False Creek bike lanes

[fever]

With the competing proposals for widened bike lanes on the Burrard bridge and the current sorry state of the Cambie bridge for biking, I was thinking about how biking across False Creek could be made easier and safer. Currently, there is a lack of adequate signage to lead bikers to the bridges, there is a gap between bike routes and bridgeheads where bikers are expected to ride in busy mixed traffic, the changes in elevation are large, and the bike lanes on the bridges are generally shared with pedestrians. It's really no wonder that biking hasn't broken out from the latex-clad crowd when it comes to commuting downtown. Biking over the bridges is just too intimidating. Biking will become more common if bike routes are made more accessible to beginner and intermediate riders, like with the more well used 10th Avenue and Union-Adanac bikeways.


So here are a few of the more pressing problems, and some ideas:
1) Northbound at the north end of the Burrard bridge ends in confusion. There is no safe way of getting from the Burrard bridge to the continuing bike route on Hornby. You can get to the seawall by following the wacky route through the alleys, but who commutes to the seawall???


2) Northbound at the north end of the Cambie bridge also ends. The connecting bikeway on Smithe ends two blocks from the bridgehead in busy traffic. There are decent connections to the seawall and Beatty for those looking to go on a leisurely weekend ride, but no straightforward connection into downtown. Extend the bike lane up Smithe!


3) Southbound and northbound at the south end of the Cambie bridge is complete confusion. There is no legal way of biking to or from the bridgehead to anywhere except the Seawall. Walk your bike signs abound. No biking is allowed on the roads even. Granted, this is a construction site, but it would have been simple to put a temporary connection under the bridge along First Ave/Commodore to the foot of Ash.

This is a little more far-fetched, but may be an alternative to the Burrard widening proposals. One of the drawbacks of commuting from Central Broadway or any of the upland parts of Vancouver south of False Creek (ie. most of Vancouver) is the hill leading down to False Creek and the subsequent climb up the bridge. The Fir offramp of the Granville bridge neatly avoids this dip with a viaduct.

These images show the Howe viaduct and Fir viaduct reconfigured with one southbound lane removed from the main span of the Granville bridge. The Howe viaduct is wide enough to accommodate a bike lane - in fact, the viaduct begins with white line painted in the appropriate spot - especially if the lanes begin curving slightly later to join a single lane from Granville street, as shown. Because the left lane of the Howe viaduct becomes the right lane of Granville street south of False Creek, fewer lane changes would be necessary on the bridge deck.



The Fir viaduct is the width of two lanes. With part of this width given over, there is enough room for bike lanes in both directions.



This reconfiguration basically amounts to painting new lines, possibly with some barriers to keep cars out of the bike lanes and some work to make the 4th Avenue offramp crossing safer.

[fever]

This has a two way bike way onto the downtown side of Granville street. To to get more room on the west side of the bridge where the viaduct joins the main span, the radius of curvature of the lanes on the Howe viaduct would have to be decreased. Then, the bike lanes and crosswalk could be brought together. There might be enough room as is even.

[Rusty Gull]

I agree with you on all points, and appreciate your creativity.

Originally Posted by fever

So here are a few of the more pressing problems, and some ideas:
1) Northbound at the north end of the Burrard bridge ends in confusion. There is no safe way of getting from the Burrard bridge to the continuing bike route on Hornby.

Yeah. Brutal situation. I can't believe the City hasn't found a solution to this.

Myself, I continue riding (illegally) on the sidewalk along Go Fish restaurant to Hornby, to the chagrin of pedestrians on the sidewalk who give me a dirty look, and then queue up with the north-bound traffic on Hornby.

[fever]

Thanks Rusty.

I thought some might be concerned with the Fir side. The two-way bikeway on one side of the road is quite common in Montreal, although I still think it's strange. It would only need to go up to the 10th Avenue bikeway anyway, and down to the 7th Avenue bikeway. Not a big deal. Fir Street itself is five lanes wide, so it could fit bike lanes without taking any lanes away from Fir Street southbound.



As for connections on the downtown side, designating Drake a bikeway between Homer and Burrard would be sufficient to connect the bridge to the bike and bike/bus lanes on Burrard, Hornby, Howe, Seymour, Richards, and Homer. (Yes, there are bikeways on nearly every street, but only the southbound Burrard lane actually leads to a bikeway over a bridge)

[worldwide]

Originally Posted by fever

1) Northbound at the north end of the Burrard bridge ends in confusion. There is no safe way of getting from the Burrard bridge to the continuing bike route on Hornby. You can get to the seawall by following the wacky route through the alleys, but who commutes to the seawall???

this one's easy. all you have to do is merge in with traffic on pacific and if everything times out properly you just merge into the center lane and hit the advance left. if that isnt going to happen the other option is of course riding in the roadway in the right lane on pacific and then waiting for the light to change to head north on hornby.

Originally Posted by fever

2) Northbound at the north end of the Cambie bridge also ends. The connecting bikeway on Smithe ends two blocks from the bridgehead in busy traffic. There are decent connections to the seawall and Beatty for those looking to go on a leisurely weekend ride, but no straightforward connection into downtown. Extend the bike lane up Smithe!

what i do here is either stay right on smithe and take a right on beatty, up to dunsmuir and then head west, or i hit the east sidewalk on the cambie bridge and then take the ped overpass to BC place. just run up the stairs with your bike and youre at robson and beatty. already up most of the hill.

Originally Posted by fever

3) Southbound and northbound at the south end of the Cambie bridge is complete confusion. There is no legal way of biking to or from the bridgehead to anywhere except the Seawall. Walk your bike signs abound. No biking is allowed on the roads even. Granted, this is a construction site, but it would have been simple to put a temporary connection under the bridge along First Ave/Commodore to the foot of Ash.

i havent noticed a problem...

actually what youre supposed to do here (southbound) is completely ignore that sign telling bikes to use the offramp and just ride straight on cambie off the bridge and up to broadway, or left/right on 7th if you want.

northbound you just line up near the front of the pack at cambie and broadway and then gun it on the green. the cars can never keep up so you always have a good right of way onto the bridge deck, or sidewalk if you are taking the bc place shortcut

my pet peeve about the cambie bridge is that when you are going northbound on the bridge deck there is a lane of traffic trying to merge left from your right hand side so sometimes you get stuck riding the white line between two rows of moving traffic until it is safe to merge right

and speaking of pet peeves, we really need to do something about the burrard bridge. im sure you guys all know the issues, but i cant stand that stupid 15kmh speed limit. i think cyclists as a group need to take action and start riding in the roadway more. its pitiful that they have us up on those sidewalks with the pedestrians. although i do believe that slow people and the elderly should reserve the rights to be up there

[Metro-One]

I believe that instead of creating a mess for bikes and cars on our bridges, separate biking and foot passenger bridges should be built over false creek.

[fever]

Originally Posted by worldwide

actually what youre supposed to do here (southbound) is completely ignore that sign telling bikes to use the offramp and just ride straight on cambie off the bridge and up to broadway, or left/right on 7th if you want.

It's a tough choice. I do both. Ignoring the no-bikes-allowed sign leads nicely to 7th. The speed limit's 40 and it's downhill, so I don't see the problem. Most drivers ignore the bus/bike lane sign on the right lane so it's even. If you're a good, upstanding citizen who follows the rules, the bikes-must-turn-off-here sign leads nicely to a get-off-your-bike-and-walk-it-for-200-metres sign. Brilliant.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by fever

So here are a few of the more pressing problems, and some ideas:
1) Northbound at the north end of the Burrard bridge ends in confusion. There is no safe way of getting from the Burrard bridge to the continuing bike route on Hornby. You can get to the seawall by following the wacky route through the alleys, but who commutes to the seawall???

The north sidewalk can be narrowed to create a bike lane on the south side of Pacific between Burrrad and Hornby. The only problem is that unless you expropriate a wedge of land from Il Giardino, the shift in lanes for westbound traffic will occur in the interesection, which could be hazardous (but dashed lines through the intersection could solve that problem).

2) Northbound at the north end of the Cambie bridge also ends. The connecting bikeway on Smithe ends two blocks from the bridgehead in busy traffic. There are decent connections to the seawall and Beatty for those looking to go on a leisurely weekend ride, but no straightforward connection into downtown. Extend the bike lane up Smithe!

From the Cambie Bridge east sidewalk, take the bike ramp down to Pacific, then ride west up Nelson Street (Nelson is two-way for those two blocks and there is little traffic) to either (1) the Expo Blvd bike lane to head west then up Helmcken through the parkette to access the West End or (2) to the Beatty Street bike lanes and turn up Robson Street or Dunsmuir into the CBD.

3) Southbound and northbound at the south end of the Cambie bridge is complete confusion. There is no legal way of biking to or from the bridgehead to anywhere except the Seawall. Walk your bike signs abound. No biking is allowed on the roads even. Granted, this is a construction site, but it would have been simple to put a temporary connection under the bridge along First Ave/Commodore to the foot of Ash.

That's just for construction. After construction, I'd just bike on the roadway - it's allowed and it's not really an issue.

As for the Fir viaduct proposals, I wouldn't create a two-way bike path opposing traffic. You need predictability in any system - and creating a counterflow bike lane will probably lead to problems on other bike lanes.
Plus drivers would be programmed to look in only one direction when merging onto the bridge. An driver unfamiliar with the configuration would not look ahead for an oncoming bike when merging from Howe onto the Granville Bridge. i.e. when was the last time you looked ahead for a wrong-way driver when you merged onto the freeway? Essentially, that's the situation that you would be creating here.

I'm not keen on building a sepaarte bridge for pedestrians and cyclists across the creek - it would likely create nighttime safety issues forcing people onto a secluded path.

[fever]

I think some separation would have to go along with the Granville/Fir proposal, like a railing or concrete barrier. It really would be unusual for Vancouver (and almost anywhere). This type of system is pretty common in Montreal though, and only with flimsy plastic pylons separating too-narrow two-way bike paths from two-way streets. (I thought of this in July when I had just visited Montreal, and it's not really a coincidence.)