Bike lane approved for Cambie Bridge
‘Common-sense’ pilot project to cost $600,000, likely to be ready by spring or early summer
Love them or hate them, Vancouver is getting another separated bike lane.
Vancouver city council voted Wednesday to approve a $600,000 pilot project to repurpose one of the three southbound lanes on the Cambie Bridge into a bike lane and reallocate a section of the southbound exit ramp heading toward 2nd Avenue to cyclists.
Construction on the bike lane — likely the last one under Mayor Gregor Robertson’s watch — is slated to be completed by spring or early summer.
“This is a simple, common-sense, cost-effective way of making the Cambie Bridge safer,” Robertson told council.
The installation of removable concrete barriers on the bridge is estimated to cost about $400,000. Another $200,000 will go toward improvements to connections on the south end of the bridge.
Jerry Dobrovolny, the city’s general manager of engineering services, said the Cambie Bridge, built in 1985, was designed to handle a large number of pedestrians, but not cyclists, which hit a record 3,200 on a mid-week day in 2017.
Most pedestrians and cyclists tend to use the wider east sidewalk but “there’s too many of both of them to operate safely.”
“We’ve seen an increase in the number of conflicts and an increase in the number of injuries, so we are creating more space for cyclists to improve safety,” Dobrovolny said.
According to figures from Vancouver Coastal Health, minor injuries per kilometre on the Cambie Bridge jumped from about one since 2012 to almost six in 2016-2017.
Staff told council the bike lane would have little effect on road traffic as delays are largely due to traffic lights on the north and south sides of the bridge, not the number of lanes on the bridge.
“We’ve taken great pains in the design to make sure we are maintaining the vehicle capacity on the bridge and not reducing that,” Dobrovolny said. “The capacity of the bridge itself is about double the capacity of the intersections and road networks at either end.”
Staff said fewer vehicles use the bridge today than 20 years ago, and modelling studies have shown it has enough capacity to handle projected road traffic even after the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts are torn down.
The votes fell along party lines, with five Vision Vancouver councillors voting in favour and three NPA councillors voting against the bike lane. Green councillor Adriane Carr voted in support of the bike lane.
Before the vote, NPA councillor George Affleck submitted an amendment to place a moratorium on the bike lane proposal and ask staff to present other innovative and safe crossings across False Creek, perhaps a bike bridge or a cantilevered extension on the Cambie Bridge, rather than “squeezing (cyclists) into a bridge not built for them.” It failed to pass. “The challenge in Vancouver is that we are constraining car traffic all the time,” said Affleck, adding he’s worried bike lanes have become a “wedge issue” in politics.
Coun. Melissa De Genova said the city should focus on other priorities rather than pushing through an unpopular bike lane.
“I have received feedback from individuals who just don’t feel this is where their tax dollars should be spent considering we’ve increased their tax last year for the opioid crisis,” she said.
Councillors and staff referred to previous studies on False Creek crossings that pegged costs for a separate stand-alone bridge at $100 million and a cantilevered extension at $60 million.
Robertson said “it’s bizarre the NPA solution for this is to spend $100 million on a stand-alone crossing of False Creek when we have space on this bridge that can be better utilized without impacting traffic (and) makes it safer.”
Previous bike lane pilots, such as the ones on the Burrard Bridge and on Dunsmuir Street, have turned permanent.
Staff will monitor the changes on the Cambie Bridge and provide results to a new mayor and council in 2019.