From the CBC digital archives – 1990 – reported from Toronto, Montreal and, at 8:30, Vancouver: Road warriors: can bikes and cars share the road?.
There’s a war of wheels on the streets of Canada’s cities. More bicycle commuters are taking to the road every year, and they’re beginning to demand their fair share of the pavement. Drivers, meanwhile, see cyclists as obstacles who slow down traffic. In this 1990 documentary from CBC-TV’s The Journal, an aggressive bike courier and an activist pedestrian also discuss how they stake their own territory in the urban jungle.
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John Calimente, who passed this along, notes: ” I was blown away that Gordon Campbell used to commute to work by bike when he was mayor. And that he was putting in $8 million in bike improvements in 1990.”
(Check out the views of False Creek from back then.)
So what happened ever happened to those “changerooms and showers” for cyclists (mentioned at 8:55)? Also, Gordon, is that you?
Author
The bylaw for commercial buildings was amended, requiring parking and showers (above a certain size) – and yup, that’s me and Nelson McLachlan in there.
Man, that bike courier was something else. He seemed to think that yelling at someone gives him the right of way. Of course there are also plenty of motorists and pedestrians who think that too…
Today’s bike infrastructure is so much better than it was back in the 70s when I was learning to bike around Vancouver. I find the crosstown bike routes on quiet streets to be a real boon because they have cyclist-activated traffic signals to cross the main arterials.
I just wish the people who draw the lines on Vancouver’s bike map would get out and look at the actual streets they’re designating as bike routes. Choosing hilly, narrow Vanness Ave. with its very poor sight lines over the flatter, wider Euclid Street just one block to the south is crazy. And why climb up to Vancouver’s south ridge from the Central Valley via the extreme grade of the official Gladstone bike route when you can take the much gentler grade of Findlay and Commercial Street (not Drive)?
Let us also not forget that Mayor and Premier Gordon Campbell was also arrested and charged with drunk driving, in a car. Maybe he should have practiced more what he preached daily instead of just for this media op.
With more of our roads making way for alternative forms of transportation, which is a good thing, it is only right that all users be held accountable for knowing and adhering to the rules of the road. In the “war” of pedestrians versus cyclists, pedestrians win in the eyes of the law. There are some very irresponsible cyclists out there, and they are giving the good ones a bad name. We should advocate for stricter enforcement of cyclists as more take to the road.
indeed. Many cyclists act as if road signs, traffic lights, road markings or even speed limits on downhill stretches like NW Marine drive down to Spanish banks are mere suggestions to them, primarily intended for cars, but never for bikes.
On trails many do not use bells and barrel by pedestrians at great speed often unannounced.
Co-existence of bikers, peds and cars is critical as we will live together for a while, say 100+ years. Even if cars are e-cars and bikes are e-bikes and scooters are e-scooters .. a multi-modal transportation corridor, some with, and many without clear separation will be the norm for many decades to come !