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The promise/threat of more bike lanes on more Vancouver bridges sets off a frenzy

September 20th, 2012 · 53 Comments

We all reported a few months ago that the city was looking at putting a bike/pedestrian route down the middle of the Granville Bridge, according to a sketch with no details attached in the city’s Transportation 2040 discussion doc.

This being a town that does not take these things lightly, there was a little storm of media coverage.

Then the city posted a request for contractors to bid on an engineering study to look at the feasibility of same on the Granville Bridge, along with improvements for cycling on Cambie. (Something barring cyclists from the bridge deck would be excellent, in my view!)

Another little typhoon: here, here and here. (Sam Cooper was first off the mark at the Province, as a certain source spread the news of the RFP here and there.)

From what I know, this is the beginning of quite a long process. The bid is for an engineering firm, not a design firm. Still, I was somewhat surprised to see it proceeding along so definitively, after I’d been told it was just an idea to get people thinking about alternatives in the Transportation 2040 process.

I know this audience takes little interest in such debates, but I thought I would post the information anyway.

City’s RFP is here.

 

 

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  • Tessa

    At Sharon#42: For me, a non-spandex rider but one in pretty darn good shape, there’s several hills I avoid. I would never ride up towards Point Grey and UBC past Alma – it’s way too steep and long for me. I also avoid the short section along the BC Parkway at Gladstone, especially since the skytrain is so much easier. And I rarely ride to the North Shore, though the Lions Gate Bridge is okay for the occasional weekend trip. That said, while 10th Avenue east of Fraser Street gets a bit steep, it’s easily doable for most non-lycra riders, and most hills in the city are within that grade level. I certainly found I could get downtown and all around the areas I wanted to go without exceeding what I was willing to bike, and with enough gears even some of the steeper areas are, when taken slowly, not so daunting after all.

    I would argue Vancouver isn’t so disadvantaged by its terrain. It may never become Copenhagen, but a very high cyclist mode share is certainly possible. While cyclists don’t have hills in Copenhagen, they do have snow, and people still ride in droves in the snow.

  • Richard

    @everyman

    Canada Line Ridership is currently around 136,000 per weekday. The projections were around 100,000 per day although I’m not sure what year that was for. Regardless, they are significantly over target now.
    http://www.translink.ca/en/About-Us/Media/2011/August/TransLink-reports-transit-ridership-heading-for-a-new-record.aspx

    It would be great to have a couple of bike ped bridges across False Creek. Instead of placing them near existing bridges, it would be best to place them in between. One from Oak Street to Drake or Richards and another from Columbia to beat the Plaza of Nations for example. These woul make walking and cycling much shorter and quicker than driving. Lyon, for example, has a bike and pedestrian bridge between each of their general-purpose bridges. Their general-purpose bridges typically have good bicycle and pedestrian facilities as well.

  • MB

    brilliant 40:

    Whenever that stat about car trips dowtown is thrown out it ignores a couple things: a)car registrations have gone up in the CoV b)there’s been a huge increase in the suburban population.

    It’s very convenient to ignore context, then to get it wrong.

    The downtown population nearly doubled to ~90,000 in a 15-year period at the same time that the traffic on the downtown bridges decreased by about 15%.

    Moreover, the West End has never had less than ~40% carless population. People there prefer walking.

    Please show us stats for any suburb that doubled in population in as little time, let alone be coupled with such a transformative evolution in transportation, or that can claim such urban systems efficiency.

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