I thought the lane reallocation was going to create gridlock in your opinion AG? Won’t the cyclists and walkers be the ones passing you in such an event?

The rhetoric is in no way extreme. It’s the height of reasonableness to expect our society to make some provision for eco-friendly travellers to have a measure of safety in their daily journeys. I know you say my words are unrealistic, but since you can’t provide an example, I’m afraid you’re just making yourself look like a person who’s unwilling to actually engage in a constructive conversation about solutions.

The Richmond example was simply made to put paid to your characterization of me as a bikes only, no exceptions kind of guy. I have no idea what you are on about now. Feel free to elaborate.

It’s too bad so much energy must be expended defending reasonable attempts in creating a better city. Think of how much progress we could have made in understanding each other’s perspective if you’d come to this discussion willing to listen to the other person and proffer something more substantial than character attacks. I’ve invited you both here and with a personal phone call to have a discussion of the actual issues, but you are unwilling. No offence, but that’s not the mark of a reasonable person, nor good practice for someone with a job in the media.

You say your primary concern is the safety of your children? One day they will be grown up and may well choose to cycle for transportation themselves. It’s certainly the trend among young people. Perhaps we should be talking about how this city looks in 2019 when your boy graduates from high school? Is it going to be a place where cars and buses are the only option, or would you prefer he have freedom of choice and a relative measure of safety no matter which mode of transport he decided upon.

regards,
CK

My “global warming highlight of the year” was when Al Gore had to cancel his hearings in Washington due to excessive snow storms.

Not enough snow, “global warming”. Too much snow, “global warming!”. We can’t lose!

The global warming debate on a daily basis is simply “debating the weather.”

You say look at the science. I say look at Sun spot theories. That’s science too. It seems to be a more efficient predictor as well.

As soon as you go all Nostradumbass it makes it a pointless debate. You are declaring a certainty that something will happen in which none of us will be alive to verify. That’s a red herring which is rather silly to debate with such certainty.

I’d rather see the cycling debate be a pro-health debate. That’s a good cause and the results can be measured with some actual evidence.

I love attaching this link to global warming fear mongerers. It’s an cover story from Time Magazine. It’s only 35 years old. Who’s to say that the current debate will not look like this 35 years from now?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

I really encourage everyone to read it and perhaps step back from the brink of global doom.

RF sez:
“My “global warming highlight of the year” was when Al Gore had to cancel his hearings in Washington due to excessive snow storms.

Not enough snow, “global warming”. Too much snow, “global warming!”. We can’t lose!”

This is why the term “global warming” is now considered obsolete, RF, and why it has largely been supplanted by “climate change” in discussions among those serious about the issue. The phenomenon of “global warming” is only part of a larger, even more ominous set of phenomena. The entire topic of climate change is much too complex, challenging, and crucial to allow it to be trivialized with lame jokes about whatever kind of winter weather Washington– or anywhere else– might be experiencing in any given year. Time for you to catch up.
gmgw

CK sez:
“Regarding going to the beach from Surrey, note I pointed out one possible alternative for a family, which involved exactly zero pedal strokes.”

I wanted to respond to some of the stuff you’ve said at greater length, CK, but (evidently) unlike the rest of you my employer takes a dim view of spending the entire afternoon making posts on the BulaBlog. So you’ll have to wait for a while longer. But in regards to your response quoted above, if you place it in context you *should* (I won’t say “will”) perceive that I was hardly endorsing the hypothetical journey of my hypothetical Surrey family by car to thye shores of English Bay for the fireworks. I can’t tall you enough how much I and everyone else I know who lives near English Bay dread the startup of the g.d. fireworks each year because of the insane amount of car traffic it brings into our neighbourhoods. Let’s talk about the fireworks some more; it makes for an interesting case study of an extreme traffic situation.

As an example of one way of responding to horrendous (event-related) traffic problems, let’s take Kits Point. It was only after screaming loud and long that the residents of Kits Point were able to convince City Hall to barricade their neighbourhood against car traffic on fireworks nights. Kits Point has an exceptionally active and vocal community association, which has frequently lobbied against the car (and tour bus) traffic which is prolific in their neighbourhood, thanks to the exceptional number of attractions Kits Point has in such a small area: Kits Beach and its park, Vanier Park (including the boat launch), the Museum/Planetarium, the Maritime Museum, Bard On the Beach, the Children’s Festival, and so on… not to mention the fireworks; Vanier Park is second only to English Bay Beach for the crowds it attracts on fireworks nights. Naturally, for trying to gain themselves some peace and quiet, Kits Point residents have frequently been assailed as “elitists” and worse.

I’ve only been in the West End once on a fireworks night– on foot– and it was a horrendous experience, even with the traffic restrictions. But I had no idea just how much traffic the fireworks attract to Kitsilano until a few years ago, when we had dinner at a friend’s house on a fireworks night. She had a lovely old house (since sold, dammit) on Yew near 7th. Walking up there at about 6:30 PM, we were astonished at the sheer volume of traffic everywhere– Burrard, 4th, and the side streets were in a state of near total gridlock. Hours later, post-dinner, we were sitting out on her deck, working on a bottle of wine, making lazy conversation in the gathering dusk; when the fireworks started we could hear them but of course couldn’t see them. However, as soon as they ended, cars started passing the house, southbound, in ever-increasing numbers. Evidently the drivers were trying to get up to Broadway, out of the neighbourhood, from the vicinity of the beach, by what they hoped would be a sneaky alternative route. Guess again. In a few minutes Yew was bumper-to-bumper, with cars inching along, and that section of Yew is not wide. Roaring engines, shouting drivers, honking horns, pounding car stereos, headlights, headlights, headlights– and oh yeah, drivers and bicyclists yelling at each other. It was crazy. And it went on for over forty-five minutes. Our friend wearily assured us that it was like that every fireworks night. It was a while before we felt safe in venturing home.

So, back to our case study: Our imaginary Surrey family, who could easily have been in one of those cars gridlocked on Yew that night: I believe your suggested alternative consisted largely of Skytrain. I don’t know if you have kids, CK, or how often you’ve ridden the Skytrain to and/or from Surrey (or even just New West) at peak times (and the sheer volume of Skytrain passengers on fireworks nights often dwarfs that seen during rush hour on any normal day), but I can tell you that even if I was a parent of three kids who was crazy/stupid enough to put them through an arduous all-day ordeal for a half-hour fireworks display, there is no way on god’s green earth I would take those kids, my spouse, and all the gear necessary for a long day at the beach– and back again, late in the evening– on Skytrain. It would simply not be doable, and could even endanger my children, thanks to Skytain’s enormous and– shall we say– boisterous fireworks crowds. So what are Mr. and Mrs. Surrey going to do? You’re damned right they’re going to take the car. Too bad, but there it is. You gonna be the one to tell them they shouldn’t? Be nice if someone did, but it ain’t gonna be me. Be my guest, CK. I’ll be there to comfort you when Mr. Surrey tells you to fuck right off.

And that’s the crux of the matter. What the likes of you and McGee have to do is deceptively simple: You don’t have to convince *me* that the scenario I’ve outlined– thouands and thousands of cars streaming in from the burbs to downtown for a majorpublic event– is a bad idea from the get-go, for any number of reasons, not least of which is the environmental aspect. I don’t want the damn streets where I live choked with cars and ozone any more than you do. No, what you have to do is persuade Mr. & Mrs. Surrey, and all their friends and neighbours in all the Surreys of the world, to leave their damn cars at home– better yet, just stay home, period. And while they’re at it, ditch the car. *And* to change their whole attitude toward transportation and temporary self-gratification. Or, at the very least, if they still insist on coming, find them a viable, practical, efficient, maybe even pleasant, way of making the journey.

The “war” McGee moronically speaks of won’t be fought, much less won, on the streets of Kitsilano, where “green” culture leaps out at you from every doorway. It needs to be fought among what Orwell called the “proles”. And unless you can get them– in all their vast numbers– onside, you’ll have lost before you’ve even started. Go to Kamloops or Williams Lake or Fort St. John. Try to convince the cowboys and rednecks lowriding through town on a Saturday night to give up their pickups and take up mountain biking instead. Hell, if you want a supreme challenge, I’ll give you one. Stop yelling at people like me and Tsukamis. We’re small fry. In fact, forget North America and Europe, where the tide is slowly swinging toward green. The fight here is too easy. Instead, form a bicycle army. Make McGee its general and get him a cool uniform with a lot of medals and maybe a gun that shoots nerf balls— he’d like that. And then take your crusade to China and India, whose vast and increasingly affluent populations are buying cars in ever-increasing numbers. It’s in China and India– and in other rapidly-developing countries, but China and India most of all, because of their enormous populations– that the *real* battle to save the planet will and must be fought. The former third world sees our enormous wealth and prosperity and wants a piece of it. They resent the hell out of us for telling them that they shouldn’t have what we’ve had for generations– material prosperity. And they’ve been conditioned by Western lifestyle marketing propaganda to believe that the passenger car is the supreme symbol of that– and they’re going to be acquiring them by the millions soon, unless reason can prevail. And if they do, we’re all fucked, no matter how many people here in Vancouver or any other North American city take up bicycling.

Go for it, CK. I’ll be rooting for you all the way.
gmgw

If you and General McGee can go to China and India and convince their respective populaces to veer off the hellbound path they’re on, I will personally nominate you both for the Nobel Peace Prize. If instead you’d rather just lob shells into your neighbour’s backyards, I suggest you stock up on SPF 1000 sunscreen, ’cause in a decade or two we’re all going to need a lot of it.

rf should be nominated for most excellent poster on the fraud of global warming alarmism. And, no, “global warming” has not been expunged from our lexicon at all. It’s only been quietly put away because there is too much evidence that has been presented which proves a great deal of that thesis as the political bafflegab it is.

GMGW:

I find it hard to feel too bad for the residents of Kits Point having to deal with beach goers when I have drug dealers shooting it out a few hundred feet from my back door here in Mt. Unpleasant, but having lived at Burrard and Broadway, I certainly have experienced and understand the post-fireworks carmageddon. It was not pleasant to have to close my windows on a hot summer night because of exhaust fumes. But, fireworks are only four or five nights of the year and if you choose to live in Disneyland you’re going to have to expect to deal with the Mickey Mouse parade, simple as that. You could make the same argument about the PNE, or the Dragon Boat Festival, the Jazz Festival, or any other large scale event. They do inconvenience neighbourhoods on a temporary basis. Contrast that with those of us who have to deal with the soot, noise, and pollution from the constant traffic on Twelfth Ave and I’m sure you’ll understand that any tears I might conjure for the fine people of Kits Point would be purely of the crocodile variety.

As to the ‘proles’ well, they are rapidly being priced out of the car usage game, despite the best efforts of gov’t to prop up this failing industry. So, I’m not so sure it will be too hard to convince people to attempt cheaper, more effective solutions. Of course when nabobs of negativity feel compelled to preach doom and gloom it makes it harder to communicate positive messages and proffer solutions. It would be nice to see the wealthy lead by example IMO and demonstrate that you can still lead a normal, productive life without an auto, but frankly, the lovely old tradition of noblesse oblige seems to have fallen out of favour. As a prole myself in terms of income, I take exception to your contention that ‘we’ are incapable of change or rational decisions. As with most social issues, education can work wonders.

There’s little doubt the problems we face are complex and multi-faceted. I think we make the solutions easier to find if we first start with the easy, cheap fixes, like providing better alternatives to the car. I would surmise curing our society of its addiction to mega-events is a far greater challenge, as all cultures seem to have had large group events in some form or another, but many don’t/didn’t rely on the car for transportation. I’ll leave no-fun zealotry to someone else. I’m going to stick to pimping low-cost, healthy, fun travel on two wheels.

D. McGee sez:
“…often as I watch yet another car blissfully ignore and speed through a red light (”But officer…when I looked it was still yellow”) I wish that I had something in my pocket to toss out. I always think SuperBalls would be good…solid thunk on the windshield, but low likelihood of damage. It might teach some driver that yellow means stop…

I’m sure it’s illegal, so I’ve never really pursued it. Sure would be fun though.”

That reminds me of three stories.

1) Back in the 70s one of my closest friends, who had (and still has) a rather dry yet surreal sense of humour, had a beat-up ’63 Chev which could be quite an adventure to ride in (I was with him once when the steering wheel literally fell off the column into his lap just after he’d parked the car. We’d just exited the Upper Levels Highway after an extended run at 70 MPH…). One time when we were in the Vancouver-bound rush hour lineup for the Lions Gate Bridge he told me he was thinking of filling a bucket with rocks, keeping it in the car and pitching them at drivers who cut him off in lineups. His only problem, he said, was figuring out a way to throw accurately with his left hand. I don’t know why, but the image, with the addition of certain cartoon conventions, cracks me up to this day. Maybe you have to know him. He now lives on 10 acres of bush outside Parksville– fled the big city traffic decades ago.

2) In the late 70s, my two closest friends, who had recently (and conveniently for me) married each other, were living on the top floor of that big old apartment building on the northwest corner of Thurlow and Burnaby in the West End. I was visiting one night and noticed a large and rather dubious-looking watermelon sitting ominously in the kitchen. I should say that W, the male half of the couple, is rather noise-sensitive. He told me that noise from the traffic on Thurlow was driving him nuts– it was summer and they had to keep all the windows open. When the light at Davie turned green, he said, the drivers would shoot down Thurlow like it was a drag race en masse, with a similar level of noise. Anyway, he had a plan in mind. He’d precisely timed how long it took the lead cars to pass their kitchen window, and also how long it would take a hurled watermelon to fall five stories. He was working, he said, on a simple mathematical formula which would enable him to nail offending cars with a rotten watermelon, with perfect accuracy every time. I’m not sure what he hoped to accomplish by doing this, apart from scaring the hell out of a few irresponsible drivers, but he was just waiting, he said, for the melon to reach the right state of rottenness. I sympathetically wished him luck.

A week or so later I happened to ask him if he’d put his plan into action yet. He told me dejectedly that his wife had ordered him to throw out that “disgusting” melon. Damn! I was almost as disappointed as he was.

3) Some years later we were living on the 7th floor of a building whose balconies overlooked a street which was heavy with traffic during the day, yet curiously quiet at night. One night some idiots in a hot-rod pickup truck decided to use our street as their own personal drag strip. They made three incredibly noisy high-speed passes, performance mufflers roaring, by the time I could get to the kitchen and arm myself with the nearest non-lethal weapon at hand: An unopened 750-gram container of yogurt. I can pitch small heavy objects with surprising accuracy sometimes, especially in a good cause, and when you’re seven stories up, momentum is on your side. They started coming back for another run and I drew back my throwing arm. Suddenly they screeched to a halt right in front of our building. A guy on the sidewalk had been waving at them. I thought I was about to witness a potentially sanguinary argument, but it seemed he was a buddy of theirs–! He leaned against the truck with his hands resting atop the door and they started talking.

I was seriously torn. On the one hand I was aching to carry out my plan of punishment. On the other hand, the point I was trying to make would be severely blunted if the perps were stationary at the time of impact. Suddenly I was hit by a blinding flash of inspiration. If I could throw the yogurt with superb accuracy and nail their friend directly in the back of the head, the container would burst, he would slump to the ground unconscious, dropping from their sight instantly, and they would suddenly find the entire interior of their truck cab– and themselves– coated in fresh, dripping 2% plain. The theatrical possibilities were colossal. If I could pull it off just right, it would be as if their buddy’s head had suddenly exploded and it had been filled with– with– man, what *is* this shit??– YOGURT?! The level of cognitive dissonance engendered would be of terrifying proportion. It would be a punishment of an absolutely superior kind.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I figured; I began preparing myself– pull back the arm– slow intake of breath— suddenly, to my intense and lasting disappointment, the conversation below was abruptly terminated; the truck “rubbered out”, as we used to say as kids, and disappeared around the corner. And that was the last I saw of them.

I still kick myself about that one. The fact that a blow to the head from a tub of yogurt thrown from seven stories up could potentially be fatal in no ways detracts from the warm fuzzy feeling I get when I contemplate the visual possibilities had I succeeded. To loosely paraphrase Emma Goldman: If your war isn’t fun, Darcy McG., I wouldn’t want to be part of it.

By the way, if you ever decide to follow through on your SuperBall plan, I demand the right to put a similar plan into action, perhaps incorporating a different form of artillery, for bicyclists who run red lights and stop signs— they’re legion in my neighbourhood (and just about everywhere else in this town), so I’ll have my work cut out for me.
gmgw

> given Darcy’s expressed willingness (in a previous thread) to physically
> assault pedestrians who inadvertently stray into his path

I have NEVER physically assaulted anyone, least of all “assault pedestrians who inadvertently stray into his path,”

I have, after having a warning ignored, passed very closely to pedestrians. I always warn first with voice and/or a bell. Pedestrians ignore bells, btw.

I have never made contact with a pedestrian.

I have NEVER physically assaulted a pedestrian.

Good on you, however, for staying close to the railing. You should not be across that line.

> I’ve had the brushback done to me by bikers on the Granville bridge a
> number of times but had always assumed they were just clumsy riders
> until Darcy made his brag

Cycling on the sidewalk on the Granville Bridge is illegal. It violates a Vancouver bylaw, and any cyclist you encounter should be ticketed. You will never see me on that sidewalk, though I do use the Granville Bridge to cross False Creek occasionally.

Don’t dare call me an irresponsible cyclist. I am a responsible cyclists, a responsible driver and a responsible motorcycle rider. I have more hours of driver training than all but professional drivers. I stop, sir, at stop signs. I don’t glide through them until I blissfully realize that someone’s coming from the other direction. I stop.

My declaration of war was thus:
> Because, frankly, we are at war against cars. It’s the reality.
the “we” is everybody. Alex may not realize is, but his car is surely killing his children. If not his children, then his children’s children. We need to build a society that is less dependent on the personal automobile.

Our cities are screwed, because we’ve built them around isolated travel in automobiles.

It has nothing to do with pedestrians. The city belongs to people, not to sheet metal.

“I think that peds and bikers have more in common than a lot of bikers are willing to admit”

You will find IMO that anyone involved in cycle advocacy completely understands how peds/bikers have common cause and supports pedestrian safety improvements. The non-involved may see an opponent, but not anyone who is working for better infrastructure.

One might just as well point out how the some drivers don’t understand that a bike often means ‘one less car’ on the road and reduced traffic congestion. It couldn’t possibly be more straightforward, yet some folks have a hard time grasping the concept that supporting better bike/ped facilities improves automobile traffic flow.

Whaddya gonna do? Gabriel could descend from on high with a chorus of angels singing hosannas in praise of self-propulsion and folks like Len and Alex would still stubbornly stick to their position. They’ve both said as much. There’s no cure for wilful disregard of the facts.

> I demand the right to put a similar plan
> into action, perhaps incorporating a
> different form of artillery, for bicyclists
> who run red lights and stop signs— they’re
> legion in my neighbourhood (and just
> about everywhere else in this town)

I fully support this plan, but yes the Super Balls would probably hurt.

In particular, if you DO see a cyclist on the Granville Street bridge sidewalk you should feel free to tell them to get the hell off. Cambie & Burrard are both fine crossings with well marked bike routes…there’s no need.

That does not, on the other hand, give anybody the right to should a cyslist into traffic. Some guy tried to do that to a friend and I when we were 15, literally leaning into us with his shoulder. It didn’t end well for him.

Ah, youth and brashness. They go well together.

On bicycles and Vancouver:

1. Vancouver is, by way of it’s unique (and beautiful) geography, a city where population density is higher than the North American median. Encouraging density is the stated policy of major Vancouver municipal parties. Car use, as we know it now, will not be sustainable as Vancouver grows.

2. Whether you believe “peak oil” is decades away, a few years away, or has already happened, the era of cheap oil is over. The winter of 2008-2009 was an anomaly, where the global recession greatly reduced demand for oil, which led to the price dropping. Operating a car in the future will be much more expensive, and will likely be beyond the economic reach of many people in a few decades. Governments need to plan for this now. There is no guarantee that whatever form of energy we eventually replace oil with will be cheaper.

3. I’m glad people here enjoy their Hummers and other SUVs. I’m pretty sure GM, though, rues the day it decided to abandon the EV-1 in favour of the Hummer.

They didn’t call it Greenland to be funny.

From the Saga of Erik the Red: “He named the land Greenland, saying that people would be eager to go there if it had a good name.”

Bob Rennie didn’t invent real estate marketing out of whole cloth 😉

Darcy, my use of the word “assault” was, I admit, deliberately provocative, just as (I’d like to think) your “declaration of war” was. Makes the person you’re debating sit up and pay attention. But– and I said this the last time– if you happen to brush against someone who doesn’t know you’re there, or who is easily startled, has a poor sense of equlibrium, is elderly, has a bad hip or heart, or any other possible factors, and they fall or otherwise suffer an injury as a result of your action, you would in all likelihood and with absolute justification be charged with assault, or even something more serious, if it could be proved that your actions were intentional. Maybe it’s because I’m getting to a certain age, or because I have a wife with neuromuscular problems that could be severely aggravated by a fall or sudden impact, or because we have (increasingly frail) friends in their 70s, 80s and even 90s, or because I have a friend with a teenage daughter who is developmentally disabled as well as afflicted with motor control issues– she can walk well enough, but is given to sudden changes of direction– but I really don’t know if you have any idea just how vulnerable and even frightened some of us feel when a bicyclist zooms by at close range. A 170-pound man on a bicycle traveling at a high rate of speed is a potentially lethal projectile, whether you choose to admit it or not. And even the most skilled biker on the planet may not be able to avoid colliding with someone who lurches unexpectedly into their path– especially if it was the intention of the biker to brush that straying indvidual back. Do you have any understanding of the possible consequences of a broken hip to a 75-year-old with osteoporosis? It doesn’t take much of an impact to cause an elderly or otherwise vulnerable person to lose their balance. I ask you again: Slow down when approaching pedestrians, and accept that people– i.e. pedestrians –are *not* always going to behave as you think they should. Just like car drivers. And a lot of them deserve your understanding, not punishment and warnings.

In any case, I’m glad you agree that bike riders hould not be on the sidewalk on the Granville Bridge. Unfortunately, scores of them break that bylaw every single day. During the afternoon commute, there are generally many more bikers on the sidewalks than in the traffic lanes. And one of the reasons I get so worked up about this topic is because most of my close-range sidewalk encounters with bikers take place on those narrow sidewalks. And yeah, I’ve tried to speak to bike riders on the bridge about this. Maybe I’m not using the right words, ’cause most of them seem— um– reluctant to hear me on this topic. If you can think of a way I can broach the subject with a bike rider in a way that doesn’t quickly end with him telling me to go piss up a rope, or words to that effect, please let me know what those words are, ’cause after years of “close encounters” and near-misses, it sure would be helpful.
gmgw

Given the number of near-miss cycling incidents some of the commenters on this blog are experiencing, I would suggest slowing down. There are too many areas of interference on the swath cut on a typical bike route to zip along at full speed without being in a risky situation.

I’m impressed with motions passed today by city council.
http://www.geoffmeggs.ca/2009/06/02/vision-council-doubles-spending-on-cycling/

rf-that’s a good question but it’s not all cyclists, just the dicks.
We’ve got the same problem in Strathcona, at the intersection of Union and Hawkes. Few cyclists stop in either direction and it’s only a matter of time until someone gets hurt or the city decides to put up a barricade that forces a dismount.

Just to slap my broken record back on the turntable:
$3.4 million in spending approved by Council today for cycling improvements. Uh-huh. OK… And the sum total of spending approved by Council during the entire past year for enhancement of pedestrian safety is…? (Anyone actually know?)
gmgw

90% of the City’s population won’t go to the car-free street events. I’m betting well over 80% won’t even remember they’re taking place. Not to mention everyone coming into the City from other jurisdictions just trying to do some shopping.

The no-car events are a great idea not because they advocate pedestrian and bike traffic but because they promote more face-to-face interaction in the communities. It so happens that pedestrians (not necessarily cyclists) are much more interactive with each other because they can actually talk to each other easily. Bikes at such events are a sidebar; park ’em along the event perimeter and hoof it like everyone else.

Personally I welcome the “chaos.” It’s part of being in a healthy city.

“I don’t imagine a Vancouver ciclovia would be as tranquil. The car-free seawall is about as relaxing as the Long March in China on sunny days, with hordes of cyclists, pedestrians and skateboarders all competing for space.”

Check out these photos from Ottawa’s FOUR ciclovias: http://walkandbikeforlife.org/ottawa.html. Tranquil is exactly the word that comes to mind.

The problem with the English Bay seawall is that IT IS OVERUSED by people desperate for more recreational space, but either excluded from or fearful of the streets just above.

If you were to stretch out these people AND all of their friends and family along 6 kms of city streets for just one morning a week, you might have 50 people per block quietly cycling, rollerblading, or strolling with their kids, in peace and quiet, and with significant benefits to air quality, personal health, and community spirit. This density is based on a 15,000 person participation over 5 hours, as is the average for ciclovias in San Francisco or Portland.

No one in Vancouver appears to believe life here can get any better.

Well, it can.

It’s not just the English Bay seawall that gets crowded. Taking a walk on a sunny weekend along the False Creek South seawalk/seawall between the Marina at the end of First Avenue and the Cambie Bridge is often like promenading through the middle of the Tour de France. As I’ve said before, it would be nice if some of the adrenalin-crazed, speeding morons who repeatedly swoop past you, in both directions, on both sides, in groups of five or more, with no warning– a frightening experience– would slow down, but I don’t expect it to happen. Among the walkers out there are kids, babies in strollers, dogs, and elderly couples, but this seems to make no impact on their walnut-sized brains.

And some of the slower, inexperienced riders can be even more dangerous, weaving all over the place and sometimes forcing walkers to quickly do a sidestep– a dangerous maneuver in itself, as it could inadvertently bring you into the path of one of the kamikaze. The local neighbourhood association has been labouriously working toward bringing forwward a proposal for a bicycle strategy for the seawall for some some years, but in the meantime the situation will likely worsen once Southeast False Creek is fully open post-Olympics, and the FCS route unoficially becomes a major crosstown route for bikes. It’s already being promoted as a prime bike route by the city (and it’s not hard to see why; it’s certainly scenic), who demonstrate no awareness of the problems of encouraging even heavier bike traffic along there. Something’s gotta give…
gmgw

> We’ve got the same problem in
> Strathcona, at the intersection of Union
> and Hawkes.

That is a particuarly bad corner, as a T intersection where cyclists can go through strait to a very short “bike only” path to the continuation of Union St. I see any number of cyclists who just blow through the stop sign. I think the “problem” is that it seems like a straight through road for cyclists, when in reality it’s not.

(Of course the real problem is that cyclists are blind to the sign, I’m just suggesting that’s the cause.)

I often wind up on the “wrong” sidewalk (there are three entrances) and curse the lack of signage, but that’s a small problem (I creep slowly around the bend then drop to the road.)

> who demonstrate no awareness of the
> problems of encouraging even heavier
> bike traffic along there. Something’s
> gotta give…

In Stanley Park the solution was two paths, one for pedestrians and one for cyclists. One of the big problems is that pedestrians don’t respect that: they routinely walk on the cycling path, despite having their own dedicated one.

In False Creek, I’m not sure it would be any different. Bikes kind of get screwed either way.

(The Stanley Park path is one way, and about two weeks ago I was almost hit head on by a girl doing the wrong way on her bicycle. I commented to her with an appropriate level of vigour.)

> but this seems to make no impact on
> their walnut-sized brains.

Really uncalled for.

@gmgw … as an avid cyclist i totally agree. Those cycle lanes which are mixed in with pedestrians of all ages should not be cycled high speeds. Max 10km/h and that can still cause problems. if you are a cyclist wanting to get places. Stay on the roads. If you want to saunter down cycling lanes with young kids or grandma … fine … but the others should get on the roads. Of course we have to get motorists to drive much more intelligently than they do at present. Example 1 ; what’s with doing 8okm > across Burrard bridge? or ditto for Pacific avenue on a sunday morning? or … i could go on. We have cyclists who are boorish and we have motorists who should have their licensees taken away.

Vancouverites need to mature and think more.

What gets me are these “car-free” festivals are just a partisan spin on what hundreds of other similarly sized cities do as par without the need of the guise of “green transportation”. They are “street festivals” and the intent should not be on green initiatives, (though there is that benefit) it should be on making the city more community-minded. And, hey, a greater community likely comes with more pedestrian traffic.

> why don’t the USE the DAMN road!

Roads are great, but as long as road infrastructure is designed primarily for cars and the culture of the car dominates, they aren’t always safe for cyclists.

Bike lanes with moving traffic on the left and parked cars on the right are incredibly dangerous for bikes. I use them, but if there’s an alternative route I’ll take it instead.

I’ve been fortunate to never be doorprized by a car, but I’ve come awfully close more than once when I’ve been in a lane like that. Car pulls over and parks, and flings their door open acting blissfully unaware of the bike lane.

I don’t have anything to add I just tried of seeing this stuck at 99 posts.
Yippee I’m #100. 😉