Note: Jen Reynolds's idea "Make cycling the #1 best way to get around" was merged with this one.

"Here's what I see as a bright green cyclist future for Vancouver:

- Keep building bicycle infrastructure that is physically separated
from both motorists & pedestrians
- Implement the Copenhagen "green wave" along these routes to
encourage cyclists to take them and cars to take other better car
routes
- Repeal the helmet law for those over 18 to get more folks on bikes
and ensure the success of the bike-sharing program
- Legalize the Idaho "rolling stop" that _everyone_ does without
trouble already.

If we can get these 4 things squared away, I am sure we will be the
greenest city in no time and we'll have much greater than 10% of trips
taken by bicycle."

I love the contrast in this pic http://fb.me/Gnmlwbna It would be so simple to fix this, wouldn't it?

I totally agree with Ken - get cyclists and motorists out of each others way as much as possible - then they won't resent each other. Check out this video - Copenhagen - raised bike paths. Great idea! http://www.streetfilms.org/cycling-copenhagen-through-north-american-eyes/

Cycling is a pleasant and effective way to get around the City of Vancouver. But we need to attract more of the 8-80 crowd, who are intimidated by cycling on busy downtown streets. The best answer is networks of separated facilities, which will bring out a whole new type of cyclist, and vastly increase the number of them.

We need to have everyone feel safe getting to and from their destinations. Right now I'm not scared of pedestrians, or bike riders, or even skateboarders, but cars... that's a different matter. When a stressed or disgruntled motorist gets it in in his/her head that they are mad, they can - and do - use their vehicle as muscle power. Its a shame, but those types of drivers are unpredictable as to where they point their machines, if they gun their motor, and decide to serve or go fast. Let them be maniacs if they will, but they should not be able to create a problem or situation where they make it unsafe for anyone else but because they do, then others less "endowed" with that much metal and motor, need to be protected. Thank you's to the City of Vancouver for their help and assistance in making this a safer City.

I strongly support this. However, we should make sure that fast commuter routes are developed and maintained in parallel to protected trails. Protected trails tend to be slow and obstacle-ridden with recreational/novice cyclists, rollerbladers pedestrians and other users. Furthermore, turns, transitions and lane changes are restricted on protected trails, which can frustrate commuting cyclists.

It is not clear to me how making the city more friendly for cyclist makes it less so for seniors, and I wonder if Vim is aware of how many seniors cycle (my neighbor cycled every day until she was in her early 80s and then most days until a couple of months before her death) and how much cycling can contribute to a healthy old age. It seems to me that it is a car-centric culture and the investments it requires that disadvantages seniors, many of whom no longer drive. Modest investments in a more bikable city and real investments in public transit are of more benefit to seniors than continuing to subsidize a car-based culture. And yes, car drivers need to understand that they cannot keep getting their free lunch.

Bicycle lobby doing a good job here. Too bad for seniors who need caregivers, tradesmen etc to help out and are unable to cycle due to bad joints, illness etc.
The bicycle lobby too will get older and find that they suddenly live in an unaffordable and unliveable city for aging in place.
Don't come complaining to the tax payers on how you want help with access to care and for visiting family and friends. There is no such thing as a free lunch!

This is not unique to Vancouver, although Vancouver does have some of the worst behaved drivers. Ihave been spit on twice in Vancouver (both times in the West End) by people oppsed to urban cyclists. In Boston there seems to be a group of people who shout "get a car" when they see someone on a bike. I used to shout back "get a bike" but these days I respond "cars are for the weak".

To those that think cyclist can't afford cars: I want to say this once and for all there are a lot of people and I mean "A LOT" of people that cycle that can afford cars and probably could buy many cars but we all choose to not purchase them. So please if you think the reason we cycle is because we can't people don't assume this. The car factories and the refineries and many other auto industries are based in eastern north america so buy spending your money on them well all those dollars leave our province rather if you spend your money on other products more of your money will stay in BC creating more jobs and benefitting the local economy!

Alexg and David Godin have it spot on. The cycling network isn't joined-up yet. Is there someone in City of Vancouver's staff whose job it is literally to pretend to be a commuter?

Most Vancouverites are female and are aged 40-64, so I hope the relevant staffer fits that demographic. 20-something males are not who you are building this for.

She should start somewhere in the middle of 35th ave at 8am and commute by bike to downtown, while wearing a suit. I suppose she could look up directions first, but that's probably cheating.

She should then complete a similar length of journey in Amsterdam.

Then report back with recommendations for Vancouver.

(Two other quick points: repeal the helmet law to stop my mum being an outlaw for enjoying the seawall; repaint one-way streets like Homer from straight-parking/car/car/bike/bus-or-parking to angle-parking/car/bus-only/(kurb) bike-with-zebras-at-stops. Draw it out, you'll see it works.)

I ride into Downtown every work day.
Not a day goes by that I do not have some entitled driver yell or swerve their car at me like a weapon.
I have been attacked by drivers jumping out of their car to get at me.

If Vancouver truly wants to encourage bicycling, there needs to be separated bike paths... but also driver education.

Without education, these people will only become bitter that these 'wacko' cyclists are taking away 'their' road lanes.

So I applaud everything done so far, but there are some big hurdles to overcome still.

Improving cycling uptake within the City of Vancouver also requires an improvement in cycling accessibility to and from the City of Vancouver. I'm not picking on the City of Richmond but merely using them as an example.

The new bike crossing of the Fraser is wonderful, but the south terminus dumps a rider off in the middle of nowhere in that there is **** signage to direct cyclists to different routes from that point. Improving that situation wouldn't cost much!

Perceptions of safety limit the use of the Knight Street bridge as a pedestrian and cyclist corridor into the city. The Cambie crossing is not an practical alternative for those who live and commute between the east side of Vancouver and the east side of Richmond. There is a significant concentration of high tech, industrial/warehousing and general office space in the area of Number 6 Road between Bridgeport and Westminster Highway, employing tens of thousands of people, many of which live in the City of Vancouver.

As an example, if an east Richmond-bound commuter living at Knight and 41st were to use the Cambie crossing to travel to Number 6 Road and Westminster Highway, this would introduce an additional 15 kilometers of travel distance for each leg of a daily commute, over a not-yet well developed (on the east Richmond side) network of cycling access routes.

Compare this to the direct route of approximately 8 kilometers.

Even bus service to the technology park near 6 and Westminster is poor.

Of much greater concern than raw distance (via Cambie crossing) the only logical river crossing - over the Knight Street Bridge - is a nightmare of problems including:

1. Unsafe road crossings. The East side of the bridge forces pedestrians and cyclists to cross five or six roadways. Few of the crossings have ramps for wheeled devices. When traffic is not slow, making these crossings creates significant danger to both cyclists and drivers as the crossings generally have poor sight lines and the busiest of them is located just around a bend on a downhill slope for drivers coming from Richmond. When traffic is flowing well the average speed of drivers taking these off ramps is to my eye usually more than 40-50kph. The courteous law abiding driver which does come to a stop for a pedestrian or cyclist will invariably find themselves hearing the vehicle behind them coming to a spine chilling screeching halt. Odds are that rear-end accidents at these locations would increase with more pedestrian and cyclist crossings.

When bridge traffic is backed up this is the safest time for drivers, and for pedestrians and cyclists to make a crossing!

2. Grime, glass - pedestrian and cyclist users of this bridge are treated to perhaps the dirtiest crossing of the Fraser bar none. More frequent cleaning of the bridge surfaces is needed.

3. Walkway width - this bridge has narrow passageways for pedestrian / cyclist use. Improving access and increasing pedestrian / cyclist use would have to take this into account.

I have some sympathy for Wes' view. I am a hardcore urban cyclist and have been for a long-time. I split my time between Boston and Vancouver (long story) and cycle commute 12 months a year in both cities. I was delighed when the first thing my daughter did when she got a new job was to by a bike to cycle commute. That said, cycling is only a part of a sustainable transportation policy and some form of personal-powered transportation is likely to survive. Vancouver should strive to be an open testing ground for alternatives. Reinventing the Automobile by Mitchell, Borroni-Bird and Burns has many provocative ideas. It is foolish to think we know the solutions at this point. We need to actively explore alternatives.

I wish the people that have negative comments would provided constructive comments to this Talk as we all are here to make Vancouver better and not worse. I think everyone here wants to make Vancouver Cleaner Greener and to improver our quality of life. I also think if a person wants to live life with car dependence and not have to see cyclist and related infrastructure there are plenty of city's that have what the want. From the day Vancouver chose not to build A freeway through our core this city has been and will continue to be a city looking to become greener and more sustainable to both insulate us from the many possible dangers of the future as well as to improve all of ours and the worlds well being.

Don't get me wrong, few things get me in a better mood than riding my bike to work. However, the focus and energy being directed at this topic seems somewhat myopic and disproportional to its relevance within the 'big picture.' Vancouver is already extremely unaffordable in terms of living costs (and this is only going to get worse for reasons that are far beyond our control, so don't go off about us needing low income housing, subsidies, etc, etc, etc...economically it just doesn't work 'cause money, despite being commonly referred to as 'green', doesn't grow on trees) and if we want everyone to live and ride to work, it requires that we all live pretty close to work because people simply aren't going to combine 9 modes of transport in their daily commute. Back to my point...even higher living costs as we all try to pack into the DT core.

So...is cycling a fun, efficient means of transportation, sure is! Is it going to solve our environmental woes, not even close! Are electric, **** emission vehicles going to make this a moot point in the next few years, you can bet on it!

Here's the working link to the article Paul @ City of Vancouver referenced. http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Cyclists+freeloaders/3155386/story.html

my earlier link about subsidies to motor vehicles has an outdated link.

I apologize.

The new link is:
http://bc.transport-action.ca/learning/background/transport_2021/cost_report.html

There are two separate studies referenced
...
One by the GVRD (now Metro Vancouver) found the subsidy to be $2.7 billion.

Another study by the ministry of transportation found the subsidy to be $6 billion.

Re: cyclists paying their fair share

As explained in a recent op-ed piece (http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Cyclists+freeloaders/3155386/story.html), cyclists do pay their fare share of infrastructure -- and then some:
____________

'Most road improvements in the city are funded by property taxes, which we all pay, whether we walk, ride, take the bus, or drive. (Tenants pay through their rent.)

Some provincial highways through the city have provincial funding, and TransLink cost-shares on certain improvements of regional importance, but the vast majority of Vancouver's road work is paid for by the city, not through provincial gas tax. Cyclists seldom use these high-speed, heavy traffic corridors.

So legally, cyclists have every right to share the road, and financially, they do their part.

But they don't get much road for their money.

The amount of city road space set aside exclusively for cyclists -- as opposed to shared with motorists or pedestrians -- including all painted bike lanes, is only about .5 per cent of city roadways. Yet cyclists make about four per cent of the trips.

Engineering staff figure, on a very rough estimate, that the overall allocation of city transportation infrastructure is about two per cent for cyclists, 20 per cent for pedestrians and 78 per cent for cars.

Vancouver's multi-year $25-million investment in cycling, announced in May, begins to close the gap, but some of that money benefits motorists as well -through resurfacing key routes, for example -- and all of it represents funds previously allocated for cycling.'

(Councillor Meggs, June 15th Vancouver Sun op-ed)
____________

As others have pointed out, it is also important to consider the larger health, environmental, and socio-economic benefits of cycling, in addition to infrastructure costs. The conclusions of a recent Copenhagen cost-benefit analysis of cycling (http://www.kk.dk/sitecore/content/Subsites/CityOfCopenhagen/SubsiteFrontpage/CitizenInformation/CityAndTraffic/CityOfCyclists/socioeconomicbenefits.aspx) are illuminating:

- a person choosing to cycle provides a net gain to society of DKK 1.22 ($ 0.22 CDN) per cycled km, versus a net loss of DKK 0.69 ($ 0.12) per km driven by car);

- in cost-benefit terms, the health and life expectancy benefits of cycling are seven times greater than the accident costs; and

- the cost of a bicycle is DKK 0.33 ($ 0.06) per km covering purchase price and maintenance, versus DKK 2.20 ($ 0.40) per driven km.

Although the numbers would be different for Vancouver, similar conclusions can be drawn. Riding a bike cuts down on pollution and makes for a healthier population, saving tax-payer dollars and improving quality of life. Cycling is also a lot cheaper than driving from a personal mobility perspective, which increases affordable transportation options in the city.

Juvarya has a point, dry cycling in rainy Vancouver would be a great design tihnking challenge. Could we get the local design, architecture and planning schools working on this? That said, as they say in Norway, 'there is no bad weather, just bad dressing." I have no trouble cycling year around in both Vancouver (in the loving rain) and Boston (in the bracing cold).