Michael Watkins
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An ongoing process. Many of the City’s recent initiatives (e.g. downtown separated bike lane trial, additional traffic calming on existing routes) work towards this vision. The draft Greenest City action plan will support this idea, and include directions to help inform the upcoming transportation plan update and new active transportation plan.
Michael Watkins
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An error occurred while saving the comment Michael Watkins
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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.
