Safety cited as top reason for cyclists being steered rightward at Stanley Park
System reduces conflict between vehicles and bikes, official says
Cyclists are in the right lane of Stanley Park Drive to reduce conflicts between bikes and cars in the park, according to the Vancouver park board.
Ian Stewart, manager of park development, said after commissioners voted to allow cars back into the park, staff developed a plan to divide the two-lane Stanley Park Drive into the right lane for bicycles and the left for cars, allowing visitors in vehicles to drive to popular tourist attractions such as the Vancouver Aquarium and the totem poles.
“We have a number of iconic attractions and features in the park on the east side — most of those occur on the inside of the (Park Drive) loop,” he said.
As you continue around the park, the various features and businesses are on the outside, or west side, of Park Drive.
“We’re trying to find a balance,” Stewart said. “That’s why we have cyclists on the right when we enter the park. That’s what we’ve found to be safest to avoid the most conflicts between cyclists and cars.”
About 2,400 bright-orange traffic cones separate car and bike traffic on the nine-kilometre drive around the park.
The park board banned cars from the park and bicycles from the seawall on April 8 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The move eliminated the points on the seawall where bikes and pedestrians could not maintain physical distancing of two metres. Cars returned to Park Drive on June 22.
Splitting bike and car traffic on Park Drive has resulted in a loss of about 30 per cent of parking, Stewart estimated. At Prospect Point and Ferguson Point, where restaurants are located, cyclists have been routed through the parking lots.
Stewart said the design of the split between bicycles and cars was developed working with the city’s engineering department and an outside transportation consultant.
“What they were very strongly urging us to do is ensure that there wouldn’t be a conflict with cars and bikes and that’s why we routed them through the parking lot,” he said.
“We very much understand how much parking means for the businesses. We’re working on a design that might make it more successful for them.”
Brent Davies, owner of The Teahouse at Ferguson Point, said the restaurant reopened on June 25 for dinner seven days a week and brunch on Saturday and Sundays.
He said business is down about 70 per cent.
July and August are traditionally among the restaurant’s busiest months.
Davies, who has been involved with The Teahouse for 42 years, said with cyclists directed through the parking lot in front of his restaurant, all the angled parking is gone, although some parallel parking remains.
As an interim solution, about 15 parallel parking spots have been added behind The Teahouse on Park Drive in the traffic lane that’s now located closest to the restaurant.
Davies thinks that is unsafe because it means drivers have to open their doors into traffic and passengers getting out of vehicles don’t have a level surface to step onto.
He believes it creates a hazardous situation that increases his liability.
“They should put everything back to normal — at least put the bikes on the west side of Park Drive,” he said.