April 28, 2016

Seaside Greenway Completion and Upgrade

At Vancouver City Council on May 4, two reports will come forward for debate and approval: South False Creek, and Point Grey Road.

Seaside Greenway – South False Creek – Burrard Bridge to Cambie Bridge

Project Goal:  To upgrade and improve safety of the All-Ages-and-Abilities (AAA)
recreational facility on the South False Creek Seawall.

This report presents a plan to upgrade the Seaside Greenway (i.e. Seawall) on the south shore of False Creek between the Burrard Bridge and Cambie Bridge to improve safety, comfort and capacity for all users. This will be achieved primarily by widening the path where it is currently narrower than 6.0m and by separating people cycling from people walking. The design has been developed to minimize impacts on green space and trees, to respect existing character, and to improve walking and cycling connections to the Seaside Bypass and the future Arbutus Greenway.

Seawall.South.Greenway

False Creek Seawall — Area Under Discussion

 

 Seaside Greenway Completion — Phase 2 – Public Realm and Sidewalks, Point Grey Road, Alma Street to Tatlow Park

This report provides recommendations for the creation of an improved walking
environment and enhanced public realm on the Seaside Greenway between Alma
Street and Tatlow Park (Macdonald Street). The key components are:

• Wider, more accessible sidewalks and new or wider front boulevards with
street trees on the north side of Point Grey Road
• Expanded green space and street closure at Point Grey Road Park

These public realm changes were approved in principle by Council in July 2013.

Phase 2 of the Seaside Greenway Completion will improve the walking environment
and public realm between Alma and Macdonald Streets, including lighting and
pedestrian amenities, and be the final step in the creation of a continuous 28km route
for walking and cycling.

PGR.Ph.2.1

PGR.Ph.2

OK out there, engage those partisan issues lists and contrarian “comment cut n’ paste” files. Who will be the first to leap to their keyboard and howl: “gated community”, when describing a Greenway that has no gates, and that anyone can travel any time using two feet, two wheels, three wheels or four wheels. Or perhaps the first to engage in yet another satisfying round of “bash the rich”, since it can be imagined that property values on PGR are rising faster than elsewhere, and that a large house with ocean and mountain views is expensive only because it’s on a Greenway, and before the Greenway, these homes were all cheap like borscht.  Or perhaps the first to bash PGR as a “bike lane”, since this is easier to vilify than a Greenway, and the cut n’ paste thing works better too. Have fun!!

Personally, I’ll be cheering loudly for more green space, safer and more attractive places for people to walk or ride a bike, and for upgrades to two big chunks of our 28-km Greenway.  Bring on the Arbutus Greenway and connection.

 

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  1. Great to see the work city staff has done on both of these projects, both in design work and community consultation. The seawall project in particular had extensive workshops and open houses, and the level of public support achieved reflects that effort. Looking forward to seeing both of these projects approved, and then built.

    Bring on the Arbutus Greenway, as Ken says, but also a process to address the last missing stretch of improvements to the seaside greenway, between Burrard Bridge and through Vanier and Kits Beach Parks, to connect up to Point Grey Road.

    1. Jeff,

      Fact: South Side residents were NOT consulted on the Phase 2 Final Recommendations of this project. They were NOT invited to any of the meetings about these recommendations and were told that the work did not affect them. They were utterly discriminated against. If this project goes ahead, they live on the road, use it everyday, will have their parking severely impacted, will have to now worry about dooring cyclists on the narrowed roadway by 16 feet, will have no room to drive down the street due to the narrowed area being choked by thousands of cyclists, yet it does not affect them. South Side residents will differ loudly.

    2. Jeff,

      The majority of Point Grey Road residents never have and still do not support these Phase 2 changes to Point Grey Road. See Petition. The residents supported the removal of 10,000+ speeding commuter motorists from the road by closing the road at Macdonald Street; they did not and do not support an inland seawall walkway, removal of all the parking from the North side including on the setbacks, or narrowing of the roadway to bring cyclists and motorists in closer proximity. See Petition. These changes were proposed by City engineers only after City Council’s approval of Phase 1 and Phase 2 in principle. Ask David Rawsthorne, project manager.

  2. Residents and workers occupying the three buildings on Creekside Drive were NOT informed of the intended changes to Creekside Drive in time to express their concerns prior to the plans being virtually completed.
    All have subsequently expressed concerns because of the large delivery and garbage trucks that use this drive regularly; because of the manner in which the new bike path will come dangerously close to the front door of one of the buildings and because of the way in which the new bike path meets the old bike path at a dangerous blind corner.
    Communication and community involvement was remarkably absent in this area.

    1. Anonymous: Interesting to hear this. I have been involved on this particular initiative for several years (not working for the city), advocating for improvements to walking and cycling on the seawall. I was informed through the intercept surveys in 2013 on the seawall, followed the published study reports in 2014, and participated in nominating a rep from our volunteer group to the Temporary Focus Group in 2015. That focus group included a rep from the South False Creek Residents Association, representing residents right through to the end of Creekside Drive. Our committee rep brought news and updates back to the larger group, following each focus group meeting. It appears the same happened with other focus group reps. Two open houses were hosted by the City in October 2015 at the Granville Island Hotel; I attended, and saw many local residents commenting on the potential design solutions. The recommended solutions were then presented at open houses in January and February 2016, and again there were lots of local residents in attendance. We encouraged our group members who could not attend any of these open houses to review the info boards on line, and complete the on line surveys. I don’t know how complete their effort was, but the City reports that they delivered notifications to residents and multi family building lobbies for all of these events, as well as through the focus group reps. They also advertised the open houses in local papers. The published City report notes that they met with the Harbour Cove Strata on Creekside Drive earlier this year, prior to the recommendations going to council.

      The above does not seem consistent with your assessment of communication and community involvement being remarkably absent. The process impressed me with its thoroughness. What would you have done differently?

      1. Maybe to mollify Harbour Cove residents the city should stop charging them a lease fee to guarantee they won’t build anything on Creekside Park. Do Point Grey Road residents have to pay to guarantee the survival of their waterside pocket parks?

        1. Harbour cove reidents are not paying a fee to the city. The strata corp bought the air rights of that private parcel from the owner, which was either the city or the federal govetnment, and the fee is to pay the loan. The strata corp paid to lancs ape the parcel, so although it appears to be a public park, it is not, legally.

    2. Anonymous: “the way in which the new bike path meets the old bike path at a dangerous blind corner”

      Agree with you on this. The solution isn’t just to resolve the corner, but to improve the path through to the Burrard Bridge, and then further through the parking lots and Vanier Park. I think as the False Creek section being discussed is improved, and with the improved section along Point Grey Road, this final section will become even more obvious in regards to deficiencies, especially with increased numbers of users. It seems it will be up to the Park Board to resolve it.

    3. There has been no community involvement whatsoever in the implementation of Phase 1 and its resulting problems, such as no signage, no education for how to use the road now that it has changed, and no enforcement of the rules of the road for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists. It is a chaotic free-for-all with accidents, injuries and deaths just waiting to happen. This Council is rubber-stamping the engineering projects and implementing them without the required prior studies and without essential follow-up. In particular, even when residents contact the City engineers to offer their daily and keen observations of what is not working with the project, the engineers totally ignore the residents. Safety and good planning is not their priority; putting in bike lanes everywhere simply to win awards for doing so is their priority. Never mind the people who are left with the mess the City creates. Be well-advised, democracy is not alive and well in the City of Vancouver with the current Council.

  3. I agree with Jeff. Great to see these improvements moving forward. However, from the City we see the following:
    “— and be the final step in the creation of a continuous 28km route
    for walking and cycling.”
    That should be “sort of continuous”. Path through Haddon and Kits Beach Parks are abysmal and the path in Stanley Park is long since due for an upgrade.

    1. Arno,

      “Continuous?”: they are dreaming. Only a seawall extension from False Creek to UBC would be “continuous.” It is also common sense to extend the seawall, but disrupting the foreshore conflicts with Vision’s “green” promulgated stance. Instead, they advocate paving Point Grey Road, a local residential road, as an inland seawall. Bandaids, bandaids, and a total waste of our money. Even Vision admits that the seawall extension will happen in the future (they claim 30-40 years away), so Point Grey Road, and its residents, have to bite the bullet in the meantime. Vision certainly lacks vision.

        1. Tell that to the accident victims on the road since Phase 1 and the residents who can’t get out of their driveways now because cyclists, including small children, are still riding on the sidewalk and don’t stop to look for entering/exiting vehicles before crossing in front of the driveways. Phase 2 will only make the situation worse, but it would appear that safety is not important to you.

        2. Peter,

          You need to live on Point Grey Road and experience what residents have to go through daily to avoid hitting cyclists and pedestrians before you make a judgement like that. You don’t live on Point Grey Road.

  4. Regarding the breathless commentary published about creating a gated community along Point Grey Road (e.g. the paranoid piece on foreign money in the latest Walrus), this piece of public bike and pedestrian infrastructure has arguably brought MORE people to the driveways of the uber rich on that road than when cars had the absolute right of way, effectively opening up the area to greater public access.

    1. MB,

      Fact: And it has brought more competition for parking on the South Side of the road, has made it virtually impossible to enter or exit those driveways safely due to the speeding and silent thousands of cyclists who give no heed to the fact that people live on the road and will be turning into and out of those driveways. It also has made the road an obstace course for local motorists of having to dodge 5 and 6 cyclists riding abreast on an on-going basis, and it has resulted in a spiked increase in property damage and theft on the road. Anything else you would like to know about the road and don’t?

      1. Susan, You forgot to mention that cyclists are responsible for the plague and the earthquake in Ecuador.

        I do notice, however, that your arguments complain of thousands of cyclists riding 5 and 6 abreast while also claiming the facility is underused. Which is it?

        1. Yes, this is the thing about the weird anti-cycling people.

          Cyclists are just poor, dirty hippies who don’t contribute to society, except when they are elites in their high end spandex riding to their secret cabal meetings at City Hall.

          There are also so few cyclists out there it’s impossible to justify how we spend any money on infrastructure for them, except when there’s so many of them riding 10 abreast causing accidents and ruining the City.

          Funny how that is.

        2. Ron,

          I said it is underused by PEDESTRIANS. Primarily local residents only walk there, so it is a waste of money to build a 10-12 foot sidewalk.

        3. Don,

          I have always been in favour of the bike route on Point Grey Road. I have nothing against the concept; it is simply that cyclists on the road are not following the rules of the road, which need to be spelled out and enforced rigorously to prevent accidents and injuries. I just witnessed a serious accident on Point Grey Road caused by the poor engineering of the road as part of Phase 1 changes: a person was taken away by ambulance. Phase 2 will only lead to more injuries, mark my words.

      2. So you are saying that you have to look carefully for cyclists before you pill out of your driveway. Boo hoo for you. One the vehicular through traffic was eliminated, the conversion of pg road into a greenway/bikeway just made sense. This is a public road for public use, not a private enclave.

    2. I would gladly trade my street, which parallels a major arterial and is therefore a major rat running obstacle course for speeding cars (with a high number of cyclists mixed in) for the now limited-access Point Grey Road.

  5. No wonder Vision have what they themselves describe as an ambitious agenda. Better get as much done for the Resort-for-the-Sporty ASAP, before they get kicked out. Here’s another swipe from the radical-bike-lobby, this time at the disabled and those needing medical care. More pawns in the game of Bikes-First. We understand; these people wouldn’t be old and have disabilities if they had been biking all their lives, so they must now get out of the way. Cycling comes first!

    http://bc.ctvnews.ca/separated-bike-lane-plan-raises-concerns-about-hospital-access-1.2878028

    1. Eric, if you are going to rant could you at least use the phrase The All Powerful Bike Lobby and not a variation like radical-bike-lobby? It makes it much easier to look up the quotes later. Thanks for your assistance. Ride on.

      1. all-powerful? I think not. Everyone knows the Radical Bike Lobby is just a front for the Over-Arching Unicycle Foyer… which is of course merely a tool of the dreaded Ubiquitious Roller Skating Vestibule.

    2. For those interested in the ongoing community engagement and design work on the 10th Ave Bikeway (health precinct portion), the City has posted the display boards from the most recent open houses.

      http://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/10th-avenue-corridor-project.aspx

      Display Board 1 lists the groups involved in the design workshops.

      Display Board 2 addresses the parking issue Eric raises. I recall that that the advocacy groups at the workshops valued the new level sidewalks and raised crosswalks, the reduction of conflicts between pedestrians and people on bikes due to physical separation, and the creation of safer passenger loading zones along 10th, over the retention of all on street parking, given the 3800 available stalls.

    3. Eric. This is a great conspiracy theory but not based on any fact. I can understand from the perspective of someone who may not have been watching the movement of regular (including disabled) people who have been wanting to cycle in the past twenty or more years who may have just heard of it recently that they could get the wrong idea and think that it’s a new movement of a handful. I understand the misunderstanding.
      But fortunately it’s not the case. Support for cycling and for infrastructure that reduces conflicts between the various modes is high and wide spread. There is no game of “Bikes First” anywhere. There’s a desire by the majority to have many choices in their transportation mix.
      There is no movement by anyone to force anyone to cycle. There is no movement to get rid of any other modes of transport.

      What exists is a city that’s growing in population and in some places where the volumes were once lower, they are now higher and there is conflict. When that happens you can’t rely on mixed use zones and paths anymore, you have to go to separation.

      This is what a good city does. It fixes outdated designs so that the citizens can move around each other without conflict.

      1. Adanac,

        Pedestrian volumes are very low on Point Grey Road, even after the removal of the commuter motorists. Point Grey Road is a 9-block local residential road with primarily local walkers (ie. residents). There is no justification for the almost 7 million taxpayer dollars proposed to be spent on the “inland seawall” that would be the boardwalk in the Phase 2 Final Recommendations for Point Grey Road between only Alma and Macdonald streets. This urgent money is in desperate need elsewhere; for how long is this Council going to be paying back its uber-wealthy North-side supporters? Is this project really where you want your tax dollars going, for 9 blocks of a non-seaside boardwalk. All you see is houses for the majority of the 9 blocks.

    4. Eric: For Vision, cycling comes first, second…and last. Their game is to throw up as many bike lanes as they can before the next election because they know they will be OUT. The result is that in their desperate rush, they are putting all of us at huge risk.

      1. Neither one of us can predict the future but before the last two municipal elections I heard that same thing about Vision getting booted out.
        But whoever gets elected next is going to have to face a population that has had a taste of good street design, likes it and will want more.

      2. Their [Vision’s] game is to throw up as many bike lanes as they can before the next election because they know they will be OUT.

        This presumes that you will vote for the party that will dismantle bike lanes and return the car traffic. So, what party might that be now?

  6. Some people think they’re being nice by shifting the parking from the Eye-Care centre and the Cancer-Care centre and the Arthritis centre and the Spinal Cord Care centre and the Palliative Care Centre in the Pattison Pavilion, to just three or four blocks walk away. Don’t forget the Kidney Care Centre in the Diamond building. This will be nice and bracing in the pouring rain.

    These considerate folks have consulted and studied the whole neighbourhood and they have decided. Bikes First!

    I mean, why on earth would we not understand that bikes are the holiest of purity and deserve top place and top priority over everyone, including the infirm and the elderly. They did the consultations before making their final decision. If the elderly and those in pain or with medical difficulty just couldn’t be bothered to show up to see the bright shiny explanation boards, then they really only have themselves to blame for their inconveniences.

    1. The operations in the buildings you refer to had reps in the workshops, early in the process. As a participant, I thought it was productive for all the groups to work through the issues together over two days. And of course, those buildings all generally have parking. The new passenger unloading zones immediately in front of key facilities were seen as a critical enhancement. They replace vehicles stopping in the street to offload passengers. Were you under the impression that empty parking spaces were sitting there vacant?

      Ken predicted your response correctly, you just shifted routes.

    2. I don’t recall if there were reps from the Diamond Building at the workshops, but of course that is on 12th, not 10th. And for the block of 10th that is closest, there is no visitor parking now. Come on Eric, you can do better.

      1. The Centre for Hip Health & Mobility is on the same site as the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Building, Jeff. We both know that there is no parking on 12th and we both know that the Laurel passage on the east side of both these buildings opens to both 10th and 12th. The address is, in fact, 12th. The plan is to remove the parking on 10th, which both patients attending the kidney clinic and the hip clinic can now use.

        When you say I can do better Jeff you betray a goading and snide aspect to your personality that is revealing and perhaps equally nauseating as your general supercilious attitude. You might think it’s a winning attitude that will get you a few high-fives. We think otherwise.

      2. Not referring to 12th, Eric. The block of 10th that is closest to the buildings you reference (which aren’t on 10th) has no parking permitted on the south side, closest to those buildings. And on the north side, it is resident permit parking. If you are going to use examples of where parking is being eliminated and inconveniencing visitors, then you should refer to streets that allow visit parking. And again, the buildings under discussion have a parkade, no walking in the rain required.

        I think you can do better at identifying real issues. It doesn’t serve the discussion to make things up.

        Who is we? How many posters do you represent that use this identity?

      3. This may help resolve your confusion Eric. The link is to a Streetview of the several blocks of 10th in question. Resident only permit parking on the right (north) side. No visitor parking. No parking permitted on the left (south) side.

        The buildings you are referring to as being disadvantaged by changes to 10th are down Laurel, to the left One of them is actually on 12th. Note the blue sign on the corner pointing the way to the parkade, entrance off of Laurel.

        http://tinyurl.com/j7qyk9b

        1. Eric: You posted that the creation of safe separated bicycling lanes on 10th would shift the convenient street parking away from, among other things, the Diamond building up on 12th. And from buildings on Laurel in between 10th and 12th. You expressed concern that visitors would now have to walk in the rain 3 or 4 blocks to reach those buildings.

          The first metered spots you could find that are even impacted (your street view) are severar blocks away already. And to get to them you had to skip over two blocks of unaffected metered street parking, and several parkade entrances (no rain), just to point them out. Congratulations.

        2. Jeff; I showed parking meters within a block or two of exactly what i was referring to: the Eye Care Centre, the Palliative Care centre, etc., etc., and including the Hip Rehabilitation Centre, on and on, all down 10th, some for over one hundred years. If you can’t see it we understand. Some people are blind to what they don’t want to see. Tell me, can you see the meters in front of the Eye Care Centre on the north side of 10th? Those are often used by friends and family member taking their loved ones to the clinic for laser surgery. It’s always busy but they are efficient and there’s not too long to wait but when the patients come out they are usually partially blind from the dilation drops in their eyes, so it’s good to have someone their for them and not too far to walk. Can you see the meters across the street from the Rick Hansen & Spinal Cord Centre, immediately west of Willow? Do you care? Have you ever needed the services of the medical professionals? Have you ever visited anyone recovering at the Pattison Pavilion?

        3. Eric, you have jumped back to 10th from the Diamond Building, so at least we are on the right street now.

          The Eye Care Centre is am important service, and it is important to have a patient drop off and pick up in front. Today, they have a zone for that, but it is not level, and has no curb cuts. The proposal is to build a safe passenger loading zone on 10th. Take a look at the current street view: http://tinyurl.com/hwfknrn Note that there are no patients in site, just three cars parked for free in front of the Eye Care Centre. While watching how the passenger zone worked, I observed Handy Dart vehicles unloading across the street due to the signed zone being blocked. Other cars just stopped in the street, not so good on an ambulance route to the ER. This passenger zone should be available, and if visitors want to park, they are able to drive around to the back of the building where there is a big sign saying Patient Parking.

          The Arthritis Centre is another important location. They have a better patient drop off zone (no curb steps, but still not flat). See the street view: http://tinyurl.com/gscbthc Note that there are no patients in site, just three cars parked for free. I guess they didn’t want to use the parking lot in the Arthritis Centre either.

          It isn’t like this street is working now. The proposal is to improve it, and it is more important to do that than to try and score political points against your imagined All Powerful Bike Lobby.

  7. You wouldn’t want to be inconvenienced by riding your bike a block away from your favourite straight-line route now, would you?

    Thanks for your clarity Jeff. We know.

    1. Hmmm… a block away… I’m sure you want bikes kept off Broadway which is also full of medical services and is a congested artery with lots of buses. 8th also has medical services and is congested from Ash to Yukon which would require bike lane separation and – so the bike route detour goes to 7th which is three blocks each way on steep terrain.
      Going the other way, 11th doesn’t exist, you’d wouldn’t want us on 12th which is also a main artery and also has hospital entrances, so it would be 13th which is a three block each way detour with a significant hill in between.
      Maybe there’s a good reason the bike route is on 10th. It was a popular bike route even before it became an official route.

      1. 8th has nowhere near the medical facilities and you’d have the bonus of all the city staff and honchos that go to Whole Foods.

        An alternative is 14th. It too goes all the way through.

        The Heather Pavilion has been there for a hundred and ten years! Long, long before any speedy Lycra-clad bike riders decided to muscle themselves in and take over.

        1. I was pleased to be able to ride my bike to rehab at the Heather Pavilion after I got out of my wheelchair, before I was able to walk any distance.

          (I don’t wear lycra on weekdays, and my muscles were pretty weak at that point.)

    2. Not everyone drives or cycles to their appointments. Many of us walk or take transit. If the cycling infrastructure for W 10th improves crosswalk visibility and safety, then bring ’em on.

  8. Would be nice to see a bit of money spent on facilities a little beyond downtown, Kits and the west side. There’s another body of water bordering Vancouver, called the Fraser river, and the paths and parks along there don’t get a lot of love from the city…

    1. Agree completely. SW Marine Drive bike lanes are coming soon. Join the push for improved infrastructure on the Kent Ave bikeway, which will link SW Marine and all the north-south bike routes, through to Boundary Road.

      1. How about fixing the path along the river? Wasn’t good enough for cyclists to have to ride along the street a bit in Kits, but it’s ok for cyclists to have to use Kent because the path along the river is an overgrown rutted mess…

    2. Heads-up — You should all be asking how and why it is that the City stamp of approval for an extra-wide property extension (via the 12 foot wide proposed sidewalk plus 3-4 foot wide grassy boulevard) is proposed for the NORTH Side of Point Grey Road, the VERY affluent side). Remember who offered the City $10 million to build the Seawall at the water’s edge but didn’t get what he wanted due to environmentalist screaming Save the Foreshore. Do you all understand nepotism?

      1. Yeah, it’s a tough one. People want a seawall but you can’t put it out on the beach and you can’t put it inland. I’m amazed they were able to get anything done.

      2. Property extension?!? From Alma to Waterloo a strip of land currently used by the affluent to park their cars and grow shrubs to insulate themselves is going to be reclaimed to widen the road, widen the sidewalk and add a strip of grass in between. Land that’s currently de facto private property will be opened up so you and your neighbours can use it.

        Even where the road is being narrowed I see very little space between the new sidewalk and the property line. It looks like the public is being invited to get as close as legally possible to some of Vancouver’s wealthiest people. I can’t see how that can possibly be construed as an extension of their property.

        As for the mythical seawall… the owners on the north side enjoy near absolute privacy on the water side of their lots. Should a seawall ever be built between them and the water they would lose much of their privacy and the millions of dollars that’s worth.

        As nice as a seawall would be (whether for gazing at the view or spying on Chip Wilson’s pool parties), it’s simply not a good use of a whopping great pile of money when, as you’ve stated many times, there are so many other things in this city needing funding.

        1. David,

          The extension of the seawall is inevitable for the transportation route it affords, the views and the addition to the City’s tourist attractions; 9 blocks of Point Grey Road offers none of things.

      3. Susan, clearly you haven’t seen the transformation that’s occurred already. Thousands more cyclists, joggers, walkers, strollers…pushing strollers, people actually using the mini parks is an offer of nothing? Point Grey may well be the prototype to make our greenways better greenways… using what we already have to higher purpose than accommodating SOVs. The issue isn’t that it’s on Point Grey Road. The question is, why aren’t we demanding this throughout the city.

        1. Ron,

          The issue is safety and equity. It is a travesty to put in bike lane after bike lane and promenade after promenade, without due consideration of driveway access, availability of parking and squashing cyclists together on a narrowed road, catering to cyclists and pedestrians with road reconfigurations at the creation of safety hazards for ALL users.

        2. Those opposed to positive change love to cling to the negative.

          If the issue is safety let’s tame those dangerous cars. After all, the latest reports since protected bike lanes went in is that serious injury risk is way way down. Since Vision the city has a pretty good track record for making our streets safer.

          If the issue is equity let’s build more of these throughout the city.

  9. Susan,

    While I hear your point about cyclists not following the rules, surely if we are to spend money on education/enforcement/whatever you want that money would be far better spent by targeting auto-drivers considering crashes constitute the vast majority of lives lost/injured/money spent/etc…?

  10. It was touching to read about patients coming out of the Eye Care Centre – half-blind from drops because I was there just yesterday with my son. He was quite the little trooper during this miserable experience.

    We actually took the car and miracle of miracles, not only found parking but it was free. We appreciated that. Really though, we should not have driven. We have other options. Why do people insist of taking their beast of a vehicle. It is more logical to take transit, taxi, or car-share than to litter parking lots with 2-4 ton conveyances. A taxi is door-to-door – your personal vehicle is not.

    As an aside, bicycles are in fact the holiest of holies and a proper touring bike with fenders and panniers is the ultimate driving machine. There’s bicycle culture – and motoring miasma. Motoring sucks and SOV’s are a plague – like smoking in a daycare.

    1. That’s right Anonymous: have your son, blinded by drops, take the bus or a taxi home after “the miserable experience”; nice.

    1. There are several different projects referenced in this discussion, the two originally posted about and the 10th Ave bikeway that was brought up in the comments.

      The South False Creek Seaside Greenway design and consultation was done by City staff.

      The Seaside Greenway on Point Grey Road certainly involved City staff, but I don’t know for sure whether any design consultants were utilized or not.

      The 10th Ave Bikeway proposed improvements are being designed by City staff.

  11. This afternoon, the proposed improvements to the Seaside Greenway along False Creek were unanimously approved by Council. Congratulations to City staff for all their work on this over several years, and to Council for moving ahead to improve this route for pedestrians and people on bikes.

    1. Jeff, fact: independent transportation engineers submitted reports to
      Council on May 4, 2016 at the Council meeting, detailing that Phase 2 on Point Grey Road (a redundant extra-wide sidewalk at $6.4 million) would be “unsafe” for pedestrians and cyclists; that is hardly the “improve[ment]” you claim. NPA Councillors rejected Phase 2, but Vision Councillors approved the project regardless of these independent engineer reports, knowingly putting Vancouver citizens at increased safety risk. Fact. In contrast, no reports were submitted by City engineers to support any improvement for pedestrians or cyclists, nor were City engineers able to argue against the increased safety risk.

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