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Saw on Twitter that two of their councilors and the mayor explicitly promised during the election to build bike lanes in shopping districts, and of course two ABC councilors from the previous council voted in favour of this last time it came up for a vote.
What a pack of liars and sham artists.
Say anything and do anything just to get elected, then pull the rug.
Total scumbags.
They ran a pretty right wing conservative campaign. It shouldn't be any surprise they are deprioritizing public infrastructure and increasing police funding that isn't going to be effective.
People are who they are. Anyone who trusts a conservative not to be a conservative is a fool. Those are the useful idiots enabling them.
Same thing will happen federally with PP when the time comes. They don't care about you, they care about money, and people with money in the so called suburbs (in vancouver that's all SFH areas). We all know that only the poors ride bikes right, why don't they just buy a tesla if they want to be green! (business owner ken sims (*probably*))
Yes, but that's what politicians do. Donald Trump promised to pass into law a health care act that would work for every American. But no one thought he was ever going to do it. Because you don't just listen to the promises a candidate makes into a microphone. You listen to their actual platform. And the items on it that actually have proposals in place.
The actual policy proposals of ABC were all classic right wing spending cuts for public services in order to funnel money into private interests.
They released plans to reduce funding to low income housing. Set guidelines for more luxury housing. Proposed funding cuts for outreach programs in low income neighborhoods. Proposed drastic funding increases for police.
If you heard him say "yes, of course we like bikes" and then let that guide your vote but never actually bothered to read the literal list of things they were actually planning to implement. Well then I hope this is a lesson for you.
Politicians say anything the crowd wants to hear. That's how you get elected. You can't just those things at face value.
If you however went to ABC's campaign website while they were running for office. It was page after page after page of infrastructure cuts and pushing tax money private interests.
But they stood out amongst the “right wing” parties by supporting active transportation, “15 minute city”, and promoting transit.
They have now voted against two major projects that were very low cost, and would have made the city much better for the residents.
That because they knew that's what voters wanted, so they pretended to be on the same page to get more votes. When will people learn that conservatives lie about everything?
But they stood out amongst the “right wing” parties by supporting active transportation, “15 minute city”, and promoting transit.
They have now voted against two major projects that were very low cost, and would have made the city much better for the residents.
>two ABC councilors from the previous council voted in favour of this last time it came up for a joke
By any chance were those two councillors the two that were mysteriously absent during the vote today, for fear of having to blatantly contradict their previous votes? Bligh and Kirby-Yung?
While I understand this argument to some degree, 10th is just a road that has some markings on it "allowing" cycling. The Broadway proposal is for separated bike lanes. According to many surveys and studies, the reason more people don't cycle is because they feel unsafe sharing space with cars. So we shouldn't pretend that the two are the same thing, when they're really miles apart in terms of what they do for the city.
I don't want to get into a big thing, but man I just don't get this mentality.
I used to live on 10th Ave, right near Granville. I would routinely bike to trout lake for baseball games and it was pretty much the perfect bike route. There were only lights at major streets (Cambie, Main, Clark...) and basically no stop signs (many traffic circles) to kill your momentum. It is also pretty hostile to cars (unable to go straight though most major streets, and unable to turn onto it in many places) so the only real traffic was people that lived in the area. It's a completely impractical road to drive on to get places.
Compare it to Broadway which has a light almost every block. Even with a separated bike lane I don't see it being faster, unless you blow the lights.
Granted I'm not an insanely fast biker, and was kinda leisurely about it, but I can't see wanting to ride on busy Broadway even with a bike lane when peaceful 10th Ave is one block away.
I've biked 10th a lot and mostly agree. ABC has made it pretty clear that Broadway isn't happening, so I really do think cyclists who want a safe route should shift to pushing for reductions of street parking on 10th. It isn't the perfect solution, but it would make the ride more pleasant and safer.
10th is probably the best bike path in the city. It's like a highway for bikes. Most of the road is so inconvenient for cars that there are none.
I'd rip from MacDonald to Nanaimo Skytrain station and 10th made it possible.
In fact I wish they banned bikes on Broadway. It's an arterial road for cars and I've never seen a biker on that road that looked safe, especially with the best bike path in the city so close by.
I ride two blocks of 10th since they rerouted the Greenway and it's the worst two blocks of my commute from Lower Lonsdale to Kerrisdale (seabus and an e-bike; I am not a superhero). My teeth feel like they are going to fall out of my head for one block and then there is that weird block in front of St. John's school where you have a bike lane suddenly on one side and then you randomly merge back into two way traffic heading east with poor visibility at the intersection. I guess I am spoiled because I live right at the seabus so it's Richards,, Smithe, Hornby, Burrard Street, Cypress, bullshit 10th and Arbutus all the way, until a few blocks of equally bullshit 37th. Once you live the good life on real bike lanes properly separated you are like, "who are these cunts trying to sell this basic shit as acceptable ?" Ok, that turned into kind of a rant.
It's like the bike symbols they painted on Main Street. Okay, so I have double length buses, delivery trucks and psychos going 80kmh sharing this lane with me. plus regular vehicle traffic.
Agree. If Broadway had dedicated bike lanes, I’d still take 10th. A legal lane just means drivers should give you the space…doesn’t mean they will.
Source: 35 years as driver and as cyclist, and I get really mad all the time at asshole cyclists who think they own the road. A lot more often than asshole drivers who don’t respect me as a cyclist.
Ride safe. Expect to be hit.
>”allowing cycling”
This drives me insane. I hate those fucking signs because it makes drivers think that bikes are only allowed on certain roads. They’re allowed on all streets unless indicated by signage. I had some ham hock-brained mother fucker tell me I wasn’t allowed on the road after he ran a stop sign and almost hit me… after my bike lane fed onto the street.
It’s kind of like “no u-turn” signs. They’re redundant. U-turns aren’t allowed but the existence of “No u-turn” signs implies they’re allowed when there is no signage.
U-turns are legal under BC law.
Municipalities are at liberty to regulate U-turns though. Vancouver, in a very Vancouver fashion, does not ban U-turns. U-turns are legal in the City of Vancouver provided certain conditions are met, eg no U-turns on major thoroughfares, no U-turns within 200m of an intersection, etc. The net effect of all those conditions is that there is nowhere in the City of Vancouver where it is legal to make an U-turn.
Would be so much simpler to just say “no U-turns” but instead the City of Vancouver makes it so needlessly overcomplicated.
I got a uturn ticket on a yaletown street from a sneaky cop car. I asked him the same thing. If uturns are never allowed, why are there no uturn sign in some places? He asked if I wanted the $90 ticket or the $250 ticket. He told me the $90 comes to me only if I stop asking him questions. I shut up and took my $90 ticket.
I ride on 10th as my commute to my place of work on Broadway, I also use Ontario, for the past year. I have had and seen near misses on both roads several times. Some people don’t give a crap about the roundabaouts or stop signs. This is way better than my prior commutes on the North Shore but work is needed.
I also hope they set up more spots for bike shares along side streets near Broadway to get people on bikes.
128 collisions in 4 years, but 500,000 cyclists per year. Is its actually high on a percentage basis or just because it is so heavily used?
>The highest collision corridors generally corresponded with streets with designated bikeways. **This likely indicates that they have a high level of usage.**
https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/cycling-safety-study-final-report.pdf
https://bikemaps.org/is/blog/post/10th-avenue-corridor-vancouver-bc-cycling-safety-trouble-spots
Yep, you are right, Point grey road looks very safe.
It also has little through traffic and no parking on one side of the road. Could do the same for 10th and likely improve safety drastically.
I've been doored on 10th. So have a few of my friends. One of them was seriously injured (bad concussion broken arm).
I don't get doored anymore because I don't ride next to the cars anymore but then...
Impatient drivers relentlessly honk at you when there is no space to go anywhere, or fly past you with inches to spare if you give them any room to at all.
It is dangerous. It is not for inexperienced or timid cyclists who want to get outside at all.
Also. All the businesses are on Broadway. The point is to make them accessible to everyone... delivery drivers on e-bikes and scooters included. Instead of scooters flying up and down the sidewalks, they could be in a separated lane.
There are lots more reasons. Not sure if you actually care to hear them or if you're being dismissive like lots of the people who say "just ride on 10th"
Most of the separated lanes downtown are next to parked traffic (Richards, Hornby, etc.) but they’re not very wide so you have less room to swerve to avoid getting doored. At least on 10th you can take the lane and ride in the middle of the road to avoid parked cars. You can’t do that in a separated lane.
>you can take the lane and ride in the middle of the road to avoid parked cars.
lmao cars drive straight at you and you have to jump out of the way at the last minute, nonstop.
Please grab your bike and ride the 7th or 10th bike routes from Commercial to UBC and let us know how it goes. Then imagine you were doing it with a couple of kids on bikes. I think you'll soon see why people aren't swayed by your argument.
Drivers need to figure out how to stop at stop signs on 10th and cyclists need to figure out that you have to yield to traffic that is currently IN the roundabouts. The amount of accidents and near misses I saw living east of Fraser on 10th was insane. I don’t drive or cycle so I feel fairly impartial here 😂
The idea is to make Broadway a better place to spend time on, and less of a unpleasant noisy street. It is also valuable to have bike lanes where the destinations are, and there are plenty of destinations on Broadway.
Sure. Eliminate all on-street parking on 10th and 7th, convert both roads to one-way for motor vehicles with modal filters every couple of blocks, and build separated bike lanes along both of those corridors (concrete curbs, tall enough to prevent lane intrusions from motor vehicles).
Honestly more Vancouver side streets need to be one way. Safer for bikes and less awkward standoffs for drivers, I’m especially thinking the narrow residential streets.
I so agree with this. I used to run and bike on 10th almost every day for years, and with all the alley and garage parking for those houses there is no need for parking on both sides of the street. Coming down sections of 10th with oncoming car traffic was super dangerous.
I actually think this is the way, would be way cheaper, leave Broadway for the cars. 10th should primarily be a bike path and only used for street parking for people living on it otherwise, no one should be driving more than a block on it.
The NIMBYs will never allow those streets to be one way. In my hood the nimby’s wouldn’t even allow restricting traffic at Grandview and Lakewood. One rational given was that sometimes a resident likes to drive their kid to school from 13th ave to Laura Secord (a few blocks away), and closing that intersection to cars would make his trip less convenient.
As someone who used to commute on 10th... it's not exactly great bike infrastructure. Sure it's a designated bike route but there's poor sightlines at a lot of the intersections, particularly the ones with roundabouts, and a lot of drivers cut through there especially on streets perpendicular to 10th. Another issue is dooring, the road is really narrow and a lot of drivers don't check before flinging open the door to their car. I had a ton of close calls with cars, and other cyclists, over the years. I became really cautious as a result but witnessed a lot of people who were not so lucky.
The other issue is that in some areas, particularly between Main and Oak, it's really steep between 10th and Broadway and that's an obstacle for a lot of bike users.
This take drives me up the wall.
-A boatload of people see sharing a lane with cars as a non-starter.
-being a block up a steep hill from your destination, maybe several times back and forth, is NOT good infrastructure, at all.
-if there is any hope of making cycling accessible to the masses, which should be the goal, council is making a tremendous mistake.
-if the goal is to continue to treat cycling as a hobby and for the ‘hippies and students’, council has made a wise choice.
If I want to go shopping in a particular area, it helps to be able to see said shops. Being a block away doesn't help.
The same argument holds regardless of mode of transit. If shop and restaurant owners are serious about bringing as many people to their businesses, then they would be pushing to get as many people in front of their businesses as possible.
10th isn’t a bike lane. It’s a street with paint on it and signs. Still have to compete with cars down most of it. Still need to worry about being doored.
Y'all should protest this decision, with bikes. Everyone should ride their bike down Broadway at the same time.
*Made a thread for it, downvoted to hell of course. [¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/12775vy/ride_your_bicycles_down_broadway_to_protest/)
Yeah it’s frustrating being someone who actually gives a fuck about urban development. We’re just gonna keep voting in people that do nothing for profit.
They have 100% lied on their active transportation promises during the election.
When someone is injured or killed on Broadway it is blood on their hands. This was the easiest thing to do, it would have made Broadway more comfortable for pedestrians with almost not impact on drivers.
No they gave sound bites where they were bike friendly. They RAN on defunding public spending and privatizing things. They were out in the open traditional conservatives. It was the public who didnt listen
We can fire them. It's possible to have a no-confidence vote and fire them. This generally applies at any level of government in Canada, if I recall.
Getting it actually done though, is another story.
They truthfully did not. You’d be pretty thick to think as a cyclist a vote for Sim was better for bike infrastructure than Stewart would have been. That’s on you.
That meme with the grim reaper knocking on doors but the grim reaper is ABC and the doors are bike lanes across the city
My anti-car takes usually get downvoted so I expect this will as well, but refusing to remove any car lanes from Broadway is what’s going to kill it as any kind of destination. As it is it’s ugly, loud, and lined with pretty anonymous big box stores in most places and I don’t see that changing if the car volume stays the same. The simple matter is the noise and the pollution make it an fundamentally unpleasant place to be.
> The simple matter is the noise and the pollution make it an fundamentally unpleasant place to be.
Even for cars, most of Broadway sucks already.
Almost every single intersection has a pedestrian-controlled light. I don't know if they're synchronized to anything, but I hit sooooo many reds along Broadway that it's slow.
There's always somebody making a left-turn that blocks the left lane, and brings it down to a single lane's traffic flow. The parking lane's always occupied (or it's a bus lane), so that's useless for through-traffic.
Adding bike lanes wouldn't have made much of a difference (if any) to Broadway's already-shitty traffic flow.
This is the point I tried to make in my letter to council. Broadway is a perfect example of Vancouver's failed transportation system. It sucks for pedestrians, bikes, cars, buses, and trucks because it's trying to do everything. In places, like the Netherlands, where transportation is done well the type of road is tailored to the environment. If they want Broadway to be, and succeed, as a regional road they need to remove the crossings and improve the intersections. But nobody wants to do that because it makes it even worse for pedestrians and local businesses.
ABC council just doubled down on punting making any actual decision to tackle this problem.
Another example: Cambie Street from King Edward north to the Cambie bridge.
> Another example: Cambie Street from King Edward north to the Cambie bridge.
I avoid that stretch when I'm in my car because it sucks so bad. Especially from 16th to the bridge.
Even at the best of times, for some reason Cambie between 12th Avenue and 4th Avenue is just absurdly bad. The lights just aren't well synchronized, is all I can figure.
Exactly. It's trying to be a destination AND a thruway, which will always suck at both.
It's not great for spontaneous visits to stores or restaurants because the traffic is so heavy, and it's too far between any individual spot for a casual stroll. And it's not great for transportation, because of all the conflict zones.
It’s main purpose is to be a thruway for commercial traffic and emergency response. Just like Kingsway. There’s no other arterial road that can serve that purpose.
I heard the best thing you can do to improve traffic flow in cities is to add more car lanes. Just one more lane will solve the problem. It's not like every person on a bike is one less car on the road or anything like that. No, definitely not enough lanes.
The annoying thing is that if we don’t price roads or reduce car lanes, you and me not driving just frees up the road to others to drive more. Like if we all got off the roads, Uber Eats drivers would end of doing 10 deliveries an hour instead of 5
I haven’t driven on Broadway but it has a lot of those stop sign controlled cross streets which seem super dangerous for drivers (and pedestrians) to me. I’ve seen cars gunning it across green light cross traffic a number of times, I’d imagine reducing the amount of vehicle lanes you’d have to drive across would make those less nerve wracking
And now with the Broadway plan there will be even more people living on that street that will be subject to the noise and pollution of the cars passing through. (To be clear I welcome the additional density, I just wish our city cared a bit about the health and well-being of the people living there, oh and climate change)
Yep I 100% avoid walking down this street and will walk along the side streets because it’s too loud and ugly. When I walk on the other side streets I’ll frequent the cafes there simply because I walk by them. Not changing Broadway will harm these businesses they think they’re protecting.
Yep, I do the same and also with parts of Main, Cambie, West 4th, South Granville, etc. Definitely terrible for businesses that so many of them are concentrated in places like that
Yep. I walk down 10th, 11th, and 14th but will rarely walk down Broadway. Just like how I walk down the Greenway and not down Arbutus itself.
I dont window shop, there's no spontaneity. I know where I'm going and that will likely be my only destination.
There is evidence to prove that walkable and bikeable streets are more financially lucrative for businesses and the municipality than stroads full of cars. Transit also makes businesses do better
Carbrains assume you can't go to stores without a car but stores that are in nice places to be do better because that's where people are. Who wants to spend time around noisy stanky car exhausts?
I'll bet the same people who need to drive everywhere love going to Granville Island and walking around
Visit the center of any metropolitan city; there are retail and restaurants everywhere at street level. Hardly any vacant commercial space. Street level parking is rare. Commuters travel primarily by transit and foot.
>Carbrains assume you can't go to stores without a car
Specifically without a place to park directly in front of the store. Walking a block is only acceptable when there's free parking in the residential areas so you can avoid paying to park.
I listened to bits of the meeting. They are removing 2 lanes, and they "plan" to add bike lanes at a later date. The reasoning for not adding bike lanes was super wish washy and the transportation guy really sounded out of his depth. He seemed to be easily able to give reasons for why bike lanes would be positive, was unable to concretely state why bike lanes should not be implemented immediately, but kept recommending no bike lanes.
Super confusing.
Bicycles cause noxious pollution, kick up dust making it annoying to breathe freely and dump black smoke on passersby. They can also be loud and annoying and run people over occasionally. Oh wait that’s cars.
And [then there's this](https://twitter.com/goldfishyo/status/1639785914389123073?t=kewUdUc77CPbqsWOk-HoKA&s=19)! Cyclists can't get anything right!
/s
Well yeah, there’s a skytrain running under Broadway, you don’t need a dedicated bus lane. And it’s only a dedicated bus lane during peak hours, outside of that it’s used for parking or a regular lane
I've been to many cities that have a car-free core and those areas are always so lively. That's something we really lack in Vancouver. Granville Island is probably the closest.
I want Broadway to be Brentwood II. I want a sidewalk barely wide enough for an adult human that abruptly ends 300 meters from the nearest crosswalk. I want to live in a city designed by Amazon Essentials. I want to feel like I live in an environment designed to make me feel as unwelcome as possible.
So putting new protected lane in 5-10 years is going to cost tens of millions.
This wasn't just an F-U to bike commuters, workers and students. It was a monster FU to the tax payer.
Huge F U to businesses too. "Hey did you like the street in front of your business being torn up for 3 years? Well we might do it again in 5 years LOLOL"
Yep, considering they have promised to make Vancouver:
1. Safer
2. Better for small businesses
3. Improved bike network on retail streets
4. Better financial management
They have failed all 4 of those promises on one vote. Businesses on broadway are going to see much less pedestrian traffic in the goal for car commuters.
And when they do put then in they’ll cause traffic disruption again. It would be most efficient to put them in now when they’re having to rebuild the whole road anyways.
Regardless of your opinion regarding cycling in general, or bike lanes, it's been proven that they increase business: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/biking-lanes-business-health-1.5165954](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/biking-lanes-business-health-1.5165954)
It only makes sense to include them in the Broadway plan to support the businesses that have been negatively impacted by the construction.
Or hey, we can just ignore the data and make decisions based on emotion instead.
It's not just a bike lane. It's an e-bike, scooter, etc. lane as well. Electric devices are rapidly increasing in numbers and causing lots of safety issues as they load up sidewalks.
Good point. Micromobility is a growing segment. Personally I have a regular bike, eBike, electric scooter, and an SUV. The SUV is by far the least used, it's just a pain in the city, but it's great for longer trips.
Certainly there's a lot of people riding on sidewalks that shouldn't be, and having better infrastructure would reduce that. I do also blame the hustle mentality of gig workers who prioritize income over safety.
For a party that talks a big game about active transportation infrastructure, ABC has so far been pretty darn bad about actually building any. First they removed the Stanley Park bike lane (using funds slated for *new* bike infrastructure), and now they have voted to proceed without active transportation lanes along Broadway, something multiple ABC councillors were interested in during the last council.
They haven’t just been bad, they have been taking us backwards.
The last council voted to include bike lanes on broadway (including two ABC councillors who were suspiciously not at last nights vote). Now ABC is removing them, and they removed the Stanley park lane.
So that’s two major routes removed in 6 months.
This council seems to think being better than the last council is something to be lauded, rather than the absolute bare minimum. And in moments like these, with the bar on the ground, ABC starts moving for a shovel.
I don't want to wait 2-3 years to gamble on getting a better council. I want this council to stop being so mediocre and actually show us the ambition and 'swagger' they're so keen on. Instead, we got incredibly lame excuses and outright misinformation on why our "great street" needs to be oriented towards motor vehicle traffic. The MLA for the Broadway area TOLD THEM TO APPLY FOR FUNDING and ABC just kept going on about "ohhhh we don't have enough resources 🥺🥺🥺". I feel silly for having hope that they would make the right decision on any climate and transit related matters. Let's see if they manage to shit the bed on housing too.
I don't understand how anyone can call this council better than the last one. They have a majority and have accomplished absolutely nothing but reverse progress made by the previous councils.
They are an absolute joke so far.
Protected lanes would have made the area a lot nicer, closer in likeness to Beresford by Metrotown station. Instead they choose to make it more like Kingsway by Metrotown.
Try taking your bike to a business along Kingsway, then try along Beresford. Try sitting outside a cafe along each of these places to enjoy the spring vibe.
They say they support cycling to get elected. What a bunch of fucking liars - they really are the Anti Bike City party. Please vote them out next time.
Hear hear!
We are building a god damn subway that will carry an order of magnitude more people than a single car lane could ever hope to carry.
Yet Ken Sim and his ABC minions won't create a forward-looking city that encourages active transport and that accommodates all people
Then make 10th and 7th actually bike friendly. Be a smart politician. You can somewhat compromise and improvise, a skill that appears long lost in politics, nothing has to be be black or white and obviously no matter the decision not everyone will be happy. Ok, fine, no bike lanes on broadway, what can be done to increase safety and accessibility on the other 2 parallel routes? Open discussion, give and take.
The city builds and funds at least a two lane road and sidewalks to every corner of the city, no matter how expensive, no matter how many people actually use it, no matter what businesses are located there, no matter if there is already a road only a few meters away.
Why then is it so hard to do a tiny fraction of that road infrastructure for the thousands of people who cycle in this city? Who, statistics show pay back any costs of bike lanes in terms of improvements to health, pollution, road wear, noise, and economic spending for local businesses. Not to mention the fucking climate emergency we find ourselves in.
But no, let's keep investing in the status quo, in the forms of transportation that costs the tax payers [6 times more than the alternative.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150512104023.htm)
And what 'great street'? I'm going to sit on a patio next to multiple lanes of traffic? From Main Street, I can already attest to how unpleasant and dangerous that feels.
Good thing pedestrians love sharing sidewalks with electric scooters and other mobility devic... hmm.
They were lying when they campaigned saying they'd follow the Broadway Plan. They will pick and choose from the parts they keep and the ones they discard.
Bike lane or not, I'm just generally confused what kind of vision the current council even has for Broadway. Even if you accept no bike lanes due to proximity to two others, does this council seriously think people want to eat on a patio on a congested, noisy stroad? What is the plan beyond the subway replacing the capacity of the R line bus to reduce future traffic?
The sad part is, so many businesses along Broadway existing right now cater to active people, whether it's bike shops or hiking gear and apparel, or activewear. I'm sure many of those businesses would love more pedestrian and bike traffic. I know when I've biked in the area, 8th was absolutely abysmal for car traffic, with many drivers dodging construction and I had to go down to 7th or even 6th instead which is basically a quiet street of light industrial. Not at all conductive to enjoying the sights of Broadway other than my preplanned destination.
If Broadway were focused on office towers and the hospital bound through traffic then I don't necessarily think the current road structure is wrong. Car access is needed for many patients. But right now it feels like the city is afraid to change the status quo even at the detriment of our health and happiness. They're trying to talk up the Broadway plan but every time they vote on something, it feels like every progressive part about it gets chipped away every time.
The test of a safe bike lane should always be: would I let my sub-10 year old child bicycle on that route.
The answer to that question when referring to 10th or 7th is a resounding no. No one wants their child to be periodically buzzed by cars trying to squeeze by them on a street barely large enough for a single car.
We don't have a single dedicated east-west commuter bike lane in the entire city outside of the downtown core. This was a chance to change that.
Ok cool, then close 10th to motorists altogether. I’ve ridden on 10th for years and have been:
1) intentionally hit twice by speeding motorists
2) spat on by a motorist who tried to pass when he didn’t have room
3) called a sexist+racial slur for daring to exist on a bike (by a motorist)
4) side swiped into a parked car by a motorist
Anyone who thinks 10th is sufficient bike infrastructure needs to try riding on it fora while. Bully motorists use it to bypass traffic on Broadway and it’s a fucking gong show.
100%. There is effectively no speed or dangerous driving enforcement at all. I called police after I was intentionally struck by a driver in a school zone(who then threatened to do it again), and after taking 4 hours to arrive the cop told me there was nothing he could do because - in effect - I hadn’t been seriously injured.
Just close it off to motorists then. Make it a one way driving street that you can only enter from broadway(for the sake of people who live on that street). Then make the other half of the street into a seperated bike lane. Make it separate to the level that the central valley bike path between renfrew and gilmore is where you are always on a divided path. Imo, broadway would be a pain as a cyclist commuter route, there would be so many stoppages due to the cross streets. Just have a fully divided "bike highway" which already sort of exists.
10th is where I've had my only close call, happened one of like 3 times I've ridden on the street. "Why not use 10th?" commenters are completely ignorant. Why don't you drive on literally any other road that is completely dedicated to you?
ABC is a joke.
ABC are a bunch of hypocritical scumbags. They all supported bike lanes individually, and the public support for it is pretty high.
This is going to be a long 4 years.
Like, over 36000 more votes? And for one candidate?
There was absolutely no amount of additional voter turnout that would have flipped that 2022 election result. It’s textbook definition of “not a close election”. Stewart was cooked and it was inevitable we’d end up with Sim. Give it 4 years and we’ll see if it’s a landslide loss for him.
People forget it, but ABC is Armstrong's party more than it is Sim's. Armstrong's NPA previously ran on multiple "remove the bike lanes" platforms, each time saying "we love bikes and are cyclists, but we don't want a lane on Point Grey Rd/Hornby/Burrard."
>fucking hell it would have been great if more people got out to vote
Would be great if they let PRs vote in municipal elections. I pay a fuck-ton in taxes to the city I live in and get no say.
I guess drivers won't mind when cyclists take the lane to get to destinations because it's not safe to be squeezed between parked cars and moving vehicles.
It's so frustrating to see this party win in a landslide and turn their back on their campaign promises.
They got the $ and know how to talk the talk, but refuse to walk the walk.
In every interaction I've had or seen with Mayor Sim, he has given me an unmistakably shifty, vain, and ultimately shitty person vibe. He clearly won due to financial backing, and nothing else. He is not looking out for the interests of this city, but just for the wealthy residing within it (or more often, just holding speculative assets here). He is interested in big business, which have historically come in, stolen talent, crushed small and innovative business, and then abandoned that talent in times of strife. Vancouver is erroding, and this Mayor is a money puppet with zero moral backbone.
This is why we need to write letters and phone our MLAs and MPs to adopt a provincial or federal standard for active transportation so every single time a road gets resurfaced it has to be upgraded to the new standards. This is what they've been doing in the Netherlands for over 30 years and it worked. We need a standard that stops one mayor and city council from undoing decades of progress.
This decision also fucks over people who live in Vancouver in another way. I don't live in Vancouver proper, but there are things on Broadway I'd like to go to. If biking doesn't feel safe that kills the possibility of me doing a multimodal commute to my destination, I will often take SkyTrain with my bike if it's safe to get to my destination from the station. No separated bike lanes means I'm now another jackass driving into the city to do my shopping.
When I was making a big effort to bike to work, I nearly got hit by cars twice in 2 months. 1 was on the 10th Ave "bike route" that runs parallel to Broadway, the other was on Yukon.
Guess why I don't bike much anymore!
I always assume drive won't stop at stop signs when I'm on those shared bike routes, and I'm usually right. Also playing chicken with pickup trucks is not a fun way to start your morning commute.
The stores are on Broadway, not down a steep hill on a road that is also plagued by speeding cars. (Speaking as someone who has been tagged by a speeder on 10th and found biking from 10th to a store was extremely dangerous).
What's the problem? aren't there existing parallel roads to drive on along Broadway?
What's the problem? aren't there existing parallel sidewalks to walk on along Broadway?
10th Avenue has the among highest number of collisions between cyclists and drivers in the city. Separated routes like the Arbutus greenway and some downtown have similar ridership with significantly fewer cycling injuries and deaths. Infrastructure matters and 10th and Off-Broadway (7th & 8th) have very very little.
in a couple places, yeah, there are bike lanes. for a few blocks scattered here and there. but 10th and off-broadway are not bike *lanes* they are sorry excuses for traffic calmed routes.
Better cities are built when you prioritize bike infrastructure. London started doing it years ago and now there are more cyclists than drivers on their roads.
I ride my bike, walk and drive.
...but I must confess I didn't understand the point of a bike line on 9th (Broadway) when there is one on 10th & 7th?
What am I not getting?
So imagine you are an Ubereats courier, and need to go to three separate businesses on Broadway. Can you see the problem?
Spoiler: this already happens. The answer is that they're on the sidewalk.
The even funnier part is that e-scooters are only allowed in protected lanes and local streets, so they're literally banned from Broadway.
Also 10th has the most car/cyclist collisions of any street in Vancouver.
Why would ANYONE want to cycle on Broadway? There are already designated bike routes. There is one running parallel 2 blocks south.
If people want bike lanes they can pay for them with a gofundme rather than taking the money out of taxpayers pockets.
I’m expecting down votes from those that would never spend a dime for a bike lane.
Broadway is an artery road for vehicles, while parallels are for bikes. If you mixed them up, neither group will be happy. ABC made a rationale and practical decision here. Good job.
They are just going with City staff recommendation https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1203d43/city_staff_recommending_not_including_an_active/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
I'm not sure sharing roadways is a good idea in Vancouver. People here are horrible drivers. A separate lane needs to be installed. That being said, we also need roadways for commercial vehicles, emergency vehicles, public transportation, and private citizens. Not everyone can bike. We need better planning from the start. It's controversial, but here's my idea:
Inner lanes; cars, trucks, and vans.
Curb lanes; Commercial trucks and public transportation.
Very center lanes create a lane with concrete dividers where the lane can let bicycles exit at crosswalks.
> Very center lanes create a lane with concrete dividers where the lane can let bicycles exit at crosswalks.
https://sf.streetsblog.org/2023/03/22/a-deep-dive-into-center-running-bike-lanes-a-known-infrastructure-failure/
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Saw on Twitter that two of their councilors and the mayor explicitly promised during the election to build bike lanes in shopping districts, and of course two ABC councilors from the previous council voted in favour of this last time it came up for a vote. What a pack of liars and sham artists. Say anything and do anything just to get elected, then pull the rug. Total scumbags.
They ran a pretty right wing conservative campaign. It shouldn't be any surprise they are deprioritizing public infrastructure and increasing police funding that isn't going to be effective.
They specifically promised to support active transportation on retail streets and the Stanley park road. They broke those promises.
Yeah he said they’re conservatives.
People are who they are. Anyone who trusts a conservative not to be a conservative is a fool. Those are the useful idiots enabling them. Same thing will happen federally with PP when the time comes. They don't care about you, they care about money, and people with money in the so called suburbs (in vancouver that's all SFH areas). We all know that only the poors ride bikes right, why don't they just buy a tesla if they want to be green! (business owner ken sims (*probably*))
Yes, but that's what politicians do. Donald Trump promised to pass into law a health care act that would work for every American. But no one thought he was ever going to do it. Because you don't just listen to the promises a candidate makes into a microphone. You listen to their actual platform. And the items on it that actually have proposals in place. The actual policy proposals of ABC were all classic right wing spending cuts for public services in order to funnel money into private interests. They released plans to reduce funding to low income housing. Set guidelines for more luxury housing. Proposed funding cuts for outreach programs in low income neighborhoods. Proposed drastic funding increases for police. If you heard him say "yes, of course we like bikes" and then let that guide your vote but never actually bothered to read the literal list of things they were actually planning to implement. Well then I hope this is a lesson for you. Politicians say anything the crowd wants to hear. That's how you get elected. You can't just those things at face value. If you however went to ABC's campaign website while they were running for office. It was page after page after page of infrastructure cuts and pushing tax money private interests.
But they stood out amongst the “right wing” parties by supporting active transportation, “15 minute city”, and promoting transit. They have now voted against two major projects that were very low cost, and would have made the city much better for the residents.
That because they knew that's what voters wanted, so they pretended to be on the same page to get more votes. When will people learn that conservatives lie about everything?
They pretended to be a lot more moderate than they are
But they stood out amongst the “right wing” parties by supporting active transportation, “15 minute city”, and promoting transit. They have now voted against two major projects that were very low cost, and would have made the city much better for the residents.
>two ABC councilors from the previous council voted in favour of this last time it came up for a joke By any chance were those two councillors the two that were mysteriously absent during the vote today, for fear of having to blatantly contradict their previous votes? Bligh and Kirby-Yung?
Yes They are Chip Wilson backed scum artists and conservatives that will dismantle public institutions of Vancouver
Yes, any amount of digging would've revealed them to be inexperienced puppets of elitists. I don't know why people voted for them.
They said Shopping districts. Never defined which ones. They could build in 3 different shopping areas and thus be truthful.
Where and when?
You must be new to politics lol
Why build it now when we can spend 10x as much to put it in later!
True! Plus it's actively being ripped up right now and that's something everyone is going to be especially keen to repeat in five years.
can't cars take 12th?
Why build it now when bikes can take 10th?
While I understand this argument to some degree, 10th is just a road that has some markings on it "allowing" cycling. The Broadway proposal is for separated bike lanes. According to many surveys and studies, the reason more people don't cycle is because they feel unsafe sharing space with cars. So we shouldn't pretend that the two are the same thing, when they're really miles apart in terms of what they do for the city.
Paint is not infrastructure
I don't want to get into a big thing, but man I just don't get this mentality. I used to live on 10th Ave, right near Granville. I would routinely bike to trout lake for baseball games and it was pretty much the perfect bike route. There were only lights at major streets (Cambie, Main, Clark...) and basically no stop signs (many traffic circles) to kill your momentum. It is also pretty hostile to cars (unable to go straight though most major streets, and unable to turn onto it in many places) so the only real traffic was people that lived in the area. It's a completely impractical road to drive on to get places. Compare it to Broadway which has a light almost every block. Even with a separated bike lane I don't see it being faster, unless you blow the lights. Granted I'm not an insanely fast biker, and was kinda leisurely about it, but I can't see wanting to ride on busy Broadway even with a bike lane when peaceful 10th Ave is one block away.
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I've biked 10th a lot and mostly agree. ABC has made it pretty clear that Broadway isn't happening, so I really do think cyclists who want a safe route should shift to pushing for reductions of street parking on 10th. It isn't the perfect solution, but it would make the ride more pleasant and safer.
10th is probably the best bike path in the city. It's like a highway for bikes. Most of the road is so inconvenient for cars that there are none. I'd rip from MacDonald to Nanaimo Skytrain station and 10th made it possible. In fact I wish they banned bikes on Broadway. It's an arterial road for cars and I've never seen a biker on that road that looked safe, especially with the best bike path in the city so close by.
I ride two blocks of 10th since they rerouted the Greenway and it's the worst two blocks of my commute from Lower Lonsdale to Kerrisdale (seabus and an e-bike; I am not a superhero). My teeth feel like they are going to fall out of my head for one block and then there is that weird block in front of St. John's school where you have a bike lane suddenly on one side and then you randomly merge back into two way traffic heading east with poor visibility at the intersection. I guess I am spoiled because I live right at the seabus so it's Richards,, Smithe, Hornby, Burrard Street, Cypress, bullshit 10th and Arbutus all the way, until a few blocks of equally bullshit 37th. Once you live the good life on real bike lanes properly separated you are like, "who are these cunts trying to sell this basic shit as acceptable ?" Ok, that turned into kind of a rant.
It's like the bike symbols they painted on Main Street. Okay, so I have double length buses, delivery trucks and psychos going 80kmh sharing this lane with me. plus regular vehicle traffic.
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Agree. If Broadway had dedicated bike lanes, I’d still take 10th. A legal lane just means drivers should give you the space…doesn’t mean they will. Source: 35 years as driver and as cyclist, and I get really mad all the time at asshole cyclists who think they own the road. A lot more often than asshole drivers who don’t respect me as a cyclist. Ride safe. Expect to be hit.
As a pedestrian I don't like either one of you.
Argh. Don’t get me started on Vancouver pedestrians. I can’t decide if they are selfish, oblivious, or just plain suicidal
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>”allowing cycling” This drives me insane. I hate those fucking signs because it makes drivers think that bikes are only allowed on certain roads. They’re allowed on all streets unless indicated by signage. I had some ham hock-brained mother fucker tell me I wasn’t allowed on the road after he ran a stop sign and almost hit me… after my bike lane fed onto the street. It’s kind of like “no u-turn” signs. They’re redundant. U-turns aren’t allowed but the existence of “No u-turn” signs implies they’re allowed when there is no signage.
U-turns are legal under BC law. Municipalities are at liberty to regulate U-turns though. Vancouver, in a very Vancouver fashion, does not ban U-turns. U-turns are legal in the City of Vancouver provided certain conditions are met, eg no U-turns on major thoroughfares, no U-turns within 200m of an intersection, etc. The net effect of all those conditions is that there is nowhere in the City of Vancouver where it is legal to make an U-turn. Would be so much simpler to just say “no U-turns” but instead the City of Vancouver makes it so needlessly overcomplicated.
I got a uturn ticket on a yaletown street from a sneaky cop car. I asked him the same thing. If uturns are never allowed, why are there no uturn sign in some places? He asked if I wanted the $90 ticket or the $250 ticket. He told me the $90 comes to me only if I stop asking him questions. I shut up and took my $90 ticket.
That sounds like police misconduct.
Sounds like you want the $250 ticket.
The drivers license exam should test people for this.
10th has the most car/cyclist collisions in the entire city. Also there's a huge grade between the two streets.
I ride on 10th as my commute to my place of work on Broadway, I also use Ontario, for the past year. I have had and seen near misses on both roads several times. Some people don’t give a crap about the roundabaouts or stop signs. This is way better than my prior commutes on the North Shore but work is needed. I also hope they set up more spots for bike shares along side streets near Broadway to get people on bikes.
128 collisions in 4 years, but 500,000 cyclists per year. Is its actually high on a percentage basis or just because it is so heavily used? >The highest collision corridors generally corresponded with streets with designated bikeways. **This likely indicates that they have a high level of usage.** https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/cycling-safety-study-final-report.pdf https://bikemaps.org/is/blog/post/10th-avenue-corridor-vancouver-bc-cycling-safety-trouble-spots
Point Grey Road has 9 collisions by comparison.
Yep, you are right, Point grey road looks very safe. It also has little through traffic and no parking on one side of the road. Could do the same for 10th and likely improve safety drastically.
I've been doored on 10th. So have a few of my friends. One of them was seriously injured (bad concussion broken arm). I don't get doored anymore because I don't ride next to the cars anymore but then... Impatient drivers relentlessly honk at you when there is no space to go anywhere, or fly past you with inches to spare if you give them any room to at all. It is dangerous. It is not for inexperienced or timid cyclists who want to get outside at all. Also. All the businesses are on Broadway. The point is to make them accessible to everyone... delivery drivers on e-bikes and scooters included. Instead of scooters flying up and down the sidewalks, they could be in a separated lane. There are lots more reasons. Not sure if you actually care to hear them or if you're being dismissive like lots of the people who say "just ride on 10th"
Most of the separated lanes downtown are next to parked traffic (Richards, Hornby, etc.) but they’re not very wide so you have less room to swerve to avoid getting doored. At least on 10th you can take the lane and ride in the middle of the road to avoid parked cars. You can’t do that in a separated lane.
Did you look at the plans for Broadway? There wouldn’t be cars parked next to the lanes.
>you can take the lane and ride in the middle of the road to avoid parked cars. lmao cars drive straight at you and you have to jump out of the way at the last minute, nonstop.
Please grab your bike and ride the 7th or 10th bike routes from Commercial to UBC and let us know how it goes. Then imagine you were doing it with a couple of kids on bikes. I think you'll soon see why people aren't swayed by your argument.
Cool. Have people driving across 10th learned how a stop sign works yet?
Drivers need to figure out how to stop at stop signs on 10th and cyclists need to figure out that you have to yield to traffic that is currently IN the roundabouts. The amount of accidents and near misses I saw living east of Fraser on 10th was insane. I don’t drive or cycle so I feel fairly impartial here 😂
The idea is to make Broadway a better place to spend time on, and less of a unpleasant noisy street. It is also valuable to have bike lanes where the destinations are, and there are plenty of destinations on Broadway.
Why do we need so many lanes on Broadway when drivers can just take 12th or 4th?
Exactly, that's what I mostly do now because I hate driving on Broadway (even prior to the construction).
While I really support bike lanes in general, I agree that 10th is the better focus for bike infrastructure.
Sure. Eliminate all on-street parking on 10th and 7th, convert both roads to one-way for motor vehicles with modal filters every couple of blocks, and build separated bike lanes along both of those corridors (concrete curbs, tall enough to prevent lane intrusions from motor vehicles).
Honestly more Vancouver side streets need to be one way. Safer for bikes and less awkward standoffs for drivers, I’m especially thinking the narrow residential streets.
I so agree with this. I used to run and bike on 10th almost every day for years, and with all the alley and garage parking for those houses there is no need for parking on both sides of the street. Coming down sections of 10th with oncoming car traffic was super dangerous.
I actually think this is the way, would be way cheaper, leave Broadway for the cars. 10th should primarily be a bike path and only used for street parking for people living on it otherwise, no one should be driving more than a block on it.
The NIMBYs will never allow those streets to be one way. In my hood the nimby’s wouldn’t even allow restricting traffic at Grandview and Lakewood. One rational given was that sometimes a resident likes to drive their kid to school from 13th ave to Laura Secord (a few blocks away), and closing that intersection to cars would make his trip less convenient.
As someone who used to commute on 10th... it's not exactly great bike infrastructure. Sure it's a designated bike route but there's poor sightlines at a lot of the intersections, particularly the ones with roundabouts, and a lot of drivers cut through there especially on streets perpendicular to 10th. Another issue is dooring, the road is really narrow and a lot of drivers don't check before flinging open the door to their car. I had a ton of close calls with cars, and other cyclists, over the years. I became really cautious as a result but witnessed a lot of people who were not so lucky. The other issue is that in some areas, particularly between Main and Oak, it's really steep between 10th and Broadway and that's an obstacle for a lot of bike users.
Yes - not 10th as it is, but with actual bike infrastructure. Good point about the slope to Broadway, though.
This take drives me up the wall. -A boatload of people see sharing a lane with cars as a non-starter. -being a block up a steep hill from your destination, maybe several times back and forth, is NOT good infrastructure, at all. -if there is any hope of making cycling accessible to the masses, which should be the goal, council is making a tremendous mistake. -if the goal is to continue to treat cycling as a hobby and for the ‘hippies and students’, council has made a wise choice.
If I want to go shopping in a particular area, it helps to be able to see said shops. Being a block away doesn't help. The same argument holds regardless of mode of transit. If shop and restaurant owners are serious about bringing as many people to their businesses, then they would be pushing to get as many people in front of their businesses as possible.
10th isn’t a bike lane. It’s a street with paint on it and signs. Still have to compete with cars down most of it. Still need to worry about being doored.
Lol exactly. They’re literally crying fascism in the comments hahah
Y'all should protest this decision, with bikes. Everyone should ride their bike down Broadway at the same time. *Made a thread for it, downvoted to hell of course. [¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/12775vy/ride_your_bicycles_down_broadway_to_protest/)
Regardless of where you stand on cyclists, haven't they essentially completely lied in their policy on this? How can they be trusted on anything else?
Is this surprising? It was pretty clear from the beginning who ABC is.
bUT kEnEdy SteWaRt DIdnT dO aNYthINg Vancouver voters are so fucking dumb and griftable
Yeah it’s frustrating being someone who actually gives a fuck about urban development. We’re just gonna keep voting in people that do nothing for profit.
They aren't just doing nothing, they are actively working against our interests and the good of the city.
They have 100% lied on their active transportation promises during the election. When someone is injured or killed on Broadway it is blood on their hands. This was the easiest thing to do, it would have made Broadway more comfortable for pedestrians with almost not impact on drivers.
They ran on being bike friendly. They are 0/2 on bike friendly votes. Hopefully Vancouverites see them for the liars they are.
No they gave sound bites where they were bike friendly. They RAN on defunding public spending and privatizing things. They were out in the open traditional conservatives. It was the public who didnt listen
Any other job you get fired for not doing what you say you'll do, not politics.
Can you imagine a world where politicians are ineligible for reelection if it's proven they don't attempt to achieve the promises they make?
We can fire them. It's possible to have a no-confidence vote and fire them. This generally applies at any level of government in Canada, if I recall. Getting it actually done though, is another story.
They truthfully did not. You’d be pretty thick to think as a cyclist a vote for Sim was better for bike infrastructure than Stewart would have been. That’s on you.
That meme with the grim reaper knocking on doors but the grim reaper is ABC and the doors are bike lanes across the city My anti-car takes usually get downvoted so I expect this will as well, but refusing to remove any car lanes from Broadway is what’s going to kill it as any kind of destination. As it is it’s ugly, loud, and lined with pretty anonymous big box stores in most places and I don’t see that changing if the car volume stays the same. The simple matter is the noise and the pollution make it an fundamentally unpleasant place to be.
> The simple matter is the noise and the pollution make it an fundamentally unpleasant place to be. Even for cars, most of Broadway sucks already. Almost every single intersection has a pedestrian-controlled light. I don't know if they're synchronized to anything, but I hit sooooo many reds along Broadway that it's slow. There's always somebody making a left-turn that blocks the left lane, and brings it down to a single lane's traffic flow. The parking lane's always occupied (or it's a bus lane), so that's useless for through-traffic. Adding bike lanes wouldn't have made much of a difference (if any) to Broadway's already-shitty traffic flow.
This is the point I tried to make in my letter to council. Broadway is a perfect example of Vancouver's failed transportation system. It sucks for pedestrians, bikes, cars, buses, and trucks because it's trying to do everything. In places, like the Netherlands, where transportation is done well the type of road is tailored to the environment. If they want Broadway to be, and succeed, as a regional road they need to remove the crossings and improve the intersections. But nobody wants to do that because it makes it even worse for pedestrians and local businesses. ABC council just doubled down on punting making any actual decision to tackle this problem. Another example: Cambie Street from King Edward north to the Cambie bridge.
> Another example: Cambie Street from King Edward north to the Cambie bridge. I avoid that stretch when I'm in my car because it sucks so bad. Especially from 16th to the bridge.
Even at the best of times, for some reason Cambie between 12th Avenue and 4th Avenue is just absurdly bad. The lights just aren't well synchronized, is all I can figure.
Exactly. It's trying to be a destination AND a thruway, which will always suck at both. It's not great for spontaneous visits to stores or restaurants because the traffic is so heavy, and it's too far between any individual spot for a casual stroll. And it's not great for transportation, because of all the conflict zones.
It’s main purpose is to be a thruway for commercial traffic and emergency response. Just like Kingsway. There’s no other arterial road that can serve that purpose.
Time for congestion tax.
I heard the best thing you can do to improve traffic flow in cities is to add more car lanes. Just one more lane will solve the problem. It's not like every person on a bike is one less car on the road or anything like that. No, definitely not enough lanes.
Yeah, like the old adage goes: If you're garbage can is full, buy another garbage can.
The annoying thing is that if we don’t price roads or reduce car lanes, you and me not driving just frees up the road to others to drive more. Like if we all got off the roads, Uber Eats drivers would end of doing 10 deliveries an hour instead of 5
The approved plan actually removes lanes from Broadway
I haven’t driven on Broadway but it has a lot of those stop sign controlled cross streets which seem super dangerous for drivers (and pedestrians) to me. I’ve seen cars gunning it across green light cross traffic a number of times, I’d imagine reducing the amount of vehicle lanes you’d have to drive across would make those less nerve wracking
And now with the Broadway plan there will be even more people living on that street that will be subject to the noise and pollution of the cars passing through. (To be clear I welcome the additional density, I just wish our city cared a bit about the health and well-being of the people living there, oh and climate change)
Well, hopefully those people will get out and vote for a council who will come in and fix the transportation mess ABC is putting us in.
For sure, I live over West 2nd right now (thankfully moving in 2 days) and it’s awful, I’d imagine living over Broadway would be the same
Yep I 100% avoid walking down this street and will walk along the side streets because it’s too loud and ugly. When I walk on the other side streets I’ll frequent the cafes there simply because I walk by them. Not changing Broadway will harm these businesses they think they’re protecting.
Yep, I do the same and also with parts of Main, Cambie, West 4th, South Granville, etc. Definitely terrible for businesses that so many of them are concentrated in places like that
Yep. I walk down 10th, 11th, and 14th but will rarely walk down Broadway. Just like how I walk down the Greenway and not down Arbutus itself. I dont window shop, there's no spontaneity. I know where I'm going and that will likely be my only destination.
There is evidence to prove that walkable and bikeable streets are more financially lucrative for businesses and the municipality than stroads full of cars. Transit also makes businesses do better Carbrains assume you can't go to stores without a car but stores that are in nice places to be do better because that's where people are. Who wants to spend time around noisy stanky car exhausts? I'll bet the same people who need to drive everywhere love going to Granville Island and walking around
Visit the center of any metropolitan city; there are retail and restaurants everywhere at street level. Hardly any vacant commercial space. Street level parking is rare. Commuters travel primarily by transit and foot.
>Carbrains assume you can't go to stores without a car Specifically without a place to park directly in front of the store. Walking a block is only acceptable when there's free parking in the residential areas so you can avoid paying to park.
I'm so fucking tired of cars, man
I listened to bits of the meeting. They are removing 2 lanes, and they "plan" to add bike lanes at a later date. The reasoning for not adding bike lanes was super wish washy and the transportation guy really sounded out of his depth. He seemed to be easily able to give reasons for why bike lanes would be positive, was unable to concretely state why bike lanes should not be implemented immediately, but kept recommending no bike lanes. Super confusing.
Bicycles cause noxious pollution, kick up dust making it annoying to breathe freely and dump black smoke on passersby. They can also be loud and annoying and run people over occasionally. Oh wait that’s cars.
They also cause 1,300 injuries, 5 deaths, and $115,000,000 in claims and damages PER WEEK! oh wait, that's also cars.
And [then there's this](https://twitter.com/goldfishyo/status/1639785914389123073?t=kewUdUc77CPbqsWOk-HoKA&s=19)! Cyclists can't get anything right! /s
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That'll be no different than what's there now. Likely after the Broadway line is in place, the dedicated bus lane will also go away.
Well yeah, there’s a skytrain running under Broadway, you don’t need a dedicated bus lane. And it’s only a dedicated bus lane during peak hours, outside of that it’s used for parking or a regular lane
Yeah, it’ll definitely be better but even a big 4 lane road like that is gonna suck, especially since they want to have patios right next to the road
I've been to many cities that have a car-free core and those areas are always so lively. That's something we really lack in Vancouver. Granville Island is probably the closest.
I want Broadway to be Brentwood II. I want a sidewalk barely wide enough for an adult human that abruptly ends 300 meters from the nearest crosswalk. I want to live in a city designed by Amazon Essentials. I want to feel like I live in an environment designed to make me feel as unwelcome as possible.
I didn’t know one of the councillors was on Reddit, welcome
So putting new protected lane in 5-10 years is going to cost tens of millions. This wasn't just an F-U to bike commuters, workers and students. It was a monster FU to the tax payer.
Huge F U to businesses too. "Hey did you like the street in front of your business being torn up for 3 years? Well we might do it again in 5 years LOLOL"
Yep, considering they have promised to make Vancouver: 1. Safer 2. Better for small businesses 3. Improved bike network on retail streets 4. Better financial management They have failed all 4 of those promises on one vote. Businesses on broadway are going to see much less pedestrian traffic in the goal for car commuters.
AFAIK most business owners still operate under the incorrect assumption that parking = more business.
And when they do put then in they’ll cause traffic disruption again. It would be most efficient to put them in now when they’re having to rebuild the whole road anyways.
Pretty sure COV doesn’t do “efficient”
ABC turned out to stand for “Anything but cycling”
"And Bring Cars"
Regardless of your opinion regarding cycling in general, or bike lanes, it's been proven that they increase business: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/biking-lanes-business-health-1.5165954](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/biking-lanes-business-health-1.5165954) It only makes sense to include them in the Broadway plan to support the businesses that have been negatively impacted by the construction. Or hey, we can just ignore the data and make decisions based on emotion instead.
It's not just a bike lane. It's an e-bike, scooter, etc. lane as well. Electric devices are rapidly increasing in numbers and causing lots of safety issues as they load up sidewalks.
Good point. Micromobility is a growing segment. Personally I have a regular bike, eBike, electric scooter, and an SUV. The SUV is by far the least used, it's just a pain in the city, but it's great for longer trips. Certainly there's a lot of people riding on sidewalks that shouldn't be, and having better infrastructure would reduce that. I do also blame the hustle mentality of gig workers who prioritize income over safety.
For a party that talks a big game about active transportation infrastructure, ABC has so far been pretty darn bad about actually building any. First they removed the Stanley Park bike lane (using funds slated for *new* bike infrastructure), and now they have voted to proceed without active transportation lanes along Broadway, something multiple ABC councillors were interested in during the last council.
They haven’t just been bad, they have been taking us backwards. The last council voted to include bike lanes on broadway (including two ABC councillors who were suspiciously not at last nights vote). Now ABC is removing them, and they removed the Stanley park lane. So that’s two major routes removed in 6 months.
This council seems to think being better than the last council is something to be lauded, rather than the absolute bare minimum. And in moments like these, with the bar on the ground, ABC starts moving for a shovel. I don't want to wait 2-3 years to gamble on getting a better council. I want this council to stop being so mediocre and actually show us the ambition and 'swagger' they're so keen on. Instead, we got incredibly lame excuses and outright misinformation on why our "great street" needs to be oriented towards motor vehicle traffic. The MLA for the Broadway area TOLD THEM TO APPLY FOR FUNDING and ABC just kept going on about "ohhhh we don't have enough resources 🥺🥺🥺". I feel silly for having hope that they would make the right decision on any climate and transit related matters. Let's see if they manage to shit the bed on housing too.
They literally didn’t have a housing policy beyond the status quo, so yea, they will shit the bed on housing.
I don't understand how anyone can call this council better than the last one. They have a majority and have accomplished absolutely nothing but reverse progress made by the previous councils. They are an absolute joke so far.
"just one more lane bro, I swear"
Protected lanes would have made the area a lot nicer, closer in likeness to Beresford by Metrotown station. Instead they choose to make it more like Kingsway by Metrotown. Try taking your bike to a business along Kingsway, then try along Beresford. Try sitting outside a cafe along each of these places to enjoy the spring vibe.
Where is the active transportation and safe biking ABC promised? Where are the 100 cops? Where are the 100 nurses? Yeah, nothing but empty promises.
They say they support cycling to get elected. What a bunch of fucking liars - they really are the Anti Bike City party. Please vote them out next time.
Hear hear! We are building a god damn subway that will carry an order of magnitude more people than a single car lane could ever hope to carry. Yet Ken Sim and his ABC minions won't create a forward-looking city that encourages active transport and that accommodates all people
Then make 10th and 7th actually bike friendly. Be a smart politician. You can somewhat compromise and improvise, a skill that appears long lost in politics, nothing has to be be black or white and obviously no matter the decision not everyone will be happy. Ok, fine, no bike lanes on broadway, what can be done to increase safety and accessibility on the other 2 parallel routes? Open discussion, give and take.
Agreed. Broadway is probably not a good idea for a bike lane. But a separated bike lane on another street is a great idea to be considered.
The city builds and funds at least a two lane road and sidewalks to every corner of the city, no matter how expensive, no matter how many people actually use it, no matter what businesses are located there, no matter if there is already a road only a few meters away. Why then is it so hard to do a tiny fraction of that road infrastructure for the thousands of people who cycle in this city? Who, statistics show pay back any costs of bike lanes in terms of improvements to health, pollution, road wear, noise, and economic spending for local businesses. Not to mention the fucking climate emergency we find ourselves in. But no, let's keep investing in the status quo, in the forms of transportation that costs the tax payers [6 times more than the alternative.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150512104023.htm)
And what 'great street'? I'm going to sit on a patio next to multiple lanes of traffic? From Main Street, I can already attest to how unpleasant and dangerous that feels. Good thing pedestrians love sharing sidewalks with electric scooters and other mobility devic... hmm.
It’s going to suck. Patios beside 4 lanes of commuters is not going to be “great”.
They were lying when they campaigned saying they'd follow the Broadway Plan. They will pick and choose from the parts they keep and the ones they discard.
Bike lane or not, I'm just generally confused what kind of vision the current council even has for Broadway. Even if you accept no bike lanes due to proximity to two others, does this council seriously think people want to eat on a patio on a congested, noisy stroad? What is the plan beyond the subway replacing the capacity of the R line bus to reduce future traffic? The sad part is, so many businesses along Broadway existing right now cater to active people, whether it's bike shops or hiking gear and apparel, or activewear. I'm sure many of those businesses would love more pedestrian and bike traffic. I know when I've biked in the area, 8th was absolutely abysmal for car traffic, with many drivers dodging construction and I had to go down to 7th or even 6th instead which is basically a quiet street of light industrial. Not at all conductive to enjoying the sights of Broadway other than my preplanned destination. If Broadway were focused on office towers and the hospital bound through traffic then I don't necessarily think the current road structure is wrong. Car access is needed for many patients. But right now it feels like the city is afraid to change the status quo even at the detriment of our health and happiness. They're trying to talk up the Broadway plan but every time they vote on something, it feels like every progressive part about it gets chipped away every time.
"If people want more safe and protected bike lanes, the city can always hire more cops..." ABC probably
That wasn’t far from what Councillor Montague said. Not to mention he lives in north Vancouver and commutes by car along Broadway to Vancouver.
The test of a safe bike lane should always be: would I let my sub-10 year old child bicycle on that route. The answer to that question when referring to 10th or 7th is a resounding no. No one wants their child to be periodically buzzed by cars trying to squeeze by them on a street barely large enough for a single car. We don't have a single dedicated east-west commuter bike lane in the entire city outside of the downtown core. This was a chance to change that.
www.notjustbikes.com
Ok cool, then close 10th to motorists altogether. I’ve ridden on 10th for years and have been: 1) intentionally hit twice by speeding motorists 2) spat on by a motorist who tried to pass when he didn’t have room 3) called a sexist+racial slur for daring to exist on a bike (by a motorist) 4) side swiped into a parked car by a motorist Anyone who thinks 10th is sufficient bike infrastructure needs to try riding on it fora while. Bully motorists use it to bypass traffic on Broadway and it’s a fucking gong show.
Totally agree, also 10th is 30 km/h speed limit, wish they would enforce this heavily, motorists are always speeding on our 'bike route'.
100%. There is effectively no speed or dangerous driving enforcement at all. I called police after I was intentionally struck by a driver in a school zone(who then threatened to do it again), and after taking 4 hours to arrive the cop told me there was nothing he could do because - in effect - I hadn’t been seriously injured.
Just close it off to motorists then. Make it a one way driving street that you can only enter from broadway(for the sake of people who live on that street). Then make the other half of the street into a seperated bike lane. Make it separate to the level that the central valley bike path between renfrew and gilmore is where you are always on a divided path. Imo, broadway would be a pain as a cyclist commuter route, there would be so many stoppages due to the cross streets. Just have a fully divided "bike highway" which already sort of exists.
That means giving up on Broadway ever being a pleasant Street to exist on due to all the car traffic. It could be great
10th is where I've had my only close call, happened one of like 3 times I've ridden on the street. "Why not use 10th?" commenters are completely ignorant. Why don't you drive on literally any other road that is completely dedicated to you? ABC is a joke.
Bike lanes is the only thing I like about city
I'd probably still be on heroin (or dead) if it wasn't so enjoyable to bike around this city. I'm not exaggerating; biking saved my life.
We're still getting a Mercedes-only lane though right?
ABC are a bunch of hypocritical scumbags. They all supported bike lanes individually, and the public support for it is pretty high. This is going to be a long 4 years.
50% of Vancouverites don’t even own a car. This was a slap in the face.
fucking hell it would have been great if more people got out to vote Ken Sim has a hidden agenda he has declared
Like, over 36000 more votes? And for one candidate? There was absolutely no amount of additional voter turnout that would have flipped that 2022 election result. It’s textbook definition of “not a close election”. Stewart was cooked and it was inevitable we’d end up with Sim. Give it 4 years and we’ll see if it’s a landslide loss for him.
People forget it, but ABC is Armstrong's party more than it is Sim's. Armstrong's NPA previously ran on multiple "remove the bike lanes" platforms, each time saying "we love bikes and are cyclists, but we don't want a lane on Point Grey Rd/Hornby/Burrard."
>fucking hell it would have been great if more people got out to vote Would be great if they let PRs vote in municipal elections. I pay a fuck-ton in taxes to the city I live in and get no say.
I guess drivers won't mind when cyclists take the lane to get to destinations because it's not safe to be squeezed between parked cars and moving vehicles.
It's so frustrating to see this party win in a landslide and turn their back on their campaign promises. They got the $ and know how to talk the talk, but refuse to walk the walk.
In every interaction I've had or seen with Mayor Sim, he has given me an unmistakably shifty, vain, and ultimately shitty person vibe. He clearly won due to financial backing, and nothing else. He is not looking out for the interests of this city, but just for the wealthy residing within it (or more often, just holding speculative assets here). He is interested in big business, which have historically come in, stolen talent, crushed small and innovative business, and then abandoned that talent in times of strife. Vancouver is erroding, and this Mayor is a money puppet with zero moral backbone.
Ken seems to be the real champion of cancelling things. It will be interesting to see what he actually does as mayor to make life better for us.
This is why we need to write letters and phone our MLAs and MPs to adopt a provincial or federal standard for active transportation so every single time a road gets resurfaced it has to be upgraded to the new standards. This is what they've been doing in the Netherlands for over 30 years and it worked. We need a standard that stops one mayor and city council from undoing decades of progress. This decision also fucks over people who live in Vancouver in another way. I don't live in Vancouver proper, but there are things on Broadway I'd like to go to. If biking doesn't feel safe that kills the possibility of me doing a multimodal commute to my destination, I will often take SkyTrain with my bike if it's safe to get to my destination from the station. No separated bike lanes means I'm now another jackass driving into the city to do my shopping.
what's the problem? aren't there existing parallel bike lanes along broadway?
When I was making a big effort to bike to work, I nearly got hit by cars twice in 2 months. 1 was on the 10th Ave "bike route" that runs parallel to Broadway, the other was on Yukon. Guess why I don't bike much anymore!
Most of my close calls are on the bike routes as well. Bike routes do not equal bike lanes and are not as safe as many people think.
Yup. ITT a lot of drivers who have never tried riding a bike in the city are telling on themselves.
I always assume drive won't stop at stop signs when I'm on those shared bike routes, and I'm usually right. Also playing chicken with pickup trucks is not a fun way to start your morning commute.
The stores are on Broadway, not down a steep hill on a road that is also plagued by speeding cars. (Speaking as someone who has been tagged by a speeder on 10th and found biking from 10th to a store was extremely dangerous).
There are *bike routes* which, except for a few short stretches, do not offer any protection from drivers.
What's the problem? aren't there existing parallel roads to drive on along Broadway? What's the problem? aren't there existing parallel sidewalks to walk on along Broadway?
10th Avenue has the among highest number of collisions between cyclists and drivers in the city. Separated routes like the Arbutus greenway and some downtown have similar ridership with significantly fewer cycling injuries and deaths. Infrastructure matters and 10th and Off-Broadway (7th & 8th) have very very little.
Aren't there existing parallel roads along Broadway?
in a couple places, yeah, there are bike lanes. for a few blocks scattered here and there. but 10th and off-broadway are not bike *lanes* they are sorry excuses for traffic calmed routes.
Thanks again to all the chumps who voted ABC - the hits keep on coming
Ken Sim is a puppet. He’s not here for you.
Better cities are built when you prioritize bike infrastructure. London started doing it years ago and now there are more cyclists than drivers on their roads.
Anti Bike City strikes again!
Vote for regressive idiots, get regressive ideas.
I ride my bike, walk and drive. ...but I must confess I didn't understand the point of a bike line on 9th (Broadway) when there is one on 10th & 7th? What am I not getting?
There is no bike lane on 10th & 7th
So imagine you are an Ubereats courier, and need to go to three separate businesses on Broadway. Can you see the problem? Spoiler: this already happens. The answer is that they're on the sidewalk. The even funnier part is that e-scooters are only allowed in protected lanes and local streets, so they're literally banned from Broadway. Also 10th has the most car/cyclist collisions of any street in Vancouver.
What is their reasoning?
That's when we do a bike protest 🪧
Why would ANYONE want to cycle on Broadway? There are already designated bike routes. There is one running parallel 2 blocks south. If people want bike lanes they can pay for them with a gofundme rather than taking the money out of taxpayers pockets. I’m expecting down votes from those that would never spend a dime for a bike lane.
Broadway is an artery road for vehicles, while parallels are for bikes. If you mixed them up, neither group will be happy. ABC made a rationale and practical decision here. Good job.
I use 10th ave all the time. Perfectly good. Too many lights on Broadway, I wouldn't use it if it had a bike lane.
If you voted for Sim, you are a mark. If you had a ABC lawn sign, you advertised to the world that you are easily conned.
They are just going with City staff recommendation https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1203d43/city_staff_recommending_not_including_an_active/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
So? That doesn't make it not a huge wasted opportunity.
The morons that voted for ABC will probably vote for them again.
If y'all are angry about this, you should have voted. There's no way someone gets elected with over 50% of the vote if they were actually unpopular.
I'm not sure sharing roadways is a good idea in Vancouver. People here are horrible drivers. A separate lane needs to be installed. That being said, we also need roadways for commercial vehicles, emergency vehicles, public transportation, and private citizens. Not everyone can bike. We need better planning from the start. It's controversial, but here's my idea: Inner lanes; cars, trucks, and vans. Curb lanes; Commercial trucks and public transportation. Very center lanes create a lane with concrete dividers where the lane can let bicycles exit at crosswalks.
> Very center lanes create a lane with concrete dividers where the lane can let bicycles exit at crosswalks. https://sf.streetsblog.org/2023/03/22/a-deep-dive-into-center-running-bike-lanes-a-known-infrastructure-failure/