Bikes on Burrard Bridge

Right now, on both sides of the Burrard Bridge, cyclists and pedestrians share a narrow sidewalk that has no barrier to the adjacent high-speed motor traffic. This has been the situation for many many years. For a long time, the city has wondered how to improve the situation. In the March 6-13 2008 issue of The Georgia Straight an article by Matthew Burrows, Urban cyclists still face unfriendly terrain in Vancouver, discussed this topic..

On July 19, 2005, [Fred] Bass, then the chair of the city’s transportation and traffic committee, sought closure on the 15-year-old Burrard Bridge issue. He proposed that staff look into the lane widening, but that a six-month trial be started in April 2006, in which two lanes of car traffic would be given over to cyclists and in-line skaters, creating a much-needed segregation that would guarantee the safety of pedestrians and cyclists, who still have to share the narrow sidewalks. Bass convinced all COPE councillors to vote in favour, along with then–NPA councillor Peter Ladner. Mayor Sam Sullivan is the sole dissenting vote, though Ladner—now seeking the NPA mayoral nomination—announced later on that he had changed his position. He was derided at the WERA [West End Residents Association] event for doing this.

“I can’t win that one,” Ladner said by phone. “Will I repent? No. If you are a cycling advocate, nothing I did should make you concerned. We are widening the sidewalks. There will be better issues for cyclists. So what’s the issue? It is the anticar advocates who are pissed off at me.”

The Straight asked Ladner how he would react to being called a cycling flip-flopper at election time. “I have always been consistent that cyclists need more space,” he said. “It is just a question of where to put it.”

What's the issue? The issue is that widening the sidewalks will be very costly, both financially and in terms of heritage. I don't think two lanes are needed for cyclists and pedestrians; giving just one lane would suffice. Lane allocation instead of sidewalk widening would be much cheaper and wouldn't damage the bridge's heritage. The people against lane allocation argue that whenever they drive across the bridge they rarely see enough people using the sidewalks to warrant such a move. That's because it's dangerous! I believe there is a large number of people who may be considering cycling as transportation, and who would cross Burrard Bridge, but they don't do it because they either know how dangerous it is, or they keep hearing how dangerous it is.

As mentioned, there was going to be a trial of two lanes given to cyclists. As soon as Sam Sullivan and the NPA gained power, it got scrapped before it even began.

Lane allocation: if you do it, they will come.

Cut-And-Cover Ain't Boring

On the topic of the Millenium Line to UBC traveling along Broadway, I found the following passages from recent columns to be intriguing, especially the parts concerning Kevin Falcon, Minister of Transportation, which I've put in bold type.

First I read this, on page 7 in the January 17-24, 2008 issue of the WestEnder:

Although it has yet to be determined whether the extension will ultimately exist underground, at street level, or as a suspended light-rail system, merchants along Broadway are already nervous.
...
Vancouver city councillor Suzanne Anton said a SkyTrain-type line through the Broadway area is unavoidable because 70,000 people per day use transit along the route. “We cannot put any more buses on the corridor,” she said.

Anton does not envision cut-and-cover style construction — which proved so disruptive to Cambie — being used along Broadway, nor does she want it. “I’m going to guess that we would never do cut and cover again,” she said, “but, you know, all of these things are up for discussion.”

Although Anton’s words may be encouraging to Broadway merchants, Cambie business owners were told the Canada Line would be built through a bored tunnel until one week before the project began. However, Minister of Transportation Kevin Falcon insists Broadway won’t be torn up at street level. “I can put that to rest real fast,” he said. “We couldn’t do a cut and cover in that area because it’s too dense.”

Then I read this, on page 9 in the January 18, 2008 issue of the Vancouver Courier:

As a business owner along Broadway, would you be willing to have the street dug up in front of your shop for months--maybe even years--to accommodate the construction of an underground rapid transit line from Commercial Drive to UBC?

Although Mayor Sam Sullivan didn't use those words, he asks in his "Millennium Line Completion Survey" whether residents want a tunnel, elevated system, light rapid transit or other along Broadway.

If you believe Sullivan's latest dispatch, which was emailed to the Courier Tuesday, more than 1,800 people responded to the survey and "support for completing the line to UBC was overwhelming."

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon has said the expansion of the line will most certainly be in the form of a tunnel, or cut-and-cover. That's the method being used to build the Canada Line, which has forced the closure of several Cambie Street businesses.

Sullivan says nothing in his dispatch about the impact construction will have on Broadway merchants. But he does say that he and NPA councillors Suzanne Anton and Peter Ladner have "initiated an outreach campaign to local Broadway businesses." No specifics are provided.

Then I read this, on page 10 in the January 18, 2008 issue of the Vancouver Courier:

The main prize for Vancouver is the new transit line out to UBC. You may recall that between them, the City of Vancouver and TransLink have invested almost $3 million in studies to determine, among other things, the type of technology that will be used on that route.

Never mind. Falcon has already made that decision. It will be SkyTrain technology running through a bored tunnel. We don't want to do to folks in the premier's riding what we did to those merchants on Cambie Street.

In my opinion, there is no portion of the Broadway area that is denser than Cambie Street from 16th to King Edward, so if that's the only reason Falcon is giving for why they wouldn't cut-and-cover maybe they'll announce a week before beginning Broadway's construction, after getting everyone on board with the project, that it is in fact going to be cut-and-cover. Now that would be shocking! And totally unprecedented!

Then I read this, on page 8 in the February 1, 2008 issue of the Vancouver Courier:

NPA Coun. Peter Ladner doesn't want the proposed Millennium SkyTrain extension along Broadway to be built with cut-and-cover construction. He's seen enough of what happened to merchants along Cambie, where the Canada Line is under construction. Businesses have closed and motorists are furious. Ladner hasn't made up his mind on tunneling, but the cost has him questioning the method. "At $235 million a kilometre, I'm not sure that you can justify tunneling all the way out to UBC," he said. "There are a whole lot of options."

Though no decision has been made on the type of construction, Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon has publicly mentioned his preference for tunneling. How that method would be done without disruption is unclear.

So what's wrong with building a line above ground like most of the track that runs all over the Lower Mainland? It's less expensive. But what an eyesore, critics have said. There's also the fact the line will go through Premier Gordon Campbell's riding and that of the good burghers on the West Side.

When the Courier spoke to Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan before last year's Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting, he wondered why his municipality had its SkyTrain tracks built above ground--and why the Canada Line was built underground. And then he answered his own questions. Because we're in Burnaby, he said.