More bike lane in downtown
 

So the city made a bike lane on Georgia Viaduct after the Olympic. The bike lane is ridiculous wide and it's about the size of a car lane.

This morning, I saw the bike lane has been extended from Dunsmuir/Beatty all the way to Dunsmuir/Howe.

Now a used to be 3 lanes single way traffic is down to 2 lanes traffic with NO RIGHT TURN except bicycles.

These bikers are taking over the city and I found it very inconvenience to delay a already slow traffic route.

What's your thought ?


edit; They added a curb to split between car and bike, this would help reduce the accident but it takes up a lot of space and dumb biker still riding in car lane.

my thought is that our government want us all to go back to the stone age.

What they need is allowing scooters to split lanes like Vietnam, then there will be no traffic problems.

If only our scooter riders are as awesome as they are.

bikers are lame, they deserve to get run over


enough said


skateboarders needs a lane, and so do the motorcycles. next

our mayor is over obsessed with more bike lanes and screwing everyone else over

i think there are too many cons than pros. Sure it will get a few more people to bike to work and it'll be more safe for them, but how about the congestion its causing during rush hour from getting rid of a lane? Not only is it worse for the environment with added polution from cars idling longer, but what about the lost productivity from people taking longer to get to work?

I'm all for biking, but to work? I wear business clothes, and not only would it take longer to get to work, but I would need to pay for a gym in DT so i can shower, I would probably lose an hour of my day if I did all this.

As an avid bicyclist I concur that the extension of the bike lane from the viaduct west through the city seems to be more of a PR stunt rather than being really useful (I'm OK with how it was). With that said the viaduct bike lane itself has been really nice, they removed the 3rd lane years ago so nothing changed for drivers other than making it way safer and faster for me to get downtown (I would hardly take the viaduct before). Also its "ridiculous wide" because its two way, notice that the east bound Georgia viaduct still has 3 lanes.

And I agree that most bicyclist are lame, they seem to go out of their way to angry at cars... and guess what? most drivers are lame too, especially to bicyclists.
I am obviously and avid driver too (and skateboarder for 20 years ;) and I see both sides but one thing you can't argue is that driving downtown has been lame for years and it had nothing to do with bicyclists, unfortunately there are too many people trying to drive down there and thats the real problem.

So to sum it up, if the city's goal is to reduce the amount of drivers downtown and encourage more people to bike.. its kind of working.

You don't like it? I think that's inevitable when you are fixing a problem, not everyone is going to be happy, but some of us are really happy.

Maybe its time for some of you to buy a skateboard to get around downtown.

skateboard or bike is only good if you live in downtown.
I dont think i will be waking up at 3am and skate my way to downtown from Tri-cities lol

Does anybody know if the city is going to add more bike lanes in every streets in downtown core? If so, the city is gonna be fucked real bad in the future

The thought behind getting rid of the lane is that it will cause enough congestion that it will make the people that could be riding a bike or transit more likely to do so, and it will prevent more new people from driving downtown.

I hear you on the business wear but you could always park near a skytrain, it sucks but the current system is broken.

This is why I choose to live near where I work.

you have a family? Can't afford to live near the city? blah blah blah?
cry me a river. Either find a job close to where you live or move close to where you work. North America is one of the last places on earth where most people drive to work. Look at Tokyo or anywhere in Europe and most people are using trains and public transit to get to where they work. Why? because there are too many people living in a small space, we are heading in that direction and this is the beginning of planning ahead for the future. We can't knock down buildings downtown to make new lanes.

I understand the logic of it, but for a lot of ppl way out in the suburbs it could double commute times, not really something i would want to do...

Even if I park my bike near a skytrain I would still need to shower somewhere. I'm not about to go to work all sweaty, Its not fair to my coworkers.

I love biking in my free time but I also wear business clothes to work downtown and biking is not an option for me. I really wonder how much use these lanes are even going to get when (a) it rains like heck every other day and (b) most people that work downtown wear some kind of business formal or business casual attire (plus, who wants to go to work all sweaty?).

Personally, I don't know if this will change much. I NEVER drove downtown as it were unless I had no choice. I think there are fewer people than they think that drive downtown because they want to rather than because they have to.

When I said park at a skytrain I meant you could drive there in your car wearing your business attire and take the skytrain into downtown.

I never said I drive to work

You cant really apply this to us. Simply our travel distance will be longer because our city is bigger. Although I never been to Tokyo or Europe but I will use Taiwan as an example, the city is so small and driving in the city sucks. The transit system in Taiwan is much better comparing to Vancouver. Lower cost and more buses/skytrain schduling interval. (I think there is more than 1 bus arrives into the stations when it's at rush hour)

Therefore, with the shorter distance, more buses/skytrain and lower cost of fare. There will be more people willing to use the transit and not to worry about the busy streets.

If i were to use the transit from my house, I have to leave at 5:30 in order to arrive at my work which starts at 8:00 on time.

I save like 30~40 bucks a month if I'm taking the transit, but i also wasted 60 hours every months.

Your theory will work in a perfect world, find a job closer to where you live, housing in downtown...etc. But man, we are not living in a perfect world.

Pretty much ruined my route to work. The merging lane is essentially gone on the Dunsmuir Viaduct. If you are on the right lane from Main and turning left you pretty much have to merge right away or you'll run into the Bike lane. Add on top, the bike lanes are massive, it makes driving on the viaduct really tight.

you dont run into bike lane, you run into concrete barrier .. lol

They should get rid of the outter left turn lane on Main st for safety reason, it leaves you no room to yield on a busy hour

LOL pretty much. I agree cause essentially there is room for 3 cars on the outter lane.

Bikes are for hippies.

I am really wondering who is running the city of vancouver, a bunch of fking retards?

^ A bunch of hippies who seem to be doing the most voting around here.

I personally know one of the city councillors. Not sure if he did the Viaduct, but he was the guy behind the Burrard Bridge bike lane. According to him, it's his job to cater to the wishes of the population, and the popular vote/public opinion at the time they did their studies was in support of the bike lane. Yes, many of my friends would like to strangle him too. ;)

So if you don't like it, show up to the COV meetings and voice your opinion!

Gregor Robertson's vision is to have the "greenest city in the world by 2020" if I remember correctly. So yes, all of us in Vancouver consciously voted in a hippie. :rolleyes:

As if the Burrard Bridge bike lane wasn't enough, I can't believe they made it on the viaduct. The on-ramp to the viaduct is dangerously tight for merging.

IMO, get rid of the concrete barriers and use the bike lane during season. Last December I remember driving on the Burrard Bridge when it was raining and I didn't see one bicyclist. Who the fuck is going to ride a bike in the cold and rain especially in our ever-fluctuating weather. Maybe 1 or 2 avid bicyclists? Meanwhile, inconveniencing 30+ other people in cars.

Just look at the past couple days, we've had rain for the majority of the week, no one is going to ride a bike downtown for work. Along with business attire, this is a really stupid move.

As if carpooling wasn't minimizing traffic, I carpool to work and they've already fucked me over last year with the "bus/cyclist only" lane on Hastings going to downtown. And for the 8 or so months that lane has been implemented, I've only seen a handful of cyclists using it to get to work. Whats the point of carpooling now? The HOV benefit is gone and you have to wait for your other party. Effff this shit

I hate that when you are on Main St. about to turn left on to the Georgia Viaduct, that there are 2 lanes turning into the 1 lane on ramp. That shit is so stupid. Causes a traffic jam all the time.

what a waste of space and money. Vancouver is such a bad place to bike. everything is spread so far apart. The car to bike ratio makes these lanes no sense whatsoever. Idiots think more ppl will start biking because of that? hell no. Ppl that drive downtown are all from out of the core, no body is going to bike from North Van to downtown just because of a new bike lane, they're making traffic worse for no reason. If you want to bike, then do it like the rest of the world: bike on the car lane. Fuking Canada and it's retarded government. Just like No.3 road and the skytrain, they'll prolly tear out the bike lanes 3 years later to put a highway through downtown core, god i wish they do.

somebody should setup an organization where everyday ppl that needs to go to work get together and all drive in a row in the bike lane protesting WHILE driving to and from work. that way the lane gets put to good use while you protest while going to work. It's like driving in the HOV without having the risk of being pulled over lol. Cops cant pull you over because you're protesting and not destroying anything. win win win!

Kinda funny how 3rd world countries where there is alot of people is building more roadways for cars, while places like Vancouver does the opposite and builds bike lanes for people that hardly use it and or can only use it 4-5 months in the year. I never see anyone on the burrard street bridge..

I agree with jaretron. Living and working in the same community minimizes the commute, making it almost ridiculous not to bike even on rainy days. Just a note about North America and driving, North Americans have always been used to driving, and cities were built according to that. Comparing us to Tokyo or all those European cities (Paris, Amesterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich, etc.) isn't quite fair because those cities have been around a lot longer than Vancouver, Toronto, etc. They were originally walking/bicycling, got some cars and a ton of motorbikes, built a complicated system of underground trains, and still maintain that original walking/bicycling mentality. Those cities are older so they’ve had that much more time to build it properly, unlike Vancouver which is constantly experimenting with more car lanes, bike lanes, rapid transit, etc. If you’ve been to those places in Europe you’ll notice the cities are very dense, like how Vancouver is getting to be. Paris, for example, is extremely dense around the River Seine and has ‘suburbs’ around central area. Most people actually live in the center of Paris and either work there or out in those suburb areas. For those working centrally, they either walk, bike, or metro it. Those working outside of the center still bike or take transit to where they need to go. The metro is incredibly efficient and is very busy, but not white-gloved-pushers busy, during peak hours. This allows them to invest huge amounts into the city’s public transit as they can concentrate it all in the middle where it’s needed. Adversely, the GVRD has pods of people and not enough money to fund infrastructure to serve them all. You build a skytrain to Poco and it’ll be another decade before you can build one to Langley. In the mean time all those people and their cars commute daily to the center (Downtown Vancouver) and it creates major congestion, parking, and pollution problems. You’ll also notice those European cities build a lot of pedestrian only streets/bridges, bicycles outnumber and take the right of way over cars, and scooters/motorcycles squeeze in wherever they fit and park wherever they want. Not saying their system is better, but it doesn’t seem to suffer from the problems we’re having here. The difference is those solutions were built from the ground up, starting with the attitudes and expectations of the people living there.