City Planner Brent Toderian is in Amsterdam, from where he sends a list of The World’s 7 Most Bike-Friendly Cities.
Vancouver is not on it.
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You sound surprised? Helmet law, share-the-road policy, incomplete routes (my commute goes from lovely new false creek, to woeful quebec, then a 180 turn onto the dunsmuir viaduct).
Dunsmuir’s obviously a step in the right direction, but it would have been so much easier and cheaper just to put all painted single bike-lanes that are road-side of the parked cars, onto the kerb-side, maybe with a bollard or planter every few meters to remind people.
Hadn’t seen that Trondheim lift before: great idea, and should totally be implemented on ontario, yukon, heather etc.
I for one am not so surprised we as a city have a long way to go to catch up to many other cities that are way more bike friendly and the fact that many cities are working really fast to get there network of bike routes even better makes our improvements look small in comparison. I only hope we continue to move at a faster pace as the council has started to. Love whats happening on Dunsmuir hoping to see much more.
Can’t say this is a surprise. Vancouver comes in third at best in Canada… They’re right about Montreal, and even Toronto is more friendly for biking than Vancouver. (And Toronto’s working on getting Bixi this fall.)
Vancouver’s council is doing great work on this regard, though, and is making huge progress. If the city keeps at it, they’ll make this list someday.
I’m surprised there is no Japanese city on this list. The most pleasant cycling experience I ever had was in Japan (and I have ride bikes in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin…).
Cycling in Japan is very easy and friendly. Cities are usually build following a dense grid and you can easily ride in small streets. There is not much traffic (except on some big avenues) and you are allowed to ride on the sidewalk. Plus motorists usually pay attention to you. No really, Japan is a cycler paradise.
Plus, Japanese bikes are incredible to run. I’ve never seen their equivalent in the West.
dist – Japan does a lot of urbanism better than most places in the world, and yet you hear very little about it.
While we rate ourselves against others, they quietly go about the business of building extremely livable cities. Sure they look at little rough at first glance, but once you live there for a while – there ain’t nothing like it!
Especially the way they connect bikes to rail – simply unmatched anywhere in the world, but unknown because it’s for the workaday resident rather than for tourists or leisure. So unless you’ve lived and worked there, it’s tough to “get” how great Japan does this stuff.
Not surprised it didn’t make the list, but they’re in a whole different league.
As a Vancouverite recently moved to Toronto, I have to say that I view Vancouver as far more bicycle friendly than Toronto. Yes, Toronto is getting Bixi, but the real test of bikeability is the infrastructure network. Toronto’s bike lanes are poorly maintained, hardly connect to each other, and often appear and disappear on the same street. Where in Vancouver I found it easy to get around the city using all bike lanes, I find it difficult to do the same in Toronto.
Also in Vancouver they are in the process of creating separated bike lanes, while Toronto is still finding it difficult to find the political will to install painted bicycle lanes and “sharrows”. The controversy and rhetoric over the Jarvis bike lane in Toronto was a bit discouraging to watch (not that Vancouver doesn’t have its own moments like this *cough*Burrardbridgebikelane*cough*).
I appreciate the flatness of Toronto, but aside from that I much prefer the experience of biking in Vancouver.