Now is the time to adapt our existing streets, especially the greenways and relief roads, to accommodate a multitude of users who have to physically distance themselves. It’s already happening, as Gavin Davidson, an active transportation consultant, illustrates on some neighbourhood streets near him.
He also provides some helpful parameters on etiquette and good design.
As spring bursts on Vancouver streets, people are outside, enjoying the sunshine. Dogs, kids, cyclists and cars, everyone is in the street. And for the most part, it’s working.
Cars slow, kids part, we carry on. But on occasion its crowded and stressful with bikes lining up to pass a motor vehicle and parked cars stealing space that could otherwise be shared by people using the street. During this time of Covid it shouldn’t be too much to ask that cars be parked in garages and that streets be opened to people.
On neighbourhood bikeways throughout the City we need some new etiquette.
Motor vehicle traffic should be restricted to local traffic only, cars should look for options to park elsewhere, with the remaining motorized traffic limited to 10 km/h. Sidewalks and boulevards should be reserved for pedestrians, and joggers and cyclists should share the road, giving lateral space of 2 meters and at least 6 meters if you are following someone.
By comparison, Michael Alexander sends in a pic from the Ontario bikeway:
Does it make more sense for the faster-moving transportation and athletic cyclists, as well as e-bike users, to occupy the centre part of the roadway, while walkers, runners, dog walkers and children on bikes use the informal lanes next to the parked cars?
Thanks for keeping this important topic alive, Gord. Bikers and runners have never played well with walkers in limited space, and now it’s even more evidently about our public health. So anything that provides more comfortable spacing for walkers is a good thing!
I think “played well with” is inaccurate. More like “lumped together with”.
Running, cycling and walking have different speeds and should not normally be mixed. The only reason that they were in the past was because they were marginalized as “the other” by a century of car-centric planning. Any conflicts that naturally arose was the classic “divide and conquer” technique used by dominators to suppress any collaboration between the disenfranchised.
This is a good time to see how the designed and built environment could be better. We should finally enact the Stanley Park cycling plan that would help avoid conflicts between modes. Anywhere else in the city where people are squeezed together unnecessarily should be redesigned.