Here’s something to do while I’m away at the Land Summit and over the long weekend (there won’t be much blogging):
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I challenged PT readers to come up with more revealing ways to present the data available at this web page on the cycling counts for the Burrard Bridge, Dunsmuir Viaduct and the separated bike lanes on Hornby and Dunsmuir.
Kevin put together some quick visuals based on the data – and here they are. You can click to enlarge, or go here.
Volume by Month split by year:
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Volumes by Month, Bridge and Year:
Volume by Month and Bridge:
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Total Volume by Month:
Interpretations welcome.
I think things are getting a bit stagnant. I ride in the summer over Dunsmuir viaduct (from Metrotown) which anecdotaly looks busier every year. Interestingly Burrard bridge seems to be slowly going down (based on the data we have).
I think if further gains are to be achieved we would need to make cycling improvements further away from downtown. In some cases minor improvements around transportation hubs (like sky train stations) would make major difference For example:
– BC Parkway improvements around Nanaimo (there is no clear path through station and bus bay area)
– BC Parkway – Slocan – the bike path goes through unmarked back lanes otherwise you have to haul your bike up a few stairs. Interestingly, there seems to be some work happening around that area now
– BC Parkway – South of 29th Av Station – asphalt in horrible state
– In general – lack of signage and lights on BC Parkway
My Vancouver bike lane fantasy includes a bike route that stays in the Grandview Cut from the Central Valley route. It would need to cross the railway tracks in the Flats and then make it to the Viaducts. Keeping the bikes in the Cut would obviously cut out some hills and also some cross traffic. Another route on the wish list is the harbour from Canada Place to Port Moody. There are bits and pieces of it in place, but no through route. This would start under the Convention Centre and Canada Place along Waterfront Road and then along the railroad tracks by the port all the way east. This gets around a bunch of nasty hills in Burnaby and would be a convenient route for folks in the Dundas Street area to go west. I’m sure it would also become a popular recreational route from Stanley Park to Port Moody.
The real holy grail of cycling in the lower mainland ought to be Richmond. The whole flatness thing would really level the playing field between cars and bikes. With a system of segregated bike lanes, and better yet, covered bike lanes, on Railway, Gilbert, Garden City, Cambie, Westminster Hwy, Blundell and Williams and there wouldn’t be any reason why this place couldn’t see 20% bicycle share.
Also on the wish list:
A continuation of the Kent Ave bike route along the railway tracks through Burnaby, New West to United Boulevard. I’ve done this before, but the bike route basically disappears in Burnaby and you are left hunting and pecking, and it’s awful in New West until you get to Front Street.
A low level bridge from Queensborough to the Quay.
A low level bridge across the Fraser between Surrey and Coquitlam. When the rail bridge gets replaced with a new lift bridge, it would make sense to put it between the CN yards in north Surrey and the United Boulevard area of Coquitlam, around Fawcett Road. This would also be a good place to include a bike lane. An access point across the Fraser here would connect all the western areas of the lower mainland to Surrey Bend, Barnston Island and the Fraser Valley in general with a good bike route. I can’t help but think that this would be immensely popular. (This bridge is also in my general lower mainland transport fantasy because it would also be a good place to include truck lanes that would connect the SFPR to the No 1 and Lougheed Hwy and take truck pressure off Stewardson Way / Royal Ave / Pattullo Bridge / E Columbia. This would be tolled for trucks and trains of course, and would be six lanes, two for trains, two for trucks and two for bikes. It would of course be subject to lifts, but that is the price of a level route.)
Bikes appeal to a subset, and then only to those that don’t mind hills and cold rain in the winter. A study or blog post on bike use in hilly cities vs flat ones like Amsterdam or Copenhagen would be good.
Electric bikes mean hills aren’t an issue anymore. Lots of the North Shore commuters are using them. They also increase the average commuting distance from 6km to 9km.
In China, 30 million electric bikes are sold per year. That is significantly greater than the number of cars.
Yes e-bikes are quite common now in Europe on new bike purchases (25%+ or so). Even my 80 year old dad rented one on his last trip along the Danube. I saw a lot in Haifa, Israel when we walked along the beach promenade this February; I’d say 60%+ were electric – only 40% or less classic bikes.
Some cool ones here: http://www.canoe.ca/Travel/Activities/Outdoors/2013/11/25/21307086-relaxnews.html or here: http://www.electricbike.com/category/reviews/page/3/
Up next: speed limit for bikes !!! This one goes up to 80km/h !!
You missed a few of my favourites on the wish list! Having lived near Fraser and Kingsway, a Kingsway separated lane would be wonderful. Not only is the grade much more manageable than nearby streets, the diagonal route makes travel so much quicker, but the traffic is so fast. I used to bike through the alleys behind Kingsway just to have a safe route. I expect having separated bike lanes would also improve the pedestrian environment, making the route overall better for businesses too.
Not to mention Commercial Drive, which already gets a ton of bike traffic.
While spreading out bike infrastructure to new areas is definitely good, I think we also need to double down on the neighbourhoods that already are bike friendly. Some of these neighbourhoods are really on the cusp of getting those groups that otherwise would never cycle in the city to start riding their bikes, in my opinion.
Hopefully the new improvements on the south side of the Burrard Bridge go a long way to making cycling safer and more widely appealing in that area, and I really think it will show up in these stats in a few months time.
Did you ever stop to think that the demographic that now makes up a large portion of Richmond’s residents has only recently become affluent enough to afford a car? To them a bike is seen as a symbol of recently escaped poverty.
Why be so mealy mouthed? If you mean Chinese people, just say so. And if I did stop to think about whether Chinese people would be willing to ride a bike, I think that I would settle it by just looking at whether I see Chinese people on bikes. Yup.
The numbers were static in 2011, 2012 because there were no network improvements in those years. In 2013, both the Comox and the Union improvements were completed likely leading to the increase. When I looked at the numbers a few months ago, the numbers on the existing routes did increase when new network connections were completed.
For Burrard Bridge, the amount of car traffic has been decreasing as well. This may be due to population loss caused by the lack of any new homes that are anywhere near affordable on the West Side.
The percentage of bike trips has been increasing relative to the number of car trips over Burrard Bridge for the last several years.
With the Burrard Cornwall and Pt Grey improvements I would expect some increase in cycling over Burrard. It likely would be much greater if separated lanes were included on Cornwall west of Cypress.
I live on Comox and I dutifully went to the open houses for the Comox-Helmcken greenway and said how useful it would be, but I was really driving at the Helmcken half. Comox didn’t need much in the way of changes. Actually, some of the changes are confusing to cyclists as well. Still need some improvements on Helmcken and the connection to Pacific Boulevard.
I think that Comox would be of use to people who directly live on that street or very close to it. To everybody else and out of downtown-ers that route seems to be of limited value given that there and more interesting and flatter routes along the seawall that link you to Stanley park and beyond.
I’m interpreting what I advocate so it’s not so objective:)
I think it would be a great loss to remove the viaducts – particularly with the “increase” in bike traffic. The viaducts are one of the most convenient routes to avoid traffic and traffic lights at every intersection. We’ve got the viaducts, let’s use them to bikers’ and pedestrian advantage.
Separated bike lane on viaducts and along Dunsmuir is the reason why I bike downtown. Without that there is no way I would bother navigating downtown traffic to get to work. So if viaducts go away there better be an equivalent or better way for cyclist to get to Dunsmuir street from the east.
There’s supposed to be a planned bike ramp from the “superroad” to Dunsmuir – not sure if it would be steeper than the viaduct.
A ramp is in the plans, but the ramp that I would like to see is one that skirts the north eastern side of BC Place from Pacific to Robson Street. Eventually, knock on wood, Robson is going to be the premiere biking and pedestrian street with two traffic lanes, no parking, bike lanes on either side and widened sidewalks. A ramp that bends around the side of BC Place will add some extra distance which will lessen the incline, and a ramp could be incorporated into a major redesign of this corner which has the potential to become a Spanish Steps type place connecting Georgia to False Creek alongside the new vehicle ramp.
Interesting numbers for the Burrard Bridge – going down while the other numbers reflect a slight increase. Probably reflects the fact that traffic for those periods either side of the bridge is not bike-friendly. Trying to get onto the bridge from the downtown side can be a bit of a nightmare if you don’t know the idiosyncracies of the network. And the fact that the bike path is de facto shared with pedestrians on the East side of the bridge hasn’t made it any safer than it was before. Possibly loss of numbers on Burrard due also to improvements in the seawall route (Olympic village opening) and more use of the Great Northern Way route connecting East Van.
WRT the planned bike ramp if the viaducts are removed (gawd, would SOMEBODY please make this an election issue): this is probably the least resolved aspect of the concept plan as last publicly shown. A semi-enclosed 3m+_ diameter sloping tube alongside the super road, right where street trees and lights should be (plus pedestrian headroom), and extremely close to buildings and their windows. Goodbye privacy, not to mention replacing one set of visual obstacles with another one.
Further to the viaduct removal plan and development timing there – THE PARK COMES FIRST! 24 years and counting is absolutely shameful. A vague promise of a larger and more better configured park years from now rings very hollow for City Gate, International Village and Chinatown residents who have waited over two decades for this NEFC amenity.
Frank, do you really expect our current crop of civic politicians to hold developers to account, when all but one of them has been elected thanks to developer donations?
Bob, neither the politicians nor senior planning management have any interest in doing anything about the viaducts before the best election. They’ve punted the issue while undertaking a “study.” Yes, probably to see how developers can best benefit from a reconfigured NEFC park. They want the viaducts gone, major condo development, the resulting CACs and, just perhaps, a long-committed park. Replacing the visual barrier of the viaducts with an even more significant Maginot Line of condo towers separating the foreshore from adjacent communities is not a winning scenario in my book.
Er, make that NEXT election.