What with the Central Valley Greenway, the Burrard Street Bridge, and the Dunsmuir and Hornby Street separate bike lanes, the good news just keeps coming for local cyclists. And in the past two days, there have been two more good news items.
Vancouver Bikes Lanes to be Salted and Ploughed
In previous years, I recall that city services would often make cyclists less safe. Particularly memorable was cycling along the Winston section of the Central Valley Greenway (intimidating at the best of times), and finding that a huge quantity of branches and leaves had been swept to the side of the road after a recent wind storm – basically piling up the entire mess in the bike lane, and forcing cyclists into fast-moving traffic! (See my video below which shows how scary Winston is, even when one is able to stay in the bike lane.)
http://www.youtube.com/user/AverageJoeCyclist?feature=mhum#p/a/u/1/0SKP3PWwEz4
Now however it seems that city services will be aimed at making us safer! Vancouver is planning to clear the snow from some of the major bike routes, including 10th Avenue, Adanac and the Stanley Park seawall. In downtown lanes, snow will be pushed to the side, and we may even see snow ploughs in bike routes. The city has apparently purchased two new machines for this purpose.
The City of Vancouver also plans to spray all 28 Vancouver bike lanes with a salt brine designed to make conditions less slippery.
Wow! This really makes me happy. I know a guy who was off work for six months after slipping on black ice while cycling to work. I am sure these initiatives will prevent many accidents, and make it easier for cyclists to keep cycling all year round.
I’m finding it hard to restrain myself from sending a bouquet to Vancouver City Hall!
Google Maps Coming to Canadian Cyclists
Every time I use Google Maps I imagine the day when there will be a bike symbol to click on – and now it seems the day will soon be here!
Google Maps has developed a rating system called Bike Directions. It uses colour coding to indicate levels of safety for cyclists on roads, ranging from dotted green lines to indicate roads that are safe for cyclists even though they have no bike lanes, to dark green lines to show dedicated bike lanes. In the United States, this feature has been integrated into Google Maps already, so you can choose to click on Bike Directions (as well as the usual transit, walking and driving options).
Google has just announced that Bike Directions is coming to eight Canadian cities: Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Gatineau, Quebec and Waterloo.
The system is interactive – you can report back to Google on routes, so cyclists will be able to contribute to making this an effective route-planning tool.
All in all, there’s never been a better time to be a cyclist in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland!
Its like Christmas with all this good news!
Sure is, Paddyanne. I’ve got a red bike and a safe place to ride it … what more could I ask? 🙂 Although, have to admit, -10 intimidates me – I grew up in the tropics!
I biked downtown today and I kept seeing these multiple white tracks along the bike routes – I guess that must have been their salt brine machine.
As much as I applaud the City for doing this, I’m not really sure that Stanley Park should be a priority for ploughing. There must be other routes in the city that are more heavily used in snow conditions.
But in general – good work, and very nice to hear. I slipped and fell on some black ice last year – I was going fairly slow and on a quiet street with not traffic so it wasn’t as big a disaster as it could have been. My shoulder still reminds me about it though, so I was rather reluctant to go out on my bike in this subzero weather. But it turned out that everything was bone dry – my biggest problem was keeping my nose, ears and fingers from falling off due to frostbite!
Sean, I also thought Stanley Park was an odd choice, as it is not likley to be anyone’s commute. Still, I am just so happy that any money at all is being spent on cyclists’ …
I’m a little disappointed that Montréal wasn’t included in the bike directions.
As for clearing/salting cycle paths. I don’t see it happening here.
Before the bike lanes were painted, the city would clear right to the curb and it was easy to ride on the wider roads. Now they clear to the bike lane and in most cases push the snow into the bike lanes, forcing cyclists out into the road.
Perhaps it will change this year (though we won’t be seeing any long lasting snow for quite some time still).
In credit to *some* snow plough drivers last year, they did actually go out of their way to clear the bike lanes.
I think it is BIZARRE that Montréal was not included, Ryan – seeing as it is the best city in Canada for cyclists, from what I have seen. Maybe it’s time for a petition to Google?
Just rethinking it over, it could be, because Montréal closes many of it’s separate bike paths during the winter.
I suppose Google doesn’t want to put a bike route from point A to B during the winter, where parked cars are.
Gents,
My understanding is that the bike route information had to be supplied by the local governments.
In Waterloo, we have a Transportation Planner who took this project on because he’s a bike booster. Not sure about Montreal, but maybe they opted to not supply the information.
Just be sure everyone to rinse your bike well every time you use it on a salted lane-if you’ve ever seen that damage salt does to cars in Eastern Canada you’d know what I mean.
Yup, I saw the same in cars in Durban South Africa … batteries would actually fall out of the bottom of Volkswagen Beetles, it was that bad. Good tip, Bill.