Just finished biking the Hornby cycle track (weather: cool but dry; bike traffic: light but steady).
Lesson for bikes: Be cautious at intersections whenever vehicles are given a right-hand-turn – Nelson, Georgia, Pender. It’s trickier than you think.
And do not assume, cyclist, that you can proceed whenever you see a flash of green. Sometimes it’s the designated vehicle signal for right-hand turns – and, if north-bound, you’d cycle right into their flow. Not healthy.
Lesson for cars: Because every user has their own signal timing – vehicles, bikes, pedestrians – everyone seems to be giving each other the designated right-of-way. After you, Alphonse. And so – yes, ironically – the cycle tracks may actually be improving vehicle flow.
Whenever the City has put in place a delayed pedestrian crossing signal (at Howe and Georgia, for instance), it’s to give right-hand-turning cars some time to get through the intersection before the continuous flow of pedestrians make it almost impossible before the signal changes.
But invariably, a few peds start crossing before being given their green, limiting the time for the right-hand turning movements. And so the curb-lane traffic backs up, sometimes for a whole block and beyond on Georgia.
But on the Hornby cycle track, the cars being given a priority green to make the turn are actually making it through, easing the traffic flow on Hornby itself. The other users seem on the whole to be respecting the signals – in part because it’s complicated. We’ll see how this holds over time. But at the moment, it looks as though one of the beneficiaries of the Hornby cycle track is – dontcha love it – car traffic.
