Metro Vancouver Bike/Pedestrian Discussion

[TransitJack]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

They're properly designed for the people Vision is pandering to. Slow cyclists. If you're derping along at 15km/h they're great.

If you're going fast the bike lanes are pretty dangerous. When you near car speeds you may as well operate in traffic, as you're more visible and have more options to escape situations like in that video. I tend to average 30 km/h on my road bike and subsequently avoid the bike paths and ride on bike streets.

Shoulder checking also really doesn't work at those angles and speeds as most cars have a large blind spot directly where that cyclist was coming from. Drivers also tend to assume right turns are always legal, so on right hand bike lanes you have a lot of people do illegal or dangerous rights. In my opinion the bike lanes should be on the left hand side of 1 way streets. You get better visibility and the drivers will make less assumptions about the legality/priority of turns.

That would apply to Dunsmuir and Hornby, although implementation would be rather difficult. Burrard however is a death trap any way you lay it out, escpecially with the bike/bus combo lanes.

I'm like you, avg about 30kph. As a roadie I prefer to avoid the bike lanes and follow the normal rules of the road, riding in the lanes. I'm always shocked by numbskulls who deliberately hang far right to intimidate cyclists with no regard of the impact such behaviour has.

I'm pretty confident on the road but with a bike that can go fast it makes for an easier integration with the car traffic.

[NetMapel]

Don't know if people can see this image. But it's basically a car parked inside the separated bike lane. Hmmmmmm...

[Jimbo604]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Nice, and thanks for the photo!

I've been cycling over that gravel path for what seems like forever, and it also seems like every month there was a slightly different routing of it.

Do you know if they've finally completed the bike path in front of the buildings along Still Creek drive all the way to Douglas? I've been cycling on the street all summer because the bike path in that stretch wasn't continuous.

Yes they've paved and put in new wide greenway/sidewalk all the way to Douglas. I'll try and get more pics.

[AverageJoe]

Here are a couple pics from the segregated bike lane over the new Powell Street rail overpass. Any plans for this bike lane to be extended westward towards downtown and/or eastward?

Photos by me.

At the Starbucks on Powell, looking east


Across from the site of the old Chevron station, looking east

[Jimbo604]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

Yes they've paved and put in new wide greenway/sidewalk all the way to Douglas. I'll try and get more pics.

This photo is on Still Creek Dr looking east towards Douglas St.

On the eastern part of the pre-existing Still Creek Dr from Douglas back west to where the road used to end they have re-ashphalted the road. The Central Valley Greenway trail is on the north side (left side in this photo). For some reason they have put the curb as asphalt and not concrete.. is this only temporary, I wonder?

The curb is concrete in the new part of the road where the gravel section used to be. People have already driven over the asphalt curb and messed it up in numerous places and it looks like crap now.

[Xrayal]

Here is the Holdem area plan a pulled from a city of Burnaby planning document. Note the alignment of Holdem ave with Gilmore ave via a new overpass. It may help explain the temporary curbing, however looking at this plan again that specific area isn't showing much change.

[gillty]

Originally Posted by Xrayal

[img]tps://farm4.staticflickr.com/3858/14699781468_2140091990_c.jpg[/img]
Here is the Holdem area plan a pulled from a city of Burnaby planning document. Note the alignment of Holdem ave with Gilmore ave via a new overpass. It may help explain the temporary curbing, however looking at this plan again that specific area isn't showing much change.

Looks to be circa 2003 Holdom Community Plan, I wouldn't put much thought into it, a lot has changed since then. At that point they were still considering a Wayburne/Westminister Overpass which has been scraped completely afaik. Also doesn't show the new Still Creek Drive connector.

[tybuilding]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

This photo is on Still Creek Dr looking east towards Douglas St.

On the eastern part of the pre-existing Still Creek Dr from Douglas back west to where the road used to end they have re-ashphalted the road. The Central Valley Greenway trail is on the north side (left side in this photo). For some reason they have put the curb as asphalt and not concrete.. is this only temporary, I wonder?

The curb is concrete in the new part of the road where the gravel section used to be. People have already driven over the asphalt curb and messed it up in numerous places and it looks like crap now.

The CVG path looks pretty bad, look how narrow it is compared to the really wide driving lane (why is it so wide??). Look how narrow it is between the bollard and the lamp post, that is not 1.5m for sure! What poor poor design. I don't get why this looks so bad.

[officedweller]

From TranBC's flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc...n/photostream/

Installed in Summer 2014, this new 175-metre trail from Chesterfield Place and Chadwick Court in North Vancouver, is now a separated bike path to the Seabus terminals, making it a lot safer for cyclists.

[TransitJack]

Originally Posted by tybuilding

The CVG path looks pretty bad, look how narrow it is compared to the really wide driving lane (why is it so wide??). Look how narrow it is between the bollard and the lamp post, that is not 1.5m for sure! What poor poor design. I don't get why this looks so bad.

Rode this new section today. Someone definitely installed the bollards in the wrong spot. Their location should be in the middle of the path to prevent cars from accessing, but instead are 2/3 over. A car could just go around. Their location also creates a very small area to pass between bollard and lamp post.

They also made narrow ramps at the street corners. Poor implementation of this long awaited section.

[memememe76]

Apparently, the new bike lanes on Point Grey Road have been very well used. When I run on/near it, there are always a good number of bicyclists.

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/0...ummer-success/

I admit I complained about some socio-economic aspects of the Point Grey Rd. bike route when it was being constructed in cloudy, rain-soaked April. See “What do the residents of Pt. Grey Road want now?”

But have you been on Point Grey Road this summer? It’s alive with cyclists, joggers and walkers. On some days you can see 50 cyclists in a single view line.

Nice that this article came out. On Global News today, they did a story about cyclists going off-trail at Stanley Park, when they are not supposed to. The woman who made the complaint sounds like a real pain.

[WarrenC12]

I find the anti-bike crowd to be a very vocal, but continually shrinking minority. Pete McMartin sums it up nicely:

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/P...998/story.html

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I find the anti-bike crowd to be a very vocal, but continually shrinking minority. Pete McMartin sums it up nicely

I fully agree with his point about training. If all high school students were mandated to take bicycle safety training it would (a) produce a generation of cyclists that are more likely to ride safely, and (b) produce a generation of motorists that have at least some concept of the cyclist's point of view. A bike share system would be great for this as it would provide a supply of bikes that could be used for this purpose.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I fully agree with his point about training. If all high school students were mandated to take bicycle safety training it would (a) produce a generation of cyclists that are more likely to ride safely, and (b) produce a generation of motorists that have at least some concept of the cyclist's point of view. A bike share system would be great for this as it would provide a supply of bikes that could be used for this purpose.

Bike share is destined to be a failure with current helmet laws.

I always wear a helmet when bike commuting, but they are simply too much of a barrier in creating a healthy bike culture.

[Henbo]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I fully agree with his point about training. If all high school students were mandated to take bicycle safety training it would (a) produce a generation of cyclists that are more likely to ride safely, and (b) produce a generation of motorists that have at least some concept of the cyclist's point of view.

In Elementary schools they now have bike to school week, where they encourage all students to ride their bikes and the schools teach bike safety throughout the week

[officedweller]

In a window on Hamilton @ Smithe next to the firehall:

"RIDE Cycle Club" "RIDE vs The World"

EDIT - It's a spin class:

https://www.facebook.com/ridecycleclub

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Bike share is destined to be a failure with current helmet laws.

I always wear a helmet when bike commuting, but they are simply too much of a barrier in creating a healthy bike culture.

I totally agree, and I too always wear a helmet.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I fully agree with his point about training. If all high school students were mandated to take bicycle safety training it would (a) produce a generation of cyclists that are more likely to ride safely, and (b) produce a generation of motorists that have at least some concept of the cyclist's point of view. A bike share system would be great for this as it would provide a supply of bikes that could be used for this purpose.

I don't see how a bike share system has anything to do with it. You'd be hard pressed to find a kid out there today that doesn't already have a bike. I had one growing up, every friend I had had one in school, and today all my friends still have bikes and their children too and children's friends.

Maybe a lack of bikes is a city thing? In the suburbs, kids have bikes and ride them pretty early in life trust me.

I absolutely agree though that training needs to be made a priority when children are young. It just pisses me off every time I see a family ride their bikes past me and the two kids in the front have their helmets on and the parents are following behind, sans-helmet. If they can't lead by example for that simple little reality of keeping your head safe, I doubt very much they are teaching their children correct safety rules of the road/bike lane. That ridiculous parental hypocrisy isn't limited to cycling though unfortunately, I see it on the sky slopes all the time. Kid goes by wearing helmet, parent goes by following without helmet. I just shake my head.

As for the bike lane debate, I think it is a waste of time and space. The truth is the bike lanes are being installed and not just in Vancouver. Every city is putting in bike lanes. The other cities though can do so much easier and less costly due to not being as developed. Unfortunately in Vancouver the city is quite constrained and the only option is to retrofit lanes after the fact.

Where they put them though, I don't really care since I am not a Vancouver resident. As an outsider I happen to think some of the roads they pick are fairly stupid and they could have just been over a block or two to make it less disruptive to already existing road/pedestrian traffic, but again at the end I don't care and I'm sure they had their reasons.

For people not following the rules, everyone breaks the bloody rules. Drivers, cyclists, and even pedestrians. I just went to get Sushi and 5 people ran straight across a red light and almost got run over. 1 person started running then another person clearly thought "oh better get to the other side too!" and like a bunch of mindless machines, they all proceeded to run out in front of traffic.

There are stupid people everywhere. All you can do if they flip you off for them being wrong, is to laugh at them.

My beef with bike lanes though is the same beef I have with many roads in the cities I drive. When the city designs them, they seem to put stupid obstacles in the way they shouldn't.

For example: WHY do they insist on putting man-hole access points on roads where your TIRES ARE in a car?? Why not in the center of the road where there is no contact with the road. No, on many roads (41st anyone?) you are in 1 lane and baboom baboom baboom baboom all the way as half your car is constantly running over the damned things.

For bike lanes, why are we not extending them just a bit wider out in the suburbs so that they can be truely separated. You don't need much, just a bit more so a small curb can be put in.

I understand this notion of broken down vehicles, but really how often do you see broken down vehicles on the side of the road? And what happens is all the cars driving kick rocks to the side of the road to the point you now have cyclists riding in their lane full of debris like sticks, massive rocks, dirt patches, and garbage. Either that or clean them more frequently imo.

I applaud more infrastructure being build across Metro-Vancouver including cycling lanes, I just think a bit more thought needs to go into infrastructure design so it isn't annoying and frustrating.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by jhausner

Where they put them though, I don't really care since I am not a Vancouver resident. As an outsider I happen to think some of the roads they pick are fairly stupid and they could have just been over a block or two to make it less disruptive to already existing road/pedestrian traffic, but again at the end I don't care and I'm sure they had their reasons.

There really aren't any particularly good streets downtown - they're all heavily used. The streets that were picked (Hornby and Dunsmuir) were basically the only north/south and east/west streets that didn't have bus routes (Dunsmuir has 1 bus stop, but it's before the road width gets narrower). If you take away a lane for bikes then buses stopping to load and unload in one of the remaining lanes causes even more chaos. Not to mention the conflicts between bus passengers and cyclists.

[jozero]

Originally Posted by jhausner

I absolutely agree though that training needs to be made a priority when children are young. It just pisses me off every time I see a family ride their bikes past me and the two kids in the front have their helmets on and the parents are following behind, sans-helmet. If they can't lead by example for that simple little reality of keeping your head safe, I doubt very much they are teaching their children correct safety rules of the road/bike lane. That ridiculous parental hypocrisy isn't limited to cycling though unfortunately, I see it on the sky slopes all the time.

The Parents are doing what is right. Kids should have to wear helmets, for adults it should be optional. Various studies has shown all helmet do is discourage biking, which makes less people bike, which makes it more dangerous to bike (there is safety in numbers). Every study has also shown if you take an equal sized population of bikers, pedestrians, and car drivers, it's the car drivers that suffer the most head injuries - its nonsensical that bicyclists should be the ones wearing a helmet.
Here is a recent articles in the Vancouver Sun (It cites a study done here, there are many more done in Europe) :
Helmets


As for the placement of the bike lanes of course they should be on the popular roads. Cities are trying to encourage biking as a healthy alternative to driving, that isn't going to happen if the route is a maze just to avoid popular streets.