Ian Wasson reports in from the City of Burnaby, where he’s an urban design planner. They too are building a ped/bike bridge – the Griffiths Overpass – in the Edmonds area sometime in October. It’s designed by Busby and Asssociates, and Fast and Epp.
And Patkau Architects and Delcan are designing another beauty for the Central Valley Greenway.
As pretty as this new bridge is, its main purpose is to keep motor vehicles moving, without having to stop for a crosswalk.
That’s not a bad thing though – pedestrians cause huge delays and wasted gas each and every day as cars painfully inch accross downtown Vancouver as their single driver occupants head to their destination. Buses also get caught up in this, as do bicycles and pedestrians.
Not a bad thing, but I want to emphasize that the millions of dollars spent on pedestrian/bicycle overpasses and signalized crossings are for improving traffic flow first, and for safety and other factors second.
Ah, I understand now. That makes sense.
In some cases, it could be safety first.
If the road configuration (curve) means a crosswalk traffic light is not readily visible, then the traffic impeding option could be dangerous for pedestrians.
i.e. the traffic light on Pacific Blvd between Cambie and Nelson is often run through by cars rounding the bend (also, the Pacific Blvd light standards are taller than most, so it is harder to see the traffic lights, as they are above your field of vision when focussed on the roadway – the City has, however, installed side traffic lights).
Also, pedestrians often will not wait for lights to cross.
Also in Burnaby, the Centrepoint condo project has finally legitimized the overhead walkways across Kingsway at Metrotown (the ones that start on the south side and dead-end in mid air at Kingsway).
Agreed that they aren’t really necessary in this urban area, but they’ll probably guide people across the surface parking lots until they are redeveloped with office towers (in the distant future).
For safety, it’s usually cheaper to reconfigure the roadway in some way (curb extensions, more lights, painted pavement, elevated crosswalks, speed humps, rumble strips, 30km/h limit, etc.) than to build an overpass.
In the extreme, you can always close the street to motor vehicles .
It’s usually the major arterials with high car speeds over which they built the pedestrian overpasses (i.e. Lougheed Highway, Boundary Road, SE Marine Drive). Those roadways don’t necessarily lend themselves to traffic calming measures.
I also suspect that the above bridge is part of a trail and the bridge is intended to provide continuity to the pathway (i.e. like an exclusive right of way).
The “crossing” was often there long before the roadway became a major arterial. The cost of providing an overpass is due to the increased volumes on the roadway, and must be attributed to the the roadway, and not to the pedestrians and other users of the overpass.
There are probably several factors at play which would depend on the site.
i.e. walkways from Skytrain Stations – i.e. Brentwood, Sapperton and Metrotown – each have large volumes of pedestrians and there are nearby street level crosswalks in each case. In those cases, it’s a matter of convenience for the pedestrians.
Similarly, at what point do you decide to construct a bridge across a river?
Probably when the volume of people wanting to cross at that point is high enough. This would apply to the installation of pedestrian crossing lights as well as overpasses.
In the above case, the need for continuity along the trail project was probably the overriding reason for the construction of the bridge (and that is not necessarily driven by pedestrian volumes, but by politicians and city staff who want a project built).
But if they didn’t care about maintaining traffic flow on the road below, they could have made a level crossing for much cheaper.
My guess is that in this case, it’s more about City staff wanting a snazzy new landmark for their project.
There is a degree of truth to all of your comments.
This overpass is being built as part of a rails to trails project to connect the east side of the Edmonds Town Centre to the BC Parkway and the Edmonds Skytrain Station and more specifically a new high school on the east side of the overpass to new parks and a new elementary school on the west side.
The existing level crossing was for trains and was located in a blind curve at the bottom of two hills. Griffiths is a major truck route connecting Burnaby to Richmond and New Westminster. After careful review it was determined that there was no way to provide a safe level crossing at this location. In similar locations with much better visibility students all too often get hit by cars in marked cross walks. In this location it was almost a certainty.
Planning and budgeting for this project has occurred over the past two decades. Most of the funding was provided by Development Cost Charges (DCCs) on new buildings in the area as it developed to permit a pedestrian and cyclist friendly community.
Good urban design doesn’t cost more it just functions better and elevates the role of pedestrians and cyclists in the community. This structure is required to meet all safety and long term maintenance requirements, but in an artful way that will improve the identity of this community and encourage them to take ownership. A similar utilitarian structure wouldn’t have saved us much, but would have been a missed opportunity to add an aesthetically pleasing component to get people out of their cars and allow them to appreciate their community.
The Griffiths Overpass will be opened in early 2008. There is a spectacular view from this bridge which can’t be appreciated from a car so I hope that you will have an opportunity to use it.
Ian Wasson, L.Arch.
Urban Design Planner
Planning and Building Department
City of Burnaby
4949 Canada Way
Burnaby B.C. V5G 1M2
tel: 604-294-7216 fax: 604-294-7220 web: http://www.burnaby.ca
Hi everybody,
I have worked on plans of this new pedestrian bridge and I’m proud of it. I work for GENIFAB INC. at Quebec City, we are one of the most biggest office design in the province of Quebec end I’m so excited to see the final product. I think it suposed to be finished last week!! Je vous souhaite de marcher un jour sur ce pont!!
I ride to work from the Highgate area to Glenlyon Parkway (close to Boundary and SW Marine). This morning I rode the new bridge and I think it does a bit more for the community than we are giving it credit for.
Like mentioned above, it is connecting two areas that have always been separate by Griffiths. Griffiths, despite its green look, is really a fast moving artery, so I appreciate this both as a cyclist that will cross it, and a driver that will drive Griffiths, (hopefully with less delays).
I can’t comment on traffic volumes, but I can say that for completely selfish reasons, the bridge is great. It spares me several blocks of riding with traffic, and at least 1 light. And it does stand to reason that the students heading to skytrain will probably cross with the bridge rather than walk 2 blocks North to trigger the pedestrian controlled intersection.
The only very minor compliant I’d have is why there is no cut-out in the curb at the 18th street entrance to the trail. non mountain bikers lose momentum since they cannot “hop” the curb.
Great work, I think it really adds to the area in many ways.