This is what Beach Avenue looked like at 3 pm on Friday afternoon – May 1:
Here’s the video: Beach Flow May 1
The vehicles and the bikes pass by each other on either side of the cones, about the in same number. They both pass by in informal pelatons – clustering in groups that go about the same speed. Each member feels comfortable, the speed seems right, there’s enough space. That’s flow.
There is adequate space at the back of the sidewalks on both Pacific and Beach to construct a bike paths of at least of 2 to 3 metres width. On Beach the property lines are as much as 9 metres from the existing road and on Pacific upto 6 metres. Unidirectional bike paths, separated from traffic and connected to the existing protected bike lanes immediately west of Burrard would give safe and easily accessible cycling access to the bridge without compromising existing traffic and road parking. And it would fit with the West End Park Plan for decongestion of the seaside walking path along Sunset Beach area.
Be careful what terminology you adopt.
‘Free flowing’ has been justification for other infrastructure projects.
Further to David Grigg’s comment, this kind of design strategy was used on Point Grey Road. There was a lot of resistance and opposition from land-owners along Pt Grey Rd to altering “their” landscaping that was located on the public right-of-way, but the city stuck to its guns, and went ahead with the project.
This was a matter of a strong political will on the part of party in power at the time.
The same could be done on any street in Vancouver.
But the idea of converting existng streets to flow streets is to reaportion the uses of the street at minimal cost – some signage and some pavement painting. No need to move curbs, survey the right-of-way, remove landscaping, regrading, repaving, etc.