How about innovative ways to make cycling more attractive in our RAINY city?

Can we build bike ways under tree cover, or other kinds of natural canopies?

I walk and bus everywhere and haven't ever owned a car, but the main deterrent to me biking regularly is getting wet. I know Lulu Lemon is a local company and I want to support them, but I like to wear slightly fancier clothes once in a while.

I'm never going to be a full time biker as long as it means getting soaked.

Our design standards should give pedestrians the most direct and convenient routes, then cyclists, then transit and cars last. Currently we have pretty much the reverse. The comment before this by Alexg is spot on. We need to apply much better design thinking to traffic in Vancouver.

Compared to other cities such as berlin, zurich and montreal, Vancouver's bike routes exhibit some serious problems with regard to engineering and design.
The bike ways that have been created over the last few years seem laden with obstructions that often make them cumbersome or even dangerous for cyclists. For example the carral street greenway is particularly rife with superfluous curves, slopes, poles and shrubbery... and it's no exception. I see many cyclists refusing to use these routes, opting to ride in the car lane where the way is smoother, straighter, and you're not as likely to end up face-to-face with a steel pole or tree.
Furthermore, i can't deduce any kind of construction and wayfinding standards between the different bike routes. When i turn from one bike route onto another it's like i've entered a another country with totally different roadway conventions. it's like a free-for-all no-holds-barred design whatever the **** you want urban planner fantasy land! really i have no idea what they are thinking. it seems like some vision of aesthetics has dominated all practical concerns with no consideration that some people might actually want to use these paths to get from one place to another. Faced with this kind of chaos i'd say it makes way more sense to just keep it simple: paint some lines on the road and leave it at that.
Perhaps the problem is as David Godin suggests: in vancouver bike routes are often thought of as luxury pieces of prestige public works instead of practical commuter infrastructure.

The key is to support multi-modal transit where bikes are always welcome. The current SkyTrain and bus configurations rather discourage bike use. How do we make it easy to combine bike-SkyTrain-bus-bike commutes?

An integral part of making a strong cycling infrastructure is bicycle parking. In the last number of months, many Bike Vancouver bike racks have appeared along commercial streets. This needs to continue. In order to encourage people to use their bikes to shop, go out for dinner, go to a movie - anything that entails needing a place to safely lock a bike - more racks are needed. If the racks are there, it's guaranteed that they'll get used.

@Ken Lawson re: cyclists paying...

The idea that cyclists don't pay their fair share is one of the most persistent myths of modern culture. In fact, private car ownership is one of he most subsidized aspects of our society. In Metro Vancouver taxpayers subsidize car owners to the tune of $6,000 per year (bc.transport2000.ca/learning/background/transport_2021/cost_report.html). In places like Ontario it is even higher.

So cyclists who drive little or never are actually helping to subsidize the habits of frequent car driver.

A large part of cycling safety is not in how we design bikeways, but in how the cyclists use those facilities. Education is essential to safety, and if the cyclists I see on a daily basis are any indication, some serious enforcement of basic rules of the road will need to happen. Vancouver's greatest transportation liability is the disregard [by both drivers and cyclists] for pedestrians and others on the road. I suspect that the most effective way to ensure cycling safety won't happen overnight: we need to teach cycling awareness in public school.

Re: Ken Lawson

You demonstrate a general lack of understanding of the costs to society of different modes of transportation. Cycling is a much more efficient form of transportation, not only for the individual but for the city as a whole. Your car takes up a massive amount of land in this city for roads and for various parking spaces around town that you do not cover the costs of. Beyond that there are the externalized costs of added road congestion, air pollution, global warming, weakened community, and increased risk to other road users. A great book to read if you are interested in learning about these things is The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald C. Shoup available at VPL.

So please don't act like you are more entitled to the use of the road without at least trying to challenge your gut emotional reaction with some new ideas.

"Sophie: You can have them all you want after you pay for your Annual Bike License of $150 you do not expect to pay less than dogs do you, Pay for your Access Fee to the area you want to ride in say Stanley Park, Pay Tolls to enter the bike lanes on all Bridges and Viaducts, Pay for Parking of your Bike with meters they have for Cars. the only thing differ will be that you can use your pennies to pay."

A little inspiration for everyone (doesn't look so bad does it)

http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=amsterdam+bike+lanes

Re: quieter neighbourhood routes - is there a way to reduce the risk of car-door collisions? As an avid cyclist I've been involved in one and had two near-misses. I always get nervous riding along streets with parked cars.

Perhaps signage "This is a cycling route - look before you leave your car" could help?

@Ken Lawson The comments from your other account were flagged as inappropriate by a number of users and the system automatically removed from the site.

Im thinking more on lines of the next Election, that we need to form the Anti Green Party the way this group is spending money

It is important to stop thinking of protected bicycle lanes, and bicycle infrastructure in general, as luxury pieces of prestige public works. Instead I think of them as sidewalks. Sidewalks are necessary because people and cars cannot safely mix in the same space and because people want to be close to the buildings that line a city street. Sidewalks are not built because of studies show that they will not inconvenience automobiles or that they will be able to be fit in the width of the street without taking away room for cars. Instead they are built because people need a safe place to walk and sidewalks are a necessary component of the urban fabric of a city. When you look at protected bicycle lanes, and bicycle infrastructure in general, from this perspective it is clear that our current city is deficient.

Greenest City Planning Tead we do not give a dam about Copenhagen how long does it take you to figure this out, this is Vancouver BC a Canadian city and we do things our own way, if you want to live in Copenhagen why do you not move there!

A staggering 40% of all trips in Copenhagen are made by cycling. One thing that supports such a high mode share is the network of cycling infrastructure throughout the city that makes cycling a safe and efficient transportation choice. This inspiring video outlines the key features of their network:
http://www.streetfilms.org/cycling-copenhagen-through-north-american-eyes/

What will it take? An extensive network of bike paths and lanes. Traffic calming. Modifying intersections and crossings so that they are friendlier to pedestrians and bikes. More bike parking. A share bike system like Montreal Bixi or Paris Velib, to make access to bikes easy. Full integration with public transit, including using Translink passes for the share bike system. Training and education. Promotional events. Stronger and complementary development, parking and land use policies that re-balance our transportation system to support the city's stated priority of transportation users: 1) Pedestrians; 2) Cyclists; 3) Public transit; 4) Transit of materials and equipment; 5) Private automobiles. Vancouver is moving in that direction, but we need to move more quickly. Start with successes, like the Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir separated lanes. As the naysayers see that these changes haven't caused the world to end, the next ones will become less controversial. The target: to encourage people who are interested in biking as transportation (not just for recreation) to feel comfortable riding their bikes, so that by 2020 the percentage of all trips in the city will have grown from the current 4% by bike, to 20%. That's 20 by 2020. We can do it.

I live in Coquitlam, I would bike to work downtown, but I don't want to play frogger with car traffic.

I want you to know that Im totally agains this plan especially bike lanes that are a major problem to motorists and Im not going to leave my automobile at home, just because you cannot afford one!

Where did my other comments go?

First, finding a way to better integrate cycling into public transportation systems would dramatically increase the bike's potential utility. We have the double-bike rack on the front of many buses, but this is a very limited system that's already overtaxed by the demands of present bike users (who not infrequently find themselves waiting for space), and our take-your-bike-onto-the-Skytrain system is undeniably clumsy. Devise and implement a system, however, that incorporates both more ease and greater capacity, and bikers may find themselves quite liberated. As already noted, 5 or so km of reasonably level terrain is fairly doable on a bike, even for people of only average fitness, and, if the distance or terrain becomes inhibitive (or even just daunting), then linking into the transit system would be the solution to the problem. From what I can see, this could work in several different ways, too. For instance, someone who doesn't want to use transit because they perceive that the distance from home to transit, or from transit to destination, is too far, may reconsider if they can bridge the gap on a bike and if they see the bike-transit system as a seamless, convenient whole. Alternatively, a person who can go 50 km out from the City in relative comfort (with family in tow) and then bike the last few kilometers to, say, a friend's house, all without batting an eye, may see little reason to own a car at all. In short, the transit system, if optimized, could go a long way towards overcoming many of the limitations that bikes posses, especially if the local bike-way & friends infrastructure is beefed up. This is, of course, not a new tune, but I think it bears reiteration in the bike discussion, and it's probably one of the more doable (and potentially effectual) transportation options available.

As a second point, mostly to pollinate thinking minds and to set the idea aloft for consideration, I turn collective attention to the shweeb. (See youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxVtUFZVzk&feature=related ). As I see it, this kind of idea, while still immature and still with its share of potential issues, nevertheless holds possibilities. It has the advantages of speed, efficiency (and thus more ease), weather protection, safety (out of the way of both cars and people) and even things like potential power assistance. Moreover, it would be a fraction of the cost of something like the Skytrain, or likely even light rail, to develop and build, and would likely have far more versatility in terms of potential routs and placement. Is it ultimately a viable idea? I don't have the resources to know for sure, but I think the concept (and possible spin-offs), at least, is worth keeping in mind.