SEEING AND BELIEVING
After a certain point, no amount of argument will convince some people that the separated routes make sense. (“No one uses them! I never see a cyclist.”)
Sooo…
This is at Dunsmuir and Homer. Lots more shots taken by Paul Kreuger – here.
___________________________________________________________________
.
READILY ACCESSIBLE
Ken Ohrn picked this up:
Oxford Properties Group today announced a new vision statement for Vancouver: the development of a 35-storey, 270,000 square foot office tower at 1021 West Hastings, the site of the historic University and Quadra Clubs. … The building is readily accessible by bike lanes, SkyTrain, West Coast Express and bus services, as well as by Helijet and seaplane.
Notice the placement: bike lanes first. When those who write the real-estate blurbs think that’s worth emphasizing, you know the culture is making a shift.
___________________________________________________________________
.
“CALGARY, NO LESS”
Says Ken, who also noted this news:
(Calgary) City council green-lighted a new multi-million dollar strategy on Tuesday aimed at getting more Calgarians to ride bicycles.
The three-year plan would see the city invest in new cycling infrastructure, including more dedicated bike routes in the downtown core and elsewhere, better routes leading to LRT stations, more facilities for locking bicycles and wider pathways.
But council decided to put off deliberations on how to fund the strategy until the budget process in the fall.
About $10 million of the proposed plan’s $28 million capital costs have already been budgeted for, according to the document released in June.
___________________________________________________________________
.
TORONTO, NO LOSS
Toronto Council will soon be voting on whether, as per Mayor Rob Ford’s wish, the city should remove the Jarvis Street bike lane, The Toronto Cyclists Union has just produced this video asking the users of the street their opinion about the subject. (Spoiler: the cyclists like the lane! But what the motorists think might surprise you.)
___________________________________________________________________
HORNBY AND DUNSMUIR CYCLE STATS
___________________________________________________________________
Hi Gordon:
Minor typo above — my name is spelled “Ohrn”.
And in the Javis St. bike lane video, truly surprising comments from motor vehicle operators. None more so than the woman who complains that cyclists don’t obey the rules of the road (I truly wish all cyclists did). But the surprise is that she ends her complaint by saying: “… like we do.”. As if all motor vehicle operators always obey the rules of the road. And oh Lord, how I wish that were true.
Note that the Oxford office tower is a small floorplate building – so the tenants that they would be courting would be smaller companies such as software and communications companies – so they know their market.
The photos you point at seem to be an ode to a single cyclist. Every picture includes the same woman with a green helmet on a blue bike. As romantic as the project is, I don’t think it makes a case for the cycle lane being heavily utilized. If you take her out of the shots it starts to look like “No one uses them! I never see a cyclist”.
I don’t know about you, but I’m looking at a photo with eight different cyclists in it. And several others with similar numbers, many without any woman with a green helmet. I really don’t know how you can look at a photo of eight cyclists and say if you take one out it means “no one uses them!”
Those are from October, presumably a photoshoot. Skip to the batch at the end.
Even more impressive are the daily bike volume data from the City of Vancouver website. They have just updated it with the figures for May, showing what is obvious to any casual observer: the numbers are steadily going up. And it’s not just seasonal – if you compare the numbers on the viaduct for March, April and May of this year they are double the numbers for the same months last year.
Click on the “here” about halfway down the page to download an excel file:
http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/cycling/separated/dunsmuir_results.htm
Can’t wait for the June numbers!
The most unfortunate by-product of the Hornby lane is the 10-fold increase of cyclists using the sidewalks on the streets around Hornby to access the lane. Some sort of educational program needs to be introduced to enlighten these precious snowflakes on the rules of the road. You can’t just build these expensive lanes and then say “there you go, do what you like on the streets around Hornby” (and Dunsmuir for that matter).
“10-fold increase”?
Can you back this up with data, or is it just anecdotal fluff?
Though I would agree that there should be a network of separated cycle tracks on EVERY Downtown street to create a cohesive network of cycling infrastructure.