idea. Cyclists and pedestrians travel at different speeds so they really need separate paths. Pedestrians also like to walk side by side which makes it difficult for cyclists to pass them. On the new sections of the Seawall Path, there is a 4.5m ped path and 4.5m cycling path.

Don't forget what we are talking about here is the shared sidewalk on the Burrard Bridge, which is proving very dangerous and problematic. I'm not sure how you think a path that is only marginally wider than one of the sidewalks on the bridge, could handle the volume of both sidewalks. In addition to research, picking up some common sense would help.

A new bridge over False Creek connecting the Seaside Paths would prove extremely popular. People would stand on it just to enjoy the views and take pictures. It would likely be much busier than the Burrard Bridge or even the Seawall Path. To suggest a 3m width would be enough is totally laughable.

I'm not even sure 8m would be enough given the 4.5m standard for each the bike and ped paths on the Seawall. Paths on a bridge need a shy distance of .5m on each side so cyclists don't hit their handle bars on the railings so 10m or even 12m might even be needed to account for future increases in demand.

Regarding:

http://www.pacificmetropolis.com/2007/02/vancouver_bike_.html

, the $20 million quote for the sidewalk expansion and railing repair was before they did the detailed design work and found out the cost was $63 million including $30 for the widening. And, all the bridges you have found so far are much lower than the Burrard Bridge would have to be.

I am being tough on you here but hopefully you will use this as an opportunity to pick up your game.

[jlousa]

*l* Sorry that you don feel the international standards are insufficient even when doubled.

Here's yet another example of an equivalent bridge, This one was built by a staritect "Santiago Calatrava" it's 700ft in length and includes the worlds largest Sundial, it cost a whopping $24Million. But of course I'm still wrong and a simple function over form bridge can't possibly be built for ~$20Million.

I've already shown a few examples showing that is it. I'm done with this as it's obvious that we won't be getting a new crossing anytime soon and you can't be convinced it's possible.

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by racc

Don't forget what we are talking about here is the shared sidewalk on the Burrard Bridge, which is proving very dangerous and problematic. I'm not sure how you think a path that is only marginally wider than one of the sidewalks on the bridge, could handle the volume of both sidewalks. In addition to research, picking up some common sense would help.

Why would it have to handle the volume of both sidewalks? The new bridge could be for only pedestrian traffic, and the Burrard sidewalks could be converted to bicycle only (or vice versa).

I am being tough on you here but hopefully you will use this as an opportunity to pick up your game.

Wow. Keep it classy, racc...

[racc]

Originally Posted by jlousa

*l* Sorry that you don feel the international standards are insufficient even when doubled.

Here's yet another example of an equivalent bridge, This one was built by a staritect "Santiago Calatrava" it's 700ft in length and includes the worlds largest Sundial, it cost a whopping $24Million. But of course I'm still wrong and a simple function over form bridge can't possibly be built for ~$20Million.

I've already shown a few examples showing that is it. I'm done with this as it's obvious that we won't be getting a new crossing anytime soon and you can't be convinced it's possible.

Well, back for another lesson. Must admit, you are a keen student. I apologize for not finishing the last one. Thanks for doing some research and finding the Millennium Bridge in London. It is perfect for proving one of my previous points. The lesson here, is that it pays to do your research or else you can tend to help others prove the point you are arguing against.

That said, don't worry, I knew about the bridge anyway, I was on it last year. It is a beautiful bridge but it is pedestrian only. If it was a bike and ped bridge, it should be wider. I guess you are wondering where the cyclists go. Funny you mention that, they are on Blackfriars Bridge, which is a few hundred metres away. The bridge used to have 3 lanes of traffic in each direction. After a cyclists was killed, they reallocated 2 lanes in EACH direction and added bike lanes and bus lanes. Now there is only 1 lane in each direction for cars. There are also really wide sidewalks on both sides of the bridge.

Thanks again for pointing out the perfect example to prove my points about the reallocation of traffic on bridges for cyclists and transit as well as the point that world class cities both build new bridges and reallocate traffic on existing bridges.

I would love a new crossing but it would cost a lot of money and would take years to design build and fund.

So you really don't believe the engineers that came up with the estimates for the new bridge don't know about the costs of these bridges and somehow think that you can come up with a better estimate? Unbelievable.

[racc]

Originally Posted by quobobo

Why would it have to handle the volume of both sidewalks? The new bridge could be for only pedestrian traffic, and the Burrard sidewalks could be converted to bicycle only (or vice versa).

Banning cyclists and pedestrians from one bridge or the other. That is going to be effective. Might as well try ban water from flowing downhill.

It would be very difficult to site a new bridge so it would be convenient for all the trips that people are currently using it for now. Especially pedestrians will take the bridge that is convenient.

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by racc

Banning cyclists and pedestrians from one bridge or the other. That is going to be effective. Might as well try ban water from flowing downhill.

It would be very difficult to site a new bridge so it would be convenient for all the trips that people are currently using it for now. Especially pedestrians will take the bridge that is convenient.

Not that hard. Add those little gates that require you to make a really sharp turn to keep cyclists out of the pedestrian one. Remove sidewalks approaching the Burrard bridge, and add a bunch of signs to keep pedestrians out. Wouldn't be perfect, but it'd keep the majority of people on the right bridge.

Also, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Just saying.

[racc]

Originally Posted by quobobo

Not that hard. Add those little gates that require you to make a really sharp turn to keep cyclists out of the pedestrian one. Remove sidewalks approaching the Burrard bridge, and add a bunch of signs to keep pedestrians out. Wouldn't be perfect, but it'd keep the majority of people on the right bridge.

Also, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Just saying.

Not sure on what planet this would work on but it certainly is not Earth. The gates would prevent access to wheelchairs and strollers so that would never fly. Separation from traffic is needed to encourage people to cycle and protect them from the drivers illegally going 50kph over the speed limit so pedestrians would still feel comfortable using the bike path. If drivers don't obey speed limit signs, why do you expect peds to obey signs banning them from a bridge?

And finally, it seems ridiculous to suggest banning bikes or peds from Burrard when no one is suggesting banning cars from Burrard just reallocating lanes of traffic. Drivers will still have access to the bridge. There still will be 18 or 19 lanes across False Creek to choose from. For 22 hours a day, drivers won't notice much difference at all beyond a greater likelihood that other drivers will be more likely to obey the speed limit making the bridge safer for everyone.

[SpongeG]

they should be a glass bridge just to the west of burrard for bikes - being glass it wouldn't block or detract too much from the old burrard bridge