The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure invites the public and cycling community to attend an information session about Stanley Park Causeway pedestrian and cycling safety improvements.
As pedestrian and bicycle traffic increases on the Stanley Park Causeway there is a need to balance the park’s natural environment with improved safety for all causeway users. The ministry has worked with the Vancouver Park Board and the City of Vancouver to establish a cycling and pedestrian safety improvement strategy for this important route.
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Tuesday, December 2
2:30 to 7:30 pm
Coal Harbour Community Centre – 480 Broughton Street
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For more information please visit the project web site or contact Project Manager Erin Moxon at 604 527-3112 or by e-mail at Erin.Moxon@gov.bc.ca
For the link, remove the space (%20) before “www…”. Not much information there in any case:
“The option being considered primarily focuses on widening the sidewalks and installing safety fencing.” That’s it.
Here is the corrected link:
http://www.gov.bc.ca/stanleyparkcauseway
The details won’t be made public until the open house, but the project display boards will be posted on the above site from December 2nd.
There are implications for separating pedestrians and cyclists, as well as the widening improvements. The ministry has done a good job of detailing out their proposal. For all those who have voiced concerns about insufficient public consultation, here is your chance to see the progress, and provide input. Similarly, if you cycle or walk to or from the North Shore, make sure you are heard.
I wonder if the sidewalk widening will result in a) narrower traffic lanes (as originally), or b) more loss of trees. Stay tuned.
Come to the open house and find out.
The changes are too minor. Lionsgate bridge should be widened to accommodate 5 lanes of traffic, 2 for free and 3 for a $10/direction fee ($20 in rush hour).
Today we pay in time, by waiting. Let’s pay in $s for those that chose to afford it. Huge win/win for city, province, car lovers, taxpayers, bikers and pedestrians.
Bikes and pedestrians could go on a second level, like Brooklyn Bridge. Huge tourist attraction.
The structure isn’t strong enough for this, it has been looked at before.
The bridge and causeway should be removed from Stanley Park altogether. It’s construction was just another example of developers getting what they want at the expense of the public realm. The more things change the more they stay the same.
After the San Francisco Bay Area quake it is highly unlikely this sort of option will be explored here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake#mediaviewer/File:Cypress_structure.jpeg
I just checked out the proposal. Overall it looks pretty good. If it was me I would go further but this is an improvement for sure. There are a few trees that are not all that old that have to go to do this.
I think this is quite workable and reasonable considering all the limitations of the place.
I was at the open house from 2 until 5:30. Lots of media coverage. I didn’t hear many objections. Quite a few thought it wasn’t going far enough. In summary, the west side will be wider, one way cycling only, no peds. West side path will be wider yet, northbound cycling and two way walking. Question is will walkers obey the signs, and keep to the east side path. And is the wider path on the west side sufficient given the number of lamp posts and other obstructions.
East side path is wider, and two way pedestrian traffic.
Question is will walkers obey the signs
Coming from a Hub member, the question doesn’t lack of spices 😉
You must think of this “rogue” pedestrian,
http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/1176267/cyclists-speed-not-a-factor-in-stanley-park-crash-that-killed-chinese-tourist/
disobeying pedestrians are probably a reason why 50% of pedestrians are killed by Cyclists in Vancouver now.
there is no reason why Pedestrians should obey to signs more than cyclists do.
http://vancouver.ca/images/cov/content/Stanley-Park-Map-Thumbnail.PNG:
…and cyclists should always be in full control of their engine (as per the BC MV act),
In the case of the provincial proposal for Stanley park: there is no obvious reason to see the pedestrian/cyclist interaction differently than on Burrard bridge (Cyclist could go faster on the causeway…then they should be slowed down if that creates an issue):
Overall a good proposal. I have some reservations with those unnecessarily oversized barriers and location of the lampposts (ideally, we should follow the Cambie bridge model), but at least there is an effort to make the things much less ugly than what the city of Vancouver is doing lately (be with the Burrard bridge or Powell overpass to name few)…and, at the difference of Kits beach, there is even a public consultation 😉
> location of the lampposts.
I heard that it costs a lot to move a lamppost so I think that’s why the design just goes around them. I think it’ll be okay.
Do not repeat the foolish (but not fatal) error that the young reporter committed; the deceased in Stanley Park was NOT a pedestrian, but momentarily, an unsuccessful jaywalker, at the time he alone created the fatal collision. Had this happened while he stayed on the sideWALK or crossWALK, he would have remained a pedestrian, until death.
The elegance of law is its simplicity in details. The Courts reveal more fools than they create. So, be careful where you step.
Also wrong, there IS a reason why pedestrians should obey signs more than cyclists do, and it’s the same reason cyclist obey signs more than vehicles do. In fact, it’s a law. The law of physics. Too many cyclists have been in the right, but have been too dead to effectively exercise those rights.
Indeed.
Reminds me of an imprint I saw on a tombstone a while ago:
But he had the right of way. RIP
Yes, but ultimately vehicles and cyclists must yield to pedestrians, regardless of whose turn it is. Given I’ve heard it argued many times that bikes can stop on a dime and are much easier to manoeuvre than cars, what excuse is there? I can accept it was an accident; accidents happen. To imply the blame falls squarely on the pedestrian makes me uncomfortable and you only need to re read the first line of this comment to find out why.
Cyclists obey signs more than vehicles do? The same cyclists who think all stop signs should be changed to yield signs for bikes? I don’t think so. If vehicles disregarded signs and signals at the rate cyclists do, a lot more of us would be dead.
Ps a pedestrian is still a pedestrian whether they are crossing in a crosswalk, taking chances crossing on a flashing hand, or waking down the middle of the road.
Vehicles and cyclists must not necessarily yield to pedestrians. Check out Part 3 of the BC Motor Vehicle Act (which applies to non motorized vehicles as well)
Crossing at other than crosswalk
180 When a pedestrian is crossing a highway at a point not in a crosswalk, the pedestrian must yield the right of way to a vehicle
Note that highway means road in this section.
It may make you uncomfortable, but the above is what puts the blame squarely on the pedestrian.
So you are saying because he wasn’t in a crosswalk, but on a road in a park, it’s 100% his own fault he got smoked? I’m sure the guy who hit him wishes that he had done things differently. Pedestrians may have to yield to vehicles in the road, but that does not mean if you hit them there is no blame on your part! If a pedestrian does not yield, a vehicle absolutely must yield to avoid harming them. Accident avoidance, not principle of law is what is important.
The Motor Vehicle Act , RSBC, 1996, c. 318 also states that drivers
must exercise common sense and take reasonable care to avoid
pedestrians:
Despite sections 178, 179 and 180, a driver of a vehicle must:
(a) exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian who is on
the highway,
(b) give warning by sounding the horn of the vehicle when
necessary, and
(c) observe proper precaution on observing a child or apparently
confused or incapacitated person on the highway.
(Motor Vehicle Act , RSBC, 1996, c. 318, s. 818).
I would think the only legitimate reasons for not slowing, stopping and/or warning a pedestrian would be if you cannot see them due to weather conditions and/or dark clothing/dark street. Not looking in front of you is not a legitimate reason, and the argument that they should have yielded will not get you far if that is your rationale for why you hit them. Thankfully.
Glad you liked the proposal, Voony. Several groups (including HUB) met with the MoTI over many months providing input. MoTI had a balancing act to work out, park space vs safe paths. The question on whether pedestrians will actually cross over to the east side wasn’t mine, it was what I heard for several hours today from people viewing the display boards. People on bikes outnumber people walking by more than ten to one according to counts by MoTI. There will be some that will never follow the signage, but short of incarceration I don’t know what anybody can do about that. I think we can get a significant portion of walkers to use the wider, newer, smoother, quieter, set-back-from-the-cars path on the east side, but people viewing the boards kept bringing up Burrard Bridge, and how pedestrians regularly use the bike path on the south side. I remain hopeful. I pointed out when asked that the difference here is that at the three points of access to the causeway (north end, south end, Bridal Trail) there are ways to cross over, not so on the Burrard Bridge. By the time a walker gets to the bike path over the bridge they are invested, and they don’t want to retrace their steps to cross over.
If in practice people do walk on the west side, then that path won’t be wide enough, and I suspect MoTI will be back at the drawing board. Any further widening to accommodate people on bikes and pedestrians on the west side path would result in an impact far greater than the 14-19 trees to be removed in the current plan.
I wonder if there could be a new parallel path created in the forest on that side. It could meander around any tree in the way so wouldn’t involve tree removal.
This could be something for in the future if this does become an issue.
Lane widths remain the same. Multiuse path on widened east side, bikes only on slightly widened west side, guard rails both sides.
Many people including myself abhor (yet many actually condone), the ill practice of setting public policy and sudden expenditure of precious tax dollars based on rare, one-off (but well-publicized), singular events which are also prime material for evening news filler. Yes, the girl who – after losing control of the bike – fell toward roadside at the rare, precise moment a bus passed was a tragedy at the time for those close to her, but you do realize, that over the many decades that sidewalk has existed, that hundreds of thousands cyclists have effortlessly navigated it (slowing, as caution necessitated).
Had a variety of millisecond factors been different (cycling skill, bike maintenance, tire wear, reaction time, sleep dep, other distractions), this apparent danger lurking in the causeway might have gone unknown for another couple of decades.
Now, the new risk is when cyclists – now emboldened by the new sense of protection – raise their desecending speeds, until one crashes on the treeside, which makes the evening news, which raises calamitous voices, and calls for removal of trees, effective padding, or a parallel guardrail.
You are ignoring the interaction between the pedestrians and the cyclist (who was not a girl, but was 61, and a seasoned bicycle commuter) that occurred at the same time the cyclist lost control and ended up in traffic.
Far from setting policy based on a single incident, there are published standards (such as TAC) for path widths that are accepted by the design engineers as reasonable. These paths don’t meet those standards. There are frequent close calls on the Stanley Park Causeway paths, and over and above those incidents, there are public policy goals to increase cycling. We know from the research that a significant obstacle to more people using active transportation is them not only being safe, but feeling safe. If they don’t feel safe, they don’t ride, or they ride less.
The causeway paths have been an issue for years, and it took this tragedy to bring it up the agenda. Don’t confuse the attention from the collision and tragic death, with the support for established policies that all highlight the need to address the current paths.
Since Lionsgate is far too narrow generally speaking it makes sense that ALL forms of transportation compromise, until a wider bridge is built. Why not have bikes on on side of the bridge only and pedestrians on the other ? Why not add an elevated walkway above it, like Brooklyn bridge, and have sidewalks only for bikes ? Why not strengthen the posts and build a ped / bike pathway from the sea wall below the bridge so it can be accessed from the water level ?
To your last point. Many ships cross under the bridge, it is the point of entry to Vancouver’s harbour
The issue isn’t the bridge. It was widened previously. The issue is the causeway from the south end of the bridge, to Georgia St.
How about a tunnel, with trees on top .. through/under Stanley Park ? The bridge is so 1930’s .. not in tune with the 21st century.
Good idea. Start digging.
I stand (wholly on the sidewalk), partially corrected. Thanks Jeff.
I still maintain the reasoning on the idiocy and waste of agency response based on one-off and rare events, the aftermath of which almost always absolves human error (especially when the humans kill themselves). Vehicles and roads don’t cause accidents, it’s that malfunctioning part located between the seat and brake pedal.
I now see that because I have incomplete info on this causeway accident, it is not the best example to use to demonstrate misguided agency response.
Vancouver Public Space Network (VPSN) just posted a more indepth commentary on the Stanley Park Causeway consultation at http://vancouverpublicspace.ca/2014/12/04/community-consultation-stanley-park-causeway/
If it’s true that hardly anyone walks along the causeway then a widened path on one side should suffice.
On the other hand I’m shocked that pedestrians gave up the east sidewalk of the Burrard Bridge without so much as a whimper. Thousands of people walk across that bridge and many of them are now obliged to use a crosswalk at one or both ends. Strict adherence to city policy would have seen both sidewalks remain pedestrian spaces and both bike lanes put on the roadway in place of motor vehicles.
Absolutely agree. We need both sidewalks, and two bike lanes. It was a political decision to do it half way, but now it is time to look at the data on traffic volumes, congestion, etc, and if possible, return the sidewalk to the pedestrians, using a road lane for bike traffic.
I agree with this. Now that we see that motor traffic is doing fine on the bridge and that there is excess room on the other bridges, we can put the north bound bike lane on the road bed.
This will tie in well with separated cycling lanes on both the Granville and Cambie bridges, for the benefit of both pedestrians and people on bikes. Improvements for bridges are listed in the capital plan that was just approved.
The trouble with us pedestrians is that we’re not very political.
Everyone is a pedestrian from time to time, some more and some less. But indeed the group that says “We want wider sidewalks and/or dedicated pedestrian zones” is not organized, unlike bikers or car users or taxi cab unions.
There are some groups for wider sidewalks but they tend to be about a specific place, not so much for walking overall.
Having said that walking is included in the term “active transportation”. This also includes skateboarding, cycling, roller blading and iceskating when used for transportation.
So I eat my words, this is in fact making progress through BANANAdom. I was in Victoria and missed the meeting, but I am anxious to see this move ahead, as it is a terrifyingly dangerous section of roadway that urgently needs to be upgraded. I’m in favour of what has been put forward by the province, though hopefully they will come up with a way to ensure pedestrians stay on the east side. As for the 14 trees, a couple of parking stalls can be converted back to treed space.
You can still provide input to the project manager at the MoTI web site, until Dec 9. Suggest you voice your support.
@Jen (posting from December 7, 2014 10:45 pm)
I don’t know about your screen, but on mine the indenting means I can’t easily read the response any longer. Hence the response here.
I wasn’t there, so I can’t apportion blame.
But if the driver was determined to have exercised due care, then yes, it would be the pedestrian’s fault. How do you know that the driver could have done anything differently? If the pedestrian ran out in front of a vehicle and there was no time for the driver to stop, then you can’t go blaming the driver under our current laws.
You may want to support efforts to bring in a new vulnerable road user law. We don’t have one today in BC. As such, the burden of proof is on the vulnerable road user to prove fault after a collision.
Jeff,
Yeah the indenting thing is annoying. I used the reply option in my email (I’m following this post now) so I hope it doesn’t do that!
It is true neither of us were on the scene. I don’t know if the accident occurred in the strip parking lot alongside Stanley park dr, or on Stanley park dr itself. I do know it was about 4:00 in early October on a day with no rain, so visibility wouldn’t have been an issue, and the man was with a large group who were close to the roadway when he stepped off. As sad as I feel for the man who passed away, I do feel equally bad for the cyclist, who will probably spend forever wishing he’d left a minute earlier, he’d taken a detour, he wasn’t riding so close, or fast – what he would be thinking if this was purely bad timing. What he would likely not be thinking is: ” I had the right of way. He should have yielded. It’s not my fault.” My point, I suppose, is that right of way does not trump a road user’s responsibility to those more vulnerable for the protection of BOTH parties.
I was initially responding to the commenter who felt the need not only to place the entirely of the blame on the deceased but to demote them from a pedestrian to merely a lawbreaking jaywalker. It seemed to be a tactic to dehumanize someone who already paid a very high price.
You may technically have right of way in the roadway but when it is clear the pedestrian will not yield, you must not pursue it.