A Burrard bike-lane breakthrough in local transportation culture

From my latest Business in Vancouver column:

So, where did the traffic go?

On the first official day of the Burrard Bridge bike-lane experiment, traffic flowed smoothly. Granville had capacity to spare. There were some backups on Pacific Street and on the east lane of the bridge – a not uncommon situation – but overall, there was so little congestion that those who were savouring the prospect of a stunning defeat for the self-righteous on two wheels were themselves stunned into silence. By mid-week the issue had disappeared from the headlines, blogs and op-ed pages, leaving only a departing cry: “Just wait till the rains of September!”

Likely the success of the first week was in part the consequence of good weather, vacations, sufficient preparation and sufficient fear. Rather like the warnings we will get about the Olympic Games. Predict chaos, get calm.

Some are concluding that Vancouver itself has changed, that we’re a different, greener city than we were in 1996 when this experiment was first tried. (Disclosure: it was my idea when I was on council, and it bombed badly, scaring off councils for the next decade.)

This time it worked, mainly because it benefited more than just cyclists without overly punishing drivers. Those on foot, though inconvenienced by having to get to the west sidewalk, got the best of the deal in terms of safety and comfort, no longer having to contend with cyclists whizzing by mere centimetres from their shoulders. And when the rains do come, pedestrians will be buffered from the spray and noise of traffic roaring by at a hundred klicks.

It does make one wonder, though. If, as the phrase goes, you build it and they will come, does this mean that if you remove it, they will go away? Take a lane away, watch the traffic disappear? (That was the suggestion of the New York Times’ Freakonomics blog, who had picked up on the rumblings from the Upper Left-hand Coast.)

Initial data, however, indicate that the traffic levels, while down generally because of the time of year, haven’t dropped abnormally on Burrard. Cycling levels, however, went up dramatically, and have stayed high since the trial began. Maybe, just maybe, the reason the traffic flowed so well is because enough motorists made the switch and decided to cycle instead.

But what if something more profound is happening beyond this mix of social networking and traffic engineering? What if this is a mark of some kind of cultural change?

The implications seem to have provoked not a few writers of venomous e-mail to city hall, some of it even from the United States, whose authors took personal affront at this sudden removal of asphalt from under the wheels of the SUVs. Their anger and contempt was so visceral, it disturbed the councillors who did not perceive connections to the larger culture wars. The Burrard Bridge experiment was a red flag for those who have no time for arguments over peak oil, climate change and obesity presumably resulting from our way of life. They resent the provocations by those they feel would take away their privileges while attacking their gluttony.

The other cultural change, perhaps not anticipated by the cycling lobby, is the demand by citizens generally for cyclists to clean up their act. If the bicycle is to be accommodated by reallocating road space (and spending millions to do so), then surely it’s reasonable to demand of cyclists that there be no more riding on sidewalks, speeding through stoplights and ignoring laws generally while responding with middle fingers raised when criticized. And what about licensing, what about cyclists paying their way? (Insert argument here.)

It might be foolhardy to guess what will happen in the coming months, but I can make one prediction with confidence: there’s no way the Burrard Bridge will ever go back to its previous condition. Nor will Vancouver. •