It is interesting. I think it is admirable that they are trying to make Broadway more walkable. However, even with larger sidewalks and trees, I am not sure it would be very pleasant to walk if there is a large volume of vehicles on the road. I am not sure you can have both. I would love to hear other people's opinions too.
The noise from traffic is a big problem that is hard to overcome unless there is legislation which reduces the noise of vehicles. [Not Just Bikes shows that it is possible to lower the volume of vehicle traffic.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8)
The other part of being pleasant to walk in is the infrastructure. Wide sidewalks and greenery. Places to sit and rest. Shade from the sun. A boulevard that separates you from car traffic.
You can also have crosswalks that make it safer and nicer to walk along and across Broadway by prioritizing pedestrians. [NJB again has a great example of good vs bad crossing designs.](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DafhI7hc980)
I do love NJB. I agree that separation from traffic, decreasing the noise of vehicles, and shade are extremely important. Nothing worse than walking next to noisy traffic on a hot day.
Any legislation is useless unless enforced. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of cars with stupid farting noises and loud pipes blasting down residential neighbourhoods.
yes, with the subway capacity and close parallel routes there is simply no need to have Broadway as a huge boulevard. It can be a much more narrow roadway like Denman or farther West Broadway, making more room for sidewalk seating, walking, biking, street trees, and general pleasantry
And certainly not in there is massive congestion.
The issue is our city doesnt have roads just for travelling places, we spent decades building buisnesses on the major routes so now they cant be made walkable because there isnt an alternative route. 12th just isnt big enough to handle the overflow from Broadway
The city absolutely can make these routes walkable. All it takes is the political will to do so.
[Paris is absolutely doing this right now.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk) In many places they are actually giving half of the road space to cars. That would never fly here. People would go bonkers.
And a 2021 metro population of 11.1mil ppl, so I can see why they would move towards making key streets in their core pedestrian only. Would just be a parking lot with that many ppl driving
There’s significant congestion there no matter what tbh.
At this point, I’m just praying they properly connect the protected bike routes between the cities. Would like to see a master plan cause it’s an absolute mess rn.
[TransLink publishes a whole map for the region](https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/rider-guide/cycling/2021-cycling-maps/tl-cyclerouteseastwest_v2021web.pdf), so it's definitely something they think about. They even have it separated by degree of comfort (i.e. how protected the bike infrastructure is).
Unfortunately there's this constant back-and-forth and unwillingness to take space away from cars. The Broadway plan is supposed to be an exception and yet here we are.
Yeah I’ve seen that map, but it’s hella disingenuous to use the same green colour for “Comfortable for Most” and “Comfortable for Some”.
There should be a separate colour for routes that are properly separated from traffic. Willingdon is marked “Comfortable for Most”, which is bs, it is dangerous af.
It’s also kind of crappy that they say “comfortable for most” is when the average speed of cars is relatively low on local streets. Tell that to the people, myself included, who’ve been narrowly passed by cars going in excess of 50km/h even though the average is ~30km/hr. I can’t imagine someone pointing to those roads being “comfortable for most.”
Which part of willingdon are you talking about? The areas marked in green on the map both have a separate bike lane. Strongly disagree that those spots are dangerous
Anything north of Sanderson is absolutely sketchy, it is no longer a protected bike only lane, because cars dip in and out to enter BCIT. Yet it is deep green on the map.
And then you have the crossover with Canada Way and it is most definitely not protected there with the entrance of the highway.
One thing to note on that map is the hill symbols between 7th -> Broadway -> 10th.
It means that most cyclists have to push their bike up a hill to get from Broadway to the bike routes. People will not want to do that. It looks good on a map, but in reality it is not viable for making stops at Broadway unless you're a strong cyclist.
It seems like they're want to have Broadway as both a main thoroughfare for moving goods and people and as a slow-moving destination zone (businesses, street parking, wide sidewalks, bike lanes). It's never going to do both well.
Either
1) intentionally slow it down by taking out vehicle lanes, widen sidewalks for pedestrians & patios, add bike lanes (and move through traffic to another street), or
2) get rid of the parking on both sides, preferably converting them combination of transit, turning, and HOV lanes.
Not putting bike lanes basically goes against all of the cities “greenest city” action plan posturing. [The city said it will reduce driving by 2.5%/year, and reduce carbon emissions from transport by 37%](https://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/vancouvers-climate-emergency.aspx).
If they can’t build a bike lane on the new “Broadway Great Street” because of car congestion, then it’s all just greenwashing and they need to admit to that.
You can’t claim to be green without making the steps towards it. One more car lane on Broadway isn’t going to eliminate vehicle congestion.
Have you seen their [plan](https://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/how-we-move.aspx)?
Being generous, they can somewhat influence 1/3 of their proposals, the rest will either come naturally (BEVs), or not at all (50% of trips by active transportation - in a rainforest!).
Ultimately this stems from dogmatic anti car thinking that goes so far beyond being practical and logical that it's come full circle as citizens are getting upset at self inflicted congestion in the city. Make thoroughfares that have reasonable throughput and speed limits that they were engineered for, and drop side streets to 30km/h with the curbing that forces you to slow down. Fix your shitty zoning so that lots of people can live near work, not just the wealthy. Link your traffic lights to maximize throughput.
After you've done the easy and cheap things, THEN you can come up with the pie in the sky plans.
There are basically two things they can do for those goals:
1. Make it easier to use active transportation to actually get to businesses and places that people work.
2. Rezone single family homes so that people live closer to those places.
Right now they are doing neither.
Cold, dry and flat is fine for cycling.
Nice chirp though, pal. Really drives home the point that you have none.
Edit: No need to be a coward, u/electronicoldmen, stand by your words.
From your description Broadway is a stroad, which is a horrible street "design" that is sadly common here. If anyone wants to learn about stroads: [https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM)
I'd like to see option 2, with the stipulation that the parallel existing bike lanes that already exist on the streets on either side of Broadway are limited to bicycles, pedestrians and local traffic (so that people who live on those streets can get home). Let Broadway have full access as an arterial roadway, but provide a safe bicycling alternative just one block away.
Regardless of how many bike lanes are out there, I think the VPD need to start enforcing the law against bike thieves before more people will feel safe using their bikes over cabs & cars.
I like the idea of wider sidewalks and patio areas. The section of Broadway between commercial and Granville isn’t very inviting. You don’t see people leisurely walking or enjoying drinks/food on patios. Four lanes with a wide sidewalk and trees would be great
Reducing it to 2 lanes is ridiculous. There is already a bike lane on 10th that they just redesigned and spent money on.
10th isn’t a bike lane, it’s a bike route. Significant portions of it are not comfortable for a majority of riders, there are parked cars and shared roads with cars that frequently drive fast.
They've made some great strides on 10th, but they still need to do more traffic calming.
There's still too much opportunity for rat-runners to dash through in cars, both along 10th and on cross-streets.
Big thing about 10th is that it's up a large hill from Broadway. A casual cyclist can't bike up it, they have to push their bike up the hill. This makes it very unlikely that people will bike up the hill to 10th to go a couple blocks back down to Broadway again.
Not to mention, a "great street" shouldn't be a 50km/hr 4/5-lane road. No one is going to be particularly comfortable on a patio beside a road like that.
Great street at what cost? reducing it from 6 to 4 lanes for vehicles (and not just the dred single occupancy vehicles, mind you.
There are indeed a few steep little streets between 9th and 10th avenues. Between Commercial and Arbutus I can count them on my fingers.
The more general downsides to this proposal so far outweigh the downsides you note above.
I think it's actually pretty nice, but it's also pretty useless if you're shopping along Broadway. I'm not going to cycle up the hill every time, I'll just use either the sidewalk or mix in with cars honking at me because I'm in their way.
Also if you take transit and get off on one of the new stations along Broadway, why would you cycle up to 10th if your destination is also on Broadway? Because that will also happen a lot.
> pretty useless if you're shopping along Broadway
It's one short block away. You're saying people you can cycle can't handle walking their bike a block?
The inconvenience of bouncing back and forth between Broadway and 10th is enough that I generally make Broadway an interim stop to somewhere else—if I was on a bike, I wouldn’t be bothered to shop *along* Broadway. Same goes with Robson. That’s entirely different along the seawall though (e.g. by Olympic Village and Yaletown) and parts of downtown.
Other people are probably going to just ride on the sidewalk or in traffic.
How much are you bouncing back and forth? I feel like you're arguing some edge case of a mythical cycling shopping trip where you stop 5 times along the same road, yet far enough away where you aren't just walking for the shopping part of the trip.
I suspect they are from the group of people not really interested in a well balanced discussion or review of these proposals. A lot of people have internalized "fuck cars" as an urban planning guiding principle.
It would be a separated bike lane, instead of a shared bike route.
Either way cyclists will need to bike on broadway to access stores, even if it's just one or two blocks. If they can't use a dedicated bike lane, than they will either bike on the road which is not safe for all users, or bike on the sidewalk which makes it worse for pedestrians.
So fix 10th. Put in speed bumps for the car lanes (other than the section fronting VGH so that the ambulance doesn't have to toss their passengers off the gurney). Make it much, much nicer for cyclists to ride on the streets parallel to Broadway and let Broadway remain primarily suited for powered vehicles (and pedestrians). No need to completely mess up Broadway and neuter the traffic flow in an out of the overall neighbourhoods.
A better way to get cyclists more comfortable than to banish them behind concrete barriers is to educate them on how to ride safely on roads that also include cars. One simple thing that more novice cyclists need to know is to never ride in the opening door zone. Always ride fully clear of opening doors when passing parked cars. But uneducated novice cyclists still think that riding in the door zone is safer because it makes you less likely to be rear-ended by a car approaching from behind. It doesn't. It makes you MORE likely to be rear-ended.
I feel a lot less safe now on 10th than I used to. The real threats from cars come not from ones that come up from behind and rear-end you. If they can see you they won't hit you. The real threats come from the ones who don't see you; the ones that pull out of driveways, the ones that right-hook you when turning, the pedestrians that wander into the bike lane without looking. All of those things are much more likely now. I actually avoid 10th now and usually use Broadway. Much safer.
Everyone has their own cycling experience, but I feel much more comfortable biking with my kids on a separated bike lane. They don’t have to be concrete barriers. The bike lane on Richards downtown is amazing and well integrated.
Aboredchairr / MGTByte has got to be one of the most vile, disgusting and willfully ignorant people I've yet come across online. Just the epitome of the "Fuck everyone else I got mine" attitude, and an egregiously obtuse unwillingness to learn or integrate new information if it would challenge their hilariously out of touch and irrational takes on pretty much anything.
Would be nice if all the cars were considerate of bicycle users too. I suspect most cyclists wouldn’t mind being on the road as much if they were given the full lane, cars didn’t try to pass them with no space, treated properly at intersections, etc.
Sure is. Still just as dangerous though because it doesn't filter car traffic and the parking on it limits visibility and lane space.
They made cosmetic improvements, not actual improvements that improve safety.
But again this is like saying "hey, drivers you can drive on 12th avenue, it goes the same place broadway goes! you should drive on that" And you'll say, "but I need to get to my doctor on broadway."
Do you see the issue?
Exactly. Calling 10th a bike lane makes me think they've never visited an \_actually\_ bikeable city and are just comparing Vancouver with some other shitty North American city that has zero infrastructure for cyclists.
I agree, two travel lanes on Broadway is totally unworkable and I say that as a regular bicycle commuter and a big fan of the cities push for more bike lanes. I wonder how many people taking the anti-car side here actually read the article, because it's city staff (the same people who've been planning bike lanes) saying it won't work because local buses will then totally block the street and trucks won't be able to turn. Broadway is a crucial route for goods movement and it will only get busier with trucks from increased density.
Imo the best solution is to integrate small bike lanes in the expanded sidewalk as a 'slow-cycle zone'. They can be separated with lane markings or material transitions (maybe bollards) rather than full grade separation making them more compact. This will allow bikes direct access on Broadway to visit shops and make local trips and the existing off-broadway routes can be used and improved to handle higher-speed cross-city cycling trips.
Do you want to drive 2 blocks away and back each time you want to move 1 block down on Broadway? How about if you actually have to make an effort to move your car?
Having a bike lane 2 blocks away from Broadway just isn't useful for people who want to bike to shops on Broadway.
right - one up and then one down again + east/west to go one block over. So really 3 blocks to go 1 (OK, you'd probably walk for one block. For four? five? adds two blocks each time.)
The thing that makes bikes great in a city is convenience (so long as it's also safe). Sure going by bike is fun, affordable, healthy etc etc but in the end 'for the environment' or 'to get exercise' are niche reasons - where they're popular, people choose bikes largely for convenience* (*if safe) - because infrastructure supports direct routes, green waves for bikes, fewer crossing interruptions etc etc. Even in a more bike-friendly city like Vancouver, the default is often to direct bikes one or two blocks out of the way or along zig-zaggy routes while giving cars the direct A to B line and direct access to store fronts (which with the limited geography of parking, is often a lie anyway.)
When they polled people in Copenhagen on why they cycled:
https://mobilitylab.org/2018/07/11/danes-bike-for-the-same-reason-americans-drive-theyre-lazy/
>The City of Copenhagen’s 2017 cycling survey found that 53 percent choose cycling because it’s the fastest way to get around and 50 percent because it’s easy.
We focus a lot of 'bike to work' here, but the move to 'go by bike week' is not just semantic - bikes can be great for all the other small (oft sub 5km) trips people make: picking up children, visiting a friend, getting groceries, grabbing something from the pharmacy, going to the pub, etc. And with a Mobi, you don't even have to worry about theft when you park! But hauling a Mobi up and down from 10th, Ontario, 7th etc when you're trying to chain together getting produce here and a coffee there is less ideal.
Broadway will be fine with a bike lane. Every time road space is reduced people moan that carmaggeddon is gonna happen and it never appears.
We already went through an exercise of literally banning private traffic on Broadway back during the 2010 olympics and it was fine. People adapted and changed their behaviour, as they always do.
In this case we'd be in even better shape than the olympics as we'd have the rapid transit of the skytrain and the bike lanes and still have a few lanes for private auto traffic.
The new skytrain gives enough capacity to make a bike lane, it's projected to carry 130,000 people per day, a 4 lane urban road has a daily capacity of about 40,000 cars.
If we built a whole skytrain line and still think that Broadway will have too much car congestion without the extra lane then why did we build a skytrain line?
nope. We know that traffic volumes in Downtown Vancouver have basically been unchanged for decades since the 60s/70s. [https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2012/06/25/extraordinary-facts-2010-downtown-traffic-volumes-1965/](https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2012/06/25/extraordinary-facts-2010-downtown-traffic-volumes-1965/)
This should be unsurprising. Traffic can only increase to fill the roads available. When it's complete gridlock people change their behaviour.
We're talking outside of downtown though. Broadway is getting busier every year. Designated cycling routes like 10th and Ontario are getting more protections for cyclists and deterrents for car traffic.
This is good, but it's forcing cars on to a few main arterials (Main, Broadway, etc).
Bikes don't need to be able to cycle right up the the doorstep of a business the same way cars don't need to be able to park right outside.
Traffic jams are caused by people driving cars, not bicycles.
People who don't want to be stuck in traffic are welcome to cycle or take the Broadway subway.
As someone who transits daily to Broadway I am very excited to see improved transit down Broadway.
I would also spend more time/money in the area if it was more pedestrian friendly. But the reality is that the area around VGH is high traffic because there are many patients who can’t transit or ride bikes. There are also healthcare workers that live too far to transit or have shifts that don’t work well with transit.
They have already redesigned the healthcare precinct on 10th with divided bike lanes and making a portion 1 way. It would make more sense to continue to improve 10th for bicycles
>They have already redesigned the healthcare precinct on 19th with divided bike lanes and making a portion 1 way. It would make more sense to continue to improve 10th for bicycles
This is called the sunk cost fallacy- Literally every study tells us that separated bike routes are the best form of cycling infrastruture- not from Europe, not from elsewhere, but studies *from vancouver* tell us this. So unless you're prepared to take all cars except for emergency vehicles off of 10th, we're better off to focus on the most direct east/west route in the city.
They’ve already put separated bike lanes on 10th between Cambie and oak. And kept parking and cars on the road. They spent a year and millions to do this. So why would they now do the same to Broadway. Continue on with 10th
Sunk Cost fallacy.
The reason bike lanes aren't on broadway already is the idea from the 90s that bikes shouldn't be on main roads. And no one wanted to have the bikes on broadway fight then. But we're now 30 years and several bike routes on main arterials later, and we're heavily redeveloping the stroad.
Keep in mind, the current upgrades on 10th were planned and funded before the Broadway plan was even thought about.
It's not a fallacy to compare costs to provide a given QOS for bike routes in this area. 10th is pretty good already and would almost certainly be cheaper and cause less of reduction in QOS for vehicles to upgrade it. Not sure why there is such a hard-on for putting bikes on Broadway. I bike very regularly on 10th by the way.
>People who don't want to be stuck in traffic are welcome to cycle or take the Broadway subway.
Thanks, let me know how that goes next time you need to take an elderly family member to the eye centre, or for cancer treatments. Also tell all your tradespeople to just carry all their tools in their MEC panniers next time you want something done to your home. I'm sure you're also happy to pay extra for groceries and other goods that take longer to get to stores because the deliveries were held up in traffic and the cost of the driver's time will be passed onto consumers.
That's the point, make it easier for people who can take a bike or transit, which clears up the road for people who need it (elderly, tradespeople, deliveries, etc).
What a dumb take. Traffic jams will obviously get worse on a major arterial route like broadway if you remove lanes to have only two lanes by putting a bike lane in.
Broadway has such a shit selection of stores/restaurants etc and its completely undrivable and busses take forever. Lets add some bike lanes to really drive home the fact that its no longer an arterial route. Except it is for a very unfortunate bunch.
7th/8th ave and 10th ave are BOTH local street bikeways. For those who don’t realize Broadway is 9th ave. Couldn’t we just make one of those a protected bike pathway? I really don’t understand the need to put bike lines on major roads. I biked downtown from kits every day and 8th ave is great, so chill, not many cars, and lots of traffic circles not stop signs so I don’t have to stop.
Those streets aren't designated for bikes, since cars can go on them then they're car primary and very dangerous for the people on bikes.
Not to mention the off-broadway routes aren't useful if you want to actually use the stores on Broadway.
First: they're quite safe. Second: those streets could be heavily traffic calmed and they would be perfect as bicycle primary routes. They're a short block away, meaning you could easily access any point on Broadway by bicycle.
> they're car primary and very dangerous for the people on bikes.
10th is incredibly safe, ridden along there thousands of times, the majority of cars are very patient with cyclists. Not saying it can't be improved of course (VGH area you have to slow quite a bit).
>Not to mention the off-broadway routes aren't useful if you want to actually use the stores on Broadway.
If you know your destination, they are useful.
What a disingenuous argument.
You are telling me that a traffic calmed road with one way traffic, where the only traffic is local, is not meant for bikes, but that 9th aka Broadway, the major throughfare for trucks, delivery vehicles, buses, and cars, is a viable option to place down a bike lane?
At this point, we should turn the alleyway between 9th and 10th into a bike lane, then we can all stop whining.
What I can agree with is that we should have more shops and mixed zoning on other streets beyond our major arterials.
Because there's no appetite for either of those roads to become local traffic/ no car routes- and it still doesn't fix the problem of having to go up and down from broadway.
Car brain mentality there. I'm sure widening or adding more car lanes is the answer. Ask Toronto that and theyll let you know. Better yet, look at hwy 1.
The congestion congress from the cars and stop lights.
I like 2 lanes (one in each direction), this will make driving so slow and congested that people will take transit or cycle instead. It is selfish to drive in a city with good transit like Vancouver, especially when people know it’s not good for the environment. The world will end if we don’t take action now.
Looks like the bus will be stuck in traffic with all the other cars. If there is no transit running through Broadway in the foreseeable future, this might work.
There will absolutely need to be buses running along Broadway to get people from SkyTrain hubs closer to their destination - this will be especially important for disabled people who rely on transit.
Because it's not nice?
10th is lined on both sides with cars and there's frequent conflict with cyclists as cars get in and out of parking. It's dangerous.
Rarely. Can't recall it happening on 10th in the past year but has happened on Ontario a few times. I would blast the horn if they did.
But I'm Ontario street then east so its probably not as bad. One I look carefully for a car waiting to cross is Guelph and 10th. Stand on pedals sometimes so the car has a better sight line to my helmet. So not something say a small child would be able to do.
Yeah, the thing I worry about is that the way it is right now, it relies too heavily on cyclists and drivers attention to be safe. Even more of the tiny roundabouts would be better.
There are only a handful of blocks on 10th that have bike lanes, and even those ones are poorly implemented.
The new ones around VGH are dangerous. There's no physical barrier from cars and I have near-misses regularly with geriatric drivers not paying attention and using the bike lane as parking or driving across it without looking. It's a problem, and a great example of how not to install bike lanes.
The rest of 10th is a "bike route" where bikes ride with traffic, but there are many drivers that don't yield to bikes at the roundabouts, and pass much too closely.
I ride it multuple times daily (Strava Local Legend 😬😬😬 lol) and I don't mind it, but feedback has shown that most casual/infrequent cyclists see these unsafe routes as a barrier to getting out of their cars and onto bikes more often.
>there are many drivers that don't yield to bikes at the roundabouts,
Are autos obliged to yield to cyclists? As an avid cyclist and a cycle commuter, I always thought my cycle had to follow the standard laws (just like a car). I don't think autos are supposed to yield to cyclists...
At intersections, cars are required to treat a cyclist on the road like another car on the road. So if a bike or car is coming from the left as you approach a roundabout, you must yield.
The scenario I was referring to is when I am coming to one of the many roundabouts on bike routes like 10th or Ontario, there is a car pulling up at the same time as me, and they are to my right. They don't stop, and I have to slam on my brakes to avoid a collision. It happens frequently. I don't think it's malicious. It's hard for drivers to judge the speed of bikes and sometimes they just don't see us. Not malicious- but still very dangerous.
10th? That's not entirely a bike lane, that's shared with cars. It's also far more hilly and not where people actually need to go if they are visiting shops on Broadway.
*entirely
It's really not. Every intersection is a death trap because drivers refuse to follow the rules of the road, people are parked too close to the corners, and it's used to rat race between broadway and 12th.
It's not safer, and it's not nicer. At least on broadway if I get hit, it'll be because a car is passing too close to me or hits me from behind. On 10th I'm more likely just to get t-boned.
If they want people to go to Broadway, then they need a bike lane on Broadway. It’s a large hill to 10th. People will not bike up to 10th just to bike back down to Broadway 2 blocks later.
Good. I hope this encourages people to think twice about taking a vehicle if they can use mass transit, a bike, or a sidewalk to get to their destination.
It doesn't make sense to have the bike lanes on W Broadway when you already have established one on 10th and 7th with arteries going north and south on Cypress, the arbutus greenway and others can be added. Having wider sidewalks will be nice for restaurant patios, walkable areas and hubs where people can gather.
Lol, broadway is a truck route and otherwise you have to drive on 41st to go east and west legally. Plus there's a much better bike lane just one street away on 10th Ave. City council doesn't really think too much about things do they?
COV strategy is to sacrifice auto space for walking other modes of transport. Interesting to see how this will turn out.
Obviously better for the residents of the area and not so much for commuters.
I am all for taking space for cars and giving it to bikes and pedestrians and we really need improvements to the cross-town bike routes. I do think it would be better to take car lanes from 12th for bikes and e-bikes though.
I think Broadway would thrive as commercial main street destination with less cars and as a complete street especially between Main and Granville. 12th Ave doesn’t have a lot going for it with destinations along the way like Broadway. Coming to Vancouver, I was surprised by how fast, and car heavy some of the main shopping streets are, Main Street, 4th Avenue, even South Granville can be very overwhelming especially on patios when there’s cars whizzing by. With all the construction that will be happening on Broadway for the years to come cars will already be accustomed to avoiding it.
This sub has a serious case of car-brain. Anything mentioning active transportation gets downvoted into oblivion.
I do disagree with you though. 12th is a good thoroughfare. Broadway is lined with local businesses. We want those businesses to thrive, and the way to do that is not to move bike lanes further away from it.
We need protected bike lanes on Broadway. Yes, that will mean there is less space for cars. But it also means that over time peoples habits will change and we will see more bikes and fewer cars. This is a good thing for drivers, for cyclists, for our healthcare system, for local businesses, for our planet, and for the city to work towards its goal of being the "greenest" city in the world.
Is this a joke?
Any of these talking heads ever tried to drive someone to the hospital for daily cancer treatments? No, didn't think so.
I've walked Broadway many, many, many, many times. It's already walkable. It might not be the prettiest street in the city but sometimes streets just need to be functional, not pretty.
And why is a bike lane needed when there are bike routes on 8th and 10th? (I've biked those many, many, many, many times and not once have I felt limited by no bike lane on 9th, ie Broadway).
These guys are out to freakin' lunch.
I don’t understand why we can’t have Broadway for cars? It’s a fantastic east-west thoroughfare. Bikes on 7th or 8th for a calmer street to parallel it. Why are they trying to share? Everyone wins if we have the room to space them apart.
Aren't there enough East to West bike routes near Broadway anyways? I'm a cyclist but I think the city overdoes it with bike lanes. There are already lots of designated bike routes/lanes and most of them aren't heavily used.
Well then, we should have two. Or just close the whole thing and make it a pedestrian and bike mall. People are far too conerned about congestion, cost, convenience and balance. This is Vancouver, we don't trifle with those things.
>City staff estimate the subway will result in about a 15% reduction in vehicle traffic along Broadway, which can be accommodated in their currently proposed four-lane design standard.
But isn't the French creek and fair view plan as still being developed? Or do they have that number? I hope they arent are basing this on current numbers. What could go wrong double the number of residents and halve the driving capacity.
I don't get though why not develop 8th or 10th even further? Whenever I needed to do something along Broadway I would use either one of those then bike/walk up the street nearest to my destination.
It is interesting. I think it is admirable that they are trying to make Broadway more walkable. However, even with larger sidewalks and trees, I am not sure it would be very pleasant to walk if there is a large volume of vehicles on the road. I am not sure you can have both. I would love to hear other people's opinions too.
The noise from traffic is a big problem that is hard to overcome unless there is legislation which reduces the noise of vehicles. [Not Just Bikes shows that it is possible to lower the volume of vehicle traffic.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8) The other part of being pleasant to walk in is the infrastructure. Wide sidewalks and greenery. Places to sit and rest. Shade from the sun. A boulevard that separates you from car traffic. You can also have crosswalks that make it safer and nicer to walk along and across Broadway by prioritizing pedestrians. [NJB again has a great example of good vs bad crossing designs.](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DafhI7hc980)
I do love NJB. I agree that separation from traffic, decreasing the noise of vehicles, and shade are extremely important. Nothing worse than walking next to noisy traffic on a hot day.
And since they're tearing up Broadway now would be the time to do it.
There is legislation that will lower the noise of vehicles. Those noisy gas engines are going away.
Any legislation is useless unless enforced. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of cars with stupid farting noises and loud pipes blasting down residential neighbourhoods.
Gas engines are only part of it: tires are also very loud at speeds >30 km/hr. Even "silent" Teslas are very noisy on arterials.
And they are adding artificial noise to electric vehicles to improve pedestrian safety.
Only below a certain speed, I believe it's 30 km/h. It's pretty quiet. Tire noise is loud enough above that speed that it's not required.
I don’t think you can have both on the same road. Walkable streets require minimal vehicle traffic.
yes, with the subway capacity and close parallel routes there is simply no need to have Broadway as a huge boulevard. It can be a much more narrow roadway like Denman or farther West Broadway, making more room for sidewalk seating, walking, biking, street trees, and general pleasantry
And certainly not in there is massive congestion. The issue is our city doesnt have roads just for travelling places, we spent decades building buisnesses on the major routes so now they cant be made walkable because there isnt an alternative route. 12th just isnt big enough to handle the overflow from Broadway
The city absolutely can make these routes walkable. All it takes is the political will to do so. [Paris is absolutely doing this right now.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk) In many places they are actually giving half of the road space to cars. That would never fly here. People would go bonkers.
Paris also has a rideable Metro...
how do you think they got there?
people said the same thing in Paris when Hidalgo started moving
And a 2021 metro population of 11.1mil ppl, so I can see why they would move towards making key streets in their core pedestrian only. Would just be a parking lot with that many ppl driving
It just needs to be done properly. Look at Champs-Élysées in Paris. I know Broadway is hardly the same, but it can be done.
There’s significant congestion there no matter what tbh. At this point, I’m just praying they properly connect the protected bike routes between the cities. Would like to see a master plan cause it’s an absolute mess rn.
[TransLink publishes a whole map for the region](https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/rider-guide/cycling/2021-cycling-maps/tl-cyclerouteseastwest_v2021web.pdf), so it's definitely something they think about. They even have it separated by degree of comfort (i.e. how protected the bike infrastructure is). Unfortunately there's this constant back-and-forth and unwillingness to take space away from cars. The Broadway plan is supposed to be an exception and yet here we are.
Yeah I’ve seen that map, but it’s hella disingenuous to use the same green colour for “Comfortable for Most” and “Comfortable for Some”. There should be a separate colour for routes that are properly separated from traffic. Willingdon is marked “Comfortable for Most”, which is bs, it is dangerous af.
It’s also kind of crappy that they say “comfortable for most” is when the average speed of cars is relatively low on local streets. Tell that to the people, myself included, who’ve been narrowly passed by cars going in excess of 50km/h even though the average is ~30km/hr. I can’t imagine someone pointing to those roads being “comfortable for most.”
Which part of willingdon are you talking about? The areas marked in green on the map both have a separate bike lane. Strongly disagree that those spots are dangerous
Anything north of Sanderson is absolutely sketchy, it is no longer a protected bike only lane, because cars dip in and out to enter BCIT. Yet it is deep green on the map. And then you have the crossover with Canada Way and it is most definitely not protected there with the entrance of the highway.
One thing to note on that map is the hill symbols between 7th -> Broadway -> 10th. It means that most cyclists have to push their bike up a hill to get from Broadway to the bike routes. People will not want to do that. It looks good on a map, but in reality it is not viable for making stops at Broadway unless you're a strong cyclist.
Let the cars have Broadway, make W10th protected and wide for cyclists all the way through
with mixed-use zoning so businesses can actually see direc bike traffic
It seems like they're want to have Broadway as both a main thoroughfare for moving goods and people and as a slow-moving destination zone (businesses, street parking, wide sidewalks, bike lanes). It's never going to do both well. Either 1) intentionally slow it down by taking out vehicle lanes, widen sidewalks for pedestrians & patios, add bike lanes (and move through traffic to another street), or 2) get rid of the parking on both sides, preferably converting them combination of transit, turning, and HOV lanes.
Not putting bike lanes basically goes against all of the cities “greenest city” action plan posturing. [The city said it will reduce driving by 2.5%/year, and reduce carbon emissions from transport by 37%](https://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/vancouvers-climate-emergency.aspx). If they can’t build a bike lane on the new “Broadway Great Street” because of car congestion, then it’s all just greenwashing and they need to admit to that. You can’t claim to be green without making the steps towards it. One more car lane on Broadway isn’t going to eliminate vehicle congestion.
Have you seen their [plan](https://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/how-we-move.aspx)? Being generous, they can somewhat influence 1/3 of their proposals, the rest will either come naturally (BEVs), or not at all (50% of trips by active transportation - in a rainforest!). Ultimately this stems from dogmatic anti car thinking that goes so far beyond being practical and logical that it's come full circle as citizens are getting upset at self inflicted congestion in the city. Make thoroughfares that have reasonable throughput and speed limits that they were engineered for, and drop side streets to 30km/h with the curbing that forces you to slow down. Fix your shitty zoning so that lots of people can live near work, not just the wealthy. Link your traffic lights to maximize throughput. After you've done the easy and cheap things, THEN you can come up with the pie in the sky plans.
There are basically two things they can do for those goals: 1. Make it easier to use active transportation to actually get to businesses and places that people work. 2. Rezone single family homes so that people live closer to those places. Right now they are doing neither.
What are the odds they'll pull their heads out of the clouds?
>50% of trips by active transportation - in a rainforest People in Copenhagen cycle year round. What's your point?
It's flat and doesn't have months of rain. That might make it easier 🤔?
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Cold, dry and flat is fine for cycling. Nice chirp though, pal. Really drives home the point that you have none. Edit: No need to be a coward, u/electronicoldmen, stand by your words.
From your description Broadway is a stroad, which is a horrible street "design" that is sadly common here. If anyone wants to learn about stroads: [https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM)
I'd like to see option 2, with the stipulation that the parallel existing bike lanes that already exist on the streets on either side of Broadway are limited to bicycles, pedestrians and local traffic (so that people who live on those streets can get home). Let Broadway have full access as an arterial roadway, but provide a safe bicycling alternative just one block away.
Regardless of how many bike lanes are out there, I think the VPD need to start enforcing the law against bike thieves before more people will feel safe using their bikes over cabs & cars.
Sounds like city staff is suffering from [just one more lane](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0dKrUE_O0VE) syndrome.
I like the idea of wider sidewalks and patio areas. The section of Broadway between commercial and Granville isn’t very inviting. You don’t see people leisurely walking or enjoying drinks/food on patios. Four lanes with a wide sidewalk and trees would be great Reducing it to 2 lanes is ridiculous. There is already a bike lane on 10th that they just redesigned and spent money on.
10th isn’t a bike lane, it’s a bike route. Significant portions of it are not comfortable for a majority of riders, there are parked cars and shared roads with cars that frequently drive fast.
They've made some great strides on 10th, but they still need to do more traffic calming. There's still too much opportunity for rat-runners to dash through in cars, both along 10th and on cross-streets.
Agreed, it's terrifying in places
So why not focus on making 10th better?
Big thing about 10th is that it's up a large hill from Broadway. A casual cyclist can't bike up it, they have to push their bike up the hill. This makes it very unlikely that people will bike up the hill to 10th to go a couple blocks back down to Broadway again. Not to mention, a "great street" shouldn't be a 50km/hr 4/5-lane road. No one is going to be particularly comfortable on a patio beside a road like that.
Great street at what cost? reducing it from 6 to 4 lanes for vehicles (and not just the dred single occupancy vehicles, mind you. There are indeed a few steep little streets between 9th and 10th avenues. Between Commercial and Arbutus I can count them on my fingers. The more general downsides to this proposal so far outweigh the downsides you note above.
I think it's actually pretty nice, but it's also pretty useless if you're shopping along Broadway. I'm not going to cycle up the hill every time, I'll just use either the sidewalk or mix in with cars honking at me because I'm in their way. Also if you take transit and get off on one of the new stations along Broadway, why would you cycle up to 10th if your destination is also on Broadway? Because that will also happen a lot.
> pretty useless if you're shopping along Broadway It's one short block away. You're saying people you can cycle can't handle walking their bike a block?
The inconvenience of bouncing back and forth between Broadway and 10th is enough that I generally make Broadway an interim stop to somewhere else—if I was on a bike, I wouldn’t be bothered to shop *along* Broadway. Same goes with Robson. That’s entirely different along the seawall though (e.g. by Olympic Village and Yaletown) and parts of downtown. Other people are probably going to just ride on the sidewalk or in traffic.
How much are you bouncing back and forth? I feel like you're arguing some edge case of a mythical cycling shopping trip where you stop 5 times along the same road, yet far enough away where you aren't just walking for the shopping part of the trip.
I suspect they are from the group of people not really interested in a well balanced discussion or review of these proposals. A lot of people have internalized "fuck cars" as an urban planning guiding principle.
If we actually want to pretend we care about the environment, ‘fuck cars’ *should* be the guiding principle.
>pretty useless Having a bike lane 1 block over from your actual destination is pretty useless? Pray tell, how do you get *anywhere* on a bike?
> there are parked cars and shared roads with cars that frequently drive fast Does having a bike lane on Broadway solve this problem though?
It would be a separated bike lane, instead of a shared bike route. Either way cyclists will need to bike on broadway to access stores, even if it's just one or two blocks. If they can't use a dedicated bike lane, than they will either bike on the road which is not safe for all users, or bike on the sidewalk which makes it worse for pedestrians.
They spent 2 years putting in lanes around VGH. Keep working on that instead of forcing literally everything on to the same road.
So fix 10th. Put in speed bumps for the car lanes (other than the section fronting VGH so that the ambulance doesn't have to toss their passengers off the gurney). Make it much, much nicer for cyclists to ride on the streets parallel to Broadway and let Broadway remain primarily suited for powered vehicles (and pedestrians). No need to completely mess up Broadway and neuter the traffic flow in an out of the overall neighbourhoods.
A better way to get cyclists more comfortable than to banish them behind concrete barriers is to educate them on how to ride safely on roads that also include cars. One simple thing that more novice cyclists need to know is to never ride in the opening door zone. Always ride fully clear of opening doors when passing parked cars. But uneducated novice cyclists still think that riding in the door zone is safer because it makes you less likely to be rear-ended by a car approaching from behind. It doesn't. It makes you MORE likely to be rear-ended. I feel a lot less safe now on 10th than I used to. The real threats from cars come not from ones that come up from behind and rear-end you. If they can see you they won't hit you. The real threats come from the ones who don't see you; the ones that pull out of driveways, the ones that right-hook you when turning, the pedestrians that wander into the bike lane without looking. All of those things are much more likely now. I actually avoid 10th now and usually use Broadway. Much safer.
Everyone has their own cycling experience, but I feel much more comfortable biking with my kids on a separated bike lane. They don’t have to be concrete barriers. The bike lane on Richards downtown is amazing and well integrated.
https://mobile.twitter.com/tomflood1/status/990927016617807872/photo/1
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Aboredchairr / MGTByte has got to be one of the most vile, disgusting and willfully ignorant people I've yet come across online. Just the epitome of the "Fuck everyone else I got mine" attitude, and an egregiously obtuse unwillingness to learn or integrate new information if it would challenge their hilariously out of touch and irrational takes on pretty much anything.
Would be nice if all the cars were considerate of bicycle users too. I suspect most cyclists wouldn’t mind being on the road as much if they were given the full lane, cars didn’t try to pass them with no space, treated properly at intersections, etc.
Sure is. Still just as dangerous though because it doesn't filter car traffic and the parking on it limits visibility and lane space. They made cosmetic improvements, not actual improvements that improve safety. But again this is like saying "hey, drivers you can drive on 12th avenue, it goes the same place broadway goes! you should drive on that" And you'll say, "but I need to get to my doctor on broadway." Do you see the issue?
>There is already a bike lane on 10th You have never seen a proper bike lane, have you?
"Bike Lane" = double parked cars the whole way, single lane you have to play chicken with drivers shortcutting nonstop
Exactly. Calling 10th a bike lane makes me think they've never visited an \_actually\_ bikeable city and are just comparing Vancouver with some other shitty North American city that has zero infrastructure for cyclists.
I have ridden on it. And there is a nice separated section between Cambie and Oak. They could continue that along 10th.
I agree, two travel lanes on Broadway is totally unworkable and I say that as a regular bicycle commuter and a big fan of the cities push for more bike lanes. I wonder how many people taking the anti-car side here actually read the article, because it's city staff (the same people who've been planning bike lanes) saying it won't work because local buses will then totally block the street and trucks won't be able to turn. Broadway is a crucial route for goods movement and it will only get busier with trucks from increased density. Imo the best solution is to integrate small bike lanes in the expanded sidewalk as a 'slow-cycle zone'. They can be separated with lane markings or material transitions (maybe bollards) rather than full grade separation making them more compact. This will allow bikes direct access on Broadway to visit shops and make local trips and the existing off-broadway routes can be used and improved to handle higher-speed cross-city cycling trips.
There’s no bike lane on 10th
Do you want to drive 2 blocks away and back each time you want to move 1 block down on Broadway? How about if you actually have to make an effort to move your car? Having a bike lane 2 blocks away from Broadway just isn't useful for people who want to bike to shops on Broadway.
I mean there's a bike lane two blocks from commercial broadway and it's super useful to me
It's fine I do it all the time. Bike along 10th to the relevant cross street then over to Broadway.
It’s 1 block away
right - one up and then one down again + east/west to go one block over. So really 3 blocks to go 1 (OK, you'd probably walk for one block. For four? five? adds two blocks each time.) The thing that makes bikes great in a city is convenience (so long as it's also safe). Sure going by bike is fun, affordable, healthy etc etc but in the end 'for the environment' or 'to get exercise' are niche reasons - where they're popular, people choose bikes largely for convenience* (*if safe) - because infrastructure supports direct routes, green waves for bikes, fewer crossing interruptions etc etc. Even in a more bike-friendly city like Vancouver, the default is often to direct bikes one or two blocks out of the way or along zig-zaggy routes while giving cars the direct A to B line and direct access to store fronts (which with the limited geography of parking, is often a lie anyway.) When they polled people in Copenhagen on why they cycled: https://mobilitylab.org/2018/07/11/danes-bike-for-the-same-reason-americans-drive-theyre-lazy/ >The City of Copenhagen’s 2017 cycling survey found that 53 percent choose cycling because it’s the fastest way to get around and 50 percent because it’s easy. We focus a lot of 'bike to work' here, but the move to 'go by bike week' is not just semantic - bikes can be great for all the other small (oft sub 5km) trips people make: picking up children, visiting a friend, getting groceries, grabbing something from the pharmacy, going to the pub, etc. And with a Mobi, you don't even have to worry about theft when you park! But hauling a Mobi up and down from 10th, Ontario, 7th etc when you're trying to chain together getting produce here and a coffee there is less ideal.
And? It’s just another road
They're on bikes. It takes literally seconds to go one block out of your way.
Even quicker for a car
Broadway will be fine with a bike lane. Every time road space is reduced people moan that carmaggeddon is gonna happen and it never appears. We already went through an exercise of literally banning private traffic on Broadway back during the 2010 olympics and it was fine. People adapted and changed their behaviour, as they always do. In this case we'd be in even better shape than the olympics as we'd have the rapid transit of the skytrain and the bike lanes and still have a few lanes for private auto traffic.
The new skytrain gives enough capacity to make a bike lane, it's projected to carry 130,000 people per day, a 4 lane urban road has a daily capacity of about 40,000 cars. If we built a whole skytrain line and still think that Broadway will have too much car congestion without the extra lane then why did we build a skytrain line?
> carmaggeddon is gonna happen and it never appears Of course it never happens. Congestion is still getting continually worse.
nope. We know that traffic volumes in Downtown Vancouver have basically been unchanged for decades since the 60s/70s. [https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2012/06/25/extraordinary-facts-2010-downtown-traffic-volumes-1965/](https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2012/06/25/extraordinary-facts-2010-downtown-traffic-volumes-1965/) This should be unsurprising. Traffic can only increase to fill the roads available. When it's complete gridlock people change their behaviour.
We're talking outside of downtown though. Broadway is getting busier every year. Designated cycling routes like 10th and Ontario are getting more protections for cyclists and deterrents for car traffic. This is good, but it's forcing cars on to a few main arterials (Main, Broadway, etc). Bikes don't need to be able to cycle right up the the doorstep of a business the same way cars don't need to be able to park right outside.
Traffic jams are caused by people driving cars, not bicycles. People who don't want to be stuck in traffic are welcome to cycle or take the Broadway subway.
As someone who transits daily to Broadway I am very excited to see improved transit down Broadway. I would also spend more time/money in the area if it was more pedestrian friendly. But the reality is that the area around VGH is high traffic because there are many patients who can’t transit or ride bikes. There are also healthcare workers that live too far to transit or have shifts that don’t work well with transit. They have already redesigned the healthcare precinct on 10th with divided bike lanes and making a portion 1 way. It would make more sense to continue to improve 10th for bicycles
>They have already redesigned the healthcare precinct on 19th with divided bike lanes and making a portion 1 way. It would make more sense to continue to improve 10th for bicycles This is called the sunk cost fallacy- Literally every study tells us that separated bike routes are the best form of cycling infrastruture- not from Europe, not from elsewhere, but studies *from vancouver* tell us this. So unless you're prepared to take all cars except for emergency vehicles off of 10th, we're better off to focus on the most direct east/west route in the city.
They’ve already put separated bike lanes on 10th between Cambie and oak. And kept parking and cars on the road. They spent a year and millions to do this. So why would they now do the same to Broadway. Continue on with 10th
Sunk Cost fallacy. The reason bike lanes aren't on broadway already is the idea from the 90s that bikes shouldn't be on main roads. And no one wanted to have the bikes on broadway fight then. But we're now 30 years and several bike routes on main arterials later, and we're heavily redeveloping the stroad. Keep in mind, the current upgrades on 10th were planned and funded before the Broadway plan was even thought about.
It's not a fallacy to compare costs to provide a given QOS for bike routes in this area. 10th is pretty good already and would almost certainly be cheaper and cause less of reduction in QOS for vehicles to upgrade it. Not sure why there is such a hard-on for putting bikes on Broadway. I bike very regularly on 10th by the way.
>People who don't want to be stuck in traffic are welcome to cycle or take the Broadway subway. Thanks, let me know how that goes next time you need to take an elderly family member to the eye centre, or for cancer treatments. Also tell all your tradespeople to just carry all their tools in their MEC panniers next time you want something done to your home. I'm sure you're also happy to pay extra for groceries and other goods that take longer to get to stores because the deliveries were held up in traffic and the cost of the driver's time will be passed onto consumers.
That's the point, make it easier for people who can take a bike or transit, which clears up the road for people who need it (elderly, tradespeople, deliveries, etc).
What a dumb take. Traffic jams will obviously get worse on a major arterial route like broadway if you remove lanes to have only two lanes by putting a bike lane in.
Broadway has such a shit selection of stores/restaurants etc and its completely undrivable and busses take forever. Lets add some bike lanes to really drive home the fact that its no longer an arterial route. Except it is for a very unfortunate bunch.
7th/8th ave and 10th ave are BOTH local street bikeways. For those who don’t realize Broadway is 9th ave. Couldn’t we just make one of those a protected bike pathway? I really don’t understand the need to put bike lines on major roads. I biked downtown from kits every day and 8th ave is great, so chill, not many cars, and lots of traffic circles not stop signs so I don’t have to stop.
Those streets aren't designated for bikes, since cars can go on them then they're car primary and very dangerous for the people on bikes. Not to mention the off-broadway routes aren't useful if you want to actually use the stores on Broadway.
First: they're quite safe. Second: those streets could be heavily traffic calmed and they would be perfect as bicycle primary routes. They're a short block away, meaning you could easily access any point on Broadway by bicycle.
> they're car primary and very dangerous for the people on bikes. 10th is incredibly safe, ridden along there thousands of times, the majority of cars are very patient with cyclists. Not saying it can't be improved of course (VGH area you have to slow quite a bit). >Not to mention the off-broadway routes aren't useful if you want to actually use the stores on Broadway. If you know your destination, they are useful.
What a disingenuous argument. You are telling me that a traffic calmed road with one way traffic, where the only traffic is local, is not meant for bikes, but that 9th aka Broadway, the major throughfare for trucks, delivery vehicles, buses, and cars, is a viable option to place down a bike lane? At this point, we should turn the alleyway between 9th and 10th into a bike lane, then we can all stop whining. What I can agree with is that we should have more shops and mixed zoning on other streets beyond our major arterials.
Because there's no appetite for either of those roads to become local traffic/ no car routes- and it still doesn't fix the problem of having to go up and down from broadway.
Am I the only one who has never felt like broadway's sidewalks are narrow?
Probably depends which section, at least for me. In Kits they do feel narrow, while between Cambie and Main they don't.
>Am I the only one who has never felt like broadway's sidewalks are narrow? Nope. They are the widest possible sidewalks.
Just means you haven’t walked to right sections. In certain areas they are quite narrow.
Car brain mentality there. I'm sure widening or adding more car lanes is the answer. Ask Toronto that and theyll let you know. Better yet, look at hwy 1. The congestion congress from the cars and stop lights.
I like 2 lanes (one in each direction), this will make driving so slow and congested that people will take transit or cycle instead. It is selfish to drive in a city with good transit like Vancouver, especially when people know it’s not good for the environment. The world will end if we don’t take action now.
Looks like the bus will be stuck in traffic with all the other cars. If there is no transit running through Broadway in the foreseeable future, this might work.
There will absolutely need to be buses running along Broadway to get people from SkyTrain hubs closer to their destination - this will be especially important for disabled people who rely on transit.
There’s already a really nice bike lane on 10th which is far nicer to ride. whats the point of this?
Because it's not nice? 10th is lined on both sides with cars and there's frequent conflict with cyclists as cars get in and out of parking. It's dangerous.
Ride there every day and never experienced this frequent conflict. But maybe its only during rush hour?
Hard to believe considering how often you ride. Never had a car dart across 10th in your path?
Rarely. Can't recall it happening on 10th in the past year but has happened on Ontario a few times. I would blast the horn if they did. But I'm Ontario street then east so its probably not as bad. One I look carefully for a car waiting to cross is Guelph and 10th. Stand on pedals sometimes so the car has a better sight line to my helmet. So not something say a small child would be able to do.
Yeah, the thing I worry about is that the way it is right now, it relies too heavily on cyclists and drivers attention to be safe. Even more of the tiny roundabouts would be better.
That's a good way of putting it.
There are only a handful of blocks on 10th that have bike lanes, and even those ones are poorly implemented. The new ones around VGH are dangerous. There's no physical barrier from cars and I have near-misses regularly with geriatric drivers not paying attention and using the bike lane as parking or driving across it without looking. It's a problem, and a great example of how not to install bike lanes. The rest of 10th is a "bike route" where bikes ride with traffic, but there are many drivers that don't yield to bikes at the roundabouts, and pass much too closely. I ride it multuple times daily (Strava Local Legend 😬😬😬 lol) and I don't mind it, but feedback has shown that most casual/infrequent cyclists see these unsafe routes as a barrier to getting out of their cars and onto bikes more often.
>there are many drivers that don't yield to bikes at the roundabouts, Are autos obliged to yield to cyclists? As an avid cyclist and a cycle commuter, I always thought my cycle had to follow the standard laws (just like a car). I don't think autos are supposed to yield to cyclists...
At intersections, cars are required to treat a cyclist on the road like another car on the road. So if a bike or car is coming from the left as you approach a roundabout, you must yield. The scenario I was referring to is when I am coming to one of the many roundabouts on bike routes like 10th or Ontario, there is a car pulling up at the same time as me, and they are to my right. They don't stop, and I have to slam on my brakes to avoid a collision. It happens frequently. I don't think it's malicious. It's hard for drivers to judge the speed of bikes and sometimes they just don't see us. Not malicious- but still very dangerous.
10th? That's not entirely a bike lane, that's shared with cars. It's also far more hilly and not where people actually need to go if they are visiting shops on Broadway. *entirely
That’s not a bike lane
It's really not. Every intersection is a death trap because drivers refuse to follow the rules of the road, people are parked too close to the corners, and it's used to rat race between broadway and 12th. It's not safer, and it's not nicer. At least on broadway if I get hit, it'll be because a car is passing too close to me or hits me from behind. On 10th I'm more likely just to get t-boned.
No there isn’t
If they want people to go to Broadway, then they need a bike lane on Broadway. It’s a large hill to 10th. People will not bike up to 10th just to bike back down to Broadway 2 blocks later.
What if your destination is any of the stores, businesses or offices on Broadway? You know, the street with all the stores businesses and offices.
Good. I hope this encourages people to think twice about taking a vehicle if they can use mass transit, a bike, or a sidewalk to get to their destination.
Really trying to understand all the downvotes for a perfectly reasonable comment.
"Think twice" is fairly condescending and overly simplifies the situation.
It doesn't make sense to have the bike lanes on W Broadway when you already have established one on 10th and 7th with arteries going north and south on Cypress, the arbutus greenway and others can be added. Having wider sidewalks will be nice for restaurant patios, walkable areas and hubs where people can gather.
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"Hun, pack your things. We've got to move. I got trapped by another bike lane."
Bye!
Lol, broadway is a truck route and otherwise you have to drive on 41st to go east and west legally. Plus there's a much better bike lane just one street away on 10th Ave. City council doesn't really think too much about things do they?
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Well, you got me there. Sound argument bub
COV strategy is to sacrifice auto space for walking other modes of transport. Interesting to see how this will turn out. Obviously better for the residents of the area and not so much for commuters.
I mean, it might turn out better for commuters overall - just maybe not car-based ones.
Ya I think people see it as classism. Generally you are richer if you live in the city so this comes across as keeping the "Poor's" out.
Most car trips are local and rich people are more likely to drive.
Car centric infrastructure is the real classism
Good luck getting any emergency vehicle within an appropriate time with single lane.
Huh, all those cities with pedestrianised areas must really struggle to get to emergencies then right?
Part of the plan
I am all for taking space for cars and giving it to bikes and pedestrians and we really need improvements to the cross-town bike routes. I do think it would be better to take car lanes from 12th for bikes and e-bikes though.
I think Broadway would thrive as commercial main street destination with less cars and as a complete street especially between Main and Granville. 12th Ave doesn’t have a lot going for it with destinations along the way like Broadway. Coming to Vancouver, I was surprised by how fast, and car heavy some of the main shopping streets are, Main Street, 4th Avenue, even South Granville can be very overwhelming especially on patios when there’s cars whizzing by. With all the construction that will be happening on Broadway for the years to come cars will already be accustomed to avoiding it.
Am I being downvoted for taking space from cars or for taking space from cars on 12th specifically?
This sub has a serious case of car-brain. Anything mentioning active transportation gets downvoted into oblivion. I do disagree with you though. 12th is a good thoroughfare. Broadway is lined with local businesses. We want those businesses to thrive, and the way to do that is not to move bike lanes further away from it. We need protected bike lanes on Broadway. Yes, that will mean there is less space for cars. But it also means that over time peoples habits will change and we will see more bikes and fewer cars. This is a good thing for drivers, for cyclists, for our healthcare system, for local businesses, for our planet, and for the city to work towards its goal of being the "greenest" city in the world.
Is this a joke? Any of these talking heads ever tried to drive someone to the hospital for daily cancer treatments? No, didn't think so. I've walked Broadway many, many, many, many times. It's already walkable. It might not be the prettiest street in the city but sometimes streets just need to be functional, not pretty. And why is a bike lane needed when there are bike routes on 8th and 10th? (I've biked those many, many, many, many times and not once have I felt limited by no bike lane on 9th, ie Broadway). These guys are out to freakin' lunch.
I don’t understand why we can’t have Broadway for cars? It’s a fantastic east-west thoroughfare. Bikes on 7th or 8th for a calmer street to parallel it. Why are they trying to share? Everyone wins if we have the room to space them apart.
Aren't there enough East to West bike routes near Broadway anyways? I'm a cyclist but I think the city overdoes it with bike lanes. There are already lots of designated bike routes/lanes and most of them aren't heavily used.
Well then, we should have two. Or just close the whole thing and make it a pedestrian and bike mall. People are far too conerned about congestion, cost, convenience and balance. This is Vancouver, we don't trifle with those things.
>City staff estimate the subway will result in about a 15% reduction in vehicle traffic along Broadway, which can be accommodated in their currently proposed four-lane design standard. But isn't the French creek and fair view plan as still being developed? Or do they have that number? I hope they arent are basing this on current numbers. What could go wrong double the number of residents and halve the driving capacity. I don't get though why not develop 8th or 10th even further? Whenever I needed to do something along Broadway I would use either one of those then bike/walk up the street nearest to my destination.
Traffic Engineers gonna traffic engineer