Councillor wants staff to explore new bike-parking spots downtown
Coun. George Affleck wants city staff to investigate putting in 1,000 new bike-parking spaces in downtown Vancouver.
In the wake of Bike to Work Week, Affleck submitted a motion Sunday for the June 9 council meeting to seek ways to make it easier to park a bike.
The NPA councillor wants to examine funding and partnership opportunities and to consider infrastructure such as showers and repair centres. He’d like the spaces to be secured but is interested in getting more information about that from staff.
A possible source of funding could be the city’s Parking Sites Reserve, which Affleck said currently has a balance of $52.2 million.
“In this case we have an opportunity to use that fund to potentially redesign some of the parking spaces that are sitting empty,” he said, pointing to the various Easypark sites owned by the city.
Unlike many motions coming from the NPA side of council, Affleck’s idea was welcomed by Vision Vancouver Coun. Raymond Louie.
“I think it’s a good thing,” said Louie, an avid cyclist.
“There’s lots of demand for more bike racks and secured parking for bikes because there’s more people cycling.”
Louie said cycling takes “pressure off roads, pressure off transit and it’s healthy for people.”
While TransLink offers secured bike parking at some of its stations, the city doesn’t currently have any such facilities for the public. Louie said bike facilities are something the city advocates for in new developments, but that’s nowhere near the scale Affleck is proposing.
It’s not just bikes about which Affleck is making motions.
There is a plan to move the weekly Downtown East Side Street Market from its current location at Pigeon Park on Carrall Street to some land acquired by the city at 501 to 533 Powell St. Affleck has heard concerns from residents in the area about the relocation.
He has a motion asking for more information about the proposal, including whether there has been a marketing or business plan.
The fears he’s heard are that when the Powell Street market opens, vendors of used goods will continue to use Pigeon Park and the unregulated market on the first block of East Hastings Street.
Roland Clarke, co-ordinator of the existing Pigeon Park market that runs Sundays, said the hope is to phase out Pigeon Park gradually and increase Powell to possibly three vending days a week.