Another good public space related press release from the City of Vancouver… this one on the proposed Hornby Street separated bike lane (designed to provide a connection between the Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir bike lanes).

At the same time, some interesting numbers on the numbers of riders using the Dunsmuir separated lane.

A good opportunity for folks to provide input and to let Council know about their thoughts on this new cycling infrastructure. There’s a website survey, as well as a public information session taking place mid-August.

City launches consultation on downtown bike lane;
Ridership on Dunsmuir sets new record

The City of Vancouver invites public input on the development of a separated bike lane in the Downtown core to connect existing lanes and provide greater separation between cyclists and vehicles.

Under the proposed plan, a separated bike lane on Hornby Street would connect the existing Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir Street separated bike lanes and also connect with the seawalls in Coal Harbour and off Beach Ave. on the English Bay end.

An information session will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 11 between 11 am and 7 pm in the rotunda of the Pacific Centre Mall at Howe and Georgia streets. City of Vancouver staff will be on site to provide information, offer survey cards and receive feedback from the public.

Surveys will also be mailed to businesses and residents along Hornby to solicit feedback. For more information on the proposed plan, visit Cycling – City of Vancouver. To fill out a survey on the proposed bike route visit Vancouver.ca/hornbysurvey.

The consultation runs from now until mid-September.

When considering which street to implement a north-south separated bike lane, City staff evaluated factors like safety, truck and transit use, existing bike routes and use, traffic flows as well as the presence of on-street parking and loading zones. Staff evaluated Burrard, Thurlow, and Hornby streets.

Hornby Street is the preferred option for a cross-town separated bike lane because:

• it already has a one-way bike lane;
• there is high bicycle and medium vehicle use of Hornby;
• it has no transit routes; and,
• it is not a designated truck route.

The consultation for the route comes amidst significant growth in the use of the new separated bike lane on Dunsmuir and the Burrard Bridge milestone of one million cyclists across the bridge on July 7, just six days short of the bike lane’s one-year anniversary.

Counters also show 2000 cyclists are using the Dunsmuir lane each day, up from 500 a few months ago, a 250 per cent increase.

About 30,000 bike trips a week are being made across the Burrard Bridge this summer.

The City is committed to becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020 and bike lanes are an important way to help reach that goal. The increased use of separated bike lanes shows cyclists prefer a protective barrier between vehicles and cycling traffic.

As more people get out of their cars and onto a bike or walk, the city will enjoy improved air quality, less traffic congestion and reduced greenhouse gases.

The new one kilometre lane moves the state of the city’s cycling infrastructure forward yet again – providing a safe and convenient linkage from the well-used Adanac bike route into the downtown core. Kudos to the City’s Engineering staff for moving this initiative forward so effectively.

The ride, short as it is, is a nice one – with a decent grade, a good pace and a pleasing view of the city — all key ingredients that give the route an enjoyable quality. This is important – in order for cycling to truly succeed as a popular alternative it has to be more than just safe and economical… it has to be fun too. (It’s this last part that sometimes gets left out of planning work, but that’s another story).

The really exciting thing, as the precipitating Council report from early February makes clear, is that there is more to come. The next stage of work to take place downtown will be to look at developing a series of separated bike lanes to link the Dunsmuir viaduct with the Burrard Bridge. The same Council report that preceded this new lane, also reiterates other, earlier, proposals for separated lanes elsewhere in the downtown core.

As the following Engineering map illustrates, the number of separated bike lane routes (and the total length of these routes) in the city is, at present, woefully small.

On the positive side, there has been a definite increase in the amount of cycling infrastructure created over the last two decades:

But as we’ve argued, it’s separated bike lanes that will ultimately be most effective in broadening the cycling demographic, making it a more intuitive option for a wider range of people.

At a cost of $300,000, the Dunsmuir bike lane is expensive, but ultimately money well spent. It’s one of the more high profile projects currently being undertaken by the City’s Engineering Department, and an initiative that will, (along with the Burrard Bridge lane installed last year), provide people with good opportunities to gear into more sustainable modes of transportation.

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On that note… isn’t the Dunsmuir lane a marked contrast to the Burrard Bridge bike project?

Where the lead-up to the installation of the Burrard lane saw a veritable twelve-lane pile-up of apocalyptic renderings (lots and lots of honking and bleating about traffic chaos, endless gridlock, the economic collapse of the city… none of which actually happened), this latest Dunsmuir venture seems to have generated nary a peep.

True, the lane had been closed for construction for some time before hand, and perhaps drivers had simply learned to live without the lane… or is it possible that we’ve actually turned a bit of a corner? Perhaps the Burrard Bridge and Olympic lane closures have yielded a bigger lesson than anticipated. Like that new public art installation on Pender Street says: “Everything will be all right.”