This is the way to do it:
In BC’s fastest growing city, Surrey planners are looking to increase the cycling network by 50 percent over the next 20 years.
“We want to go from about 450 kilometres of bike lanes today to 700 kilometres,” Surrey Transportation Manager Jaime Boan tells us. “We intend to have a lot of bicycle parking available, we’re starting to look into separated cycle tracks and essentially create an environment where no matter where you live in the city, you’re going to have the opportunity to choose different types of cycling infrastructure.”
One of the areas Boan is focusing on is the City Centre, which is what planners now call Whalley.
He says cycling infrastructure will be needed as businesses and apartment buildings continue to sprout up along King George Boulevard.
“We see separated cycle tracks as an attractive option,” Boan says.
“King George Boulevard has three travel lanes in each direction and there are no bicycle lanes. What we are working on now is an option to narrow the lanes, eliminate two of the lanes and bring in two segregated bicycle lanes, separated from the traffic.”
Boan admits plans for bike lanes tend to get a mixed reaction from residents, especially from those who live in suburban areas of the city.
He says, however, most people tend to come around on the idea when the concept is explained to them.
Metro Vancouver has set a regional target of 15 per cent of all trips that are less than eight kilometres to made by bike by the year 2040.
As Ken Ohrn pointed out in the Comments: “No consultation process is ever enough. And how easy it is to howl “I was never consulted” when you have willfully ignored the ongoing consultation process for the last 15 years.”
At least the controversies in Vancouver draw attention to the need to pay attention. Surrey and other municipalities have the opportunity to do the designs, the consultation and the implementation as growth occurs, not after the fact, when the transition from motordom to a mixed transportation system disrupts the status quo.
It is still after the fact considering Surrey is considering converting King George, but at the same time they are hoping to connect the grid as development takes place in that area.
As someone who worked on the City Centre plan a few years ago with Bing Thom Architects, I find the vision for redistributing road space on King George Boulevard from 6 lanes to 4 quite appealing, even necessary, given the urbanization of this emerging downtown where livability, walkability and general quality of life must ultimately trump traffic movement.
I can remember the traffic engineers wanting to “model” traffic impacts, etc., rather than having a preferred vision of what is desirable, given community values. It’s good to hear that the proverbial shoe is now moving over to the right foot in this instance.