Regular PT commenter Jeff Leigh (also Chair of HUB Cycling’s Vancouver Local Committee) writes in the DailyHive with HUB’s reaction to the Commercial Drive Business Society’s (CDBS) view of bike lanes proposed for the Drive.
No surprise that the CDBS position of Carmageddon (or is that Bizmageddon) has attracted this rebuttal. CDBS apparently thinks that the Drive is unique, and so there must be no interference with car access to it. But experience in Vancouver and elsewhere is the opposite — in that encouraging peds, bikes and transit creates a payoff for local businesses. Not to mention people.
Many people are currently unwilling to cycle on the Drive due to high levels of traffic but the City has a chance to change this. Introducing bike lanes will not lead to the “bike highway” that Mr. Pogor described, but create a safe route that would act as a catalyst for increased trade and give people of all ages and abilities access to one of the city’s most popular areas.
The Drive is an area famed for its history, vibrancy, and diverse culture, we cannot let the outdated and insular views of a few prevent it evolving into a space for all.
Shops more often and spends more
Thanks to the Commercial Drive BIA for the image
The CDBS and the CD BIA are one and the same.
Author
Thanks Bob — changed.
I haven’t been really following the discussion. Is there a rendering or anything showing the bike lanes?
Not yet. It has been in the City’s plans since 2012 to build them here, and a recent 5 year update to Transportation 2040 brought it into the public eye again, but the only renderings I have seen are from groups like Streets for Everyone, not the City.
Author
There is also significant discussion of bikey stuff in the Grandview-Woodlands Community Plan, now under discussion. See elsewhere on this blog. But no detailed street design.
Jeff – as a former COV planner I can tell you that the quote from the principles is boiler plate. It shows up on all transportation plans, Community Visions and local area plans. Further, I can also tell you that bike facilities are put on plans by transportation staff quite separately and far in advance of such local area plans, often spurred by advocacy groups and the (former?) Bicycle Advisory Committee, probably the most powerful civic body back in the day. Thus, not always a result of a true “grass roots” processes.
When directly affected groups, like the CDBS, rebel, we shouldn’t be too surprised. I think all non-Downtown BIAs are waiting for the first BIA to implement stripping of parking lane(s). Should that risk-taking pioneer body succeed, and we all hope it does, then others may be willing to follow in relatively short order. Till that halcyon day, however … there will be resistance.
But it has happened. Over and over. It’s called Europe and I’ll bet most of the fearful shop owners on the Drive have experienced it.
Frank;
I agree the principles are boiler plate. I think the specifics in the more detailed plan show some good direction, including the references to reducing travel lanes, balancing parking and commercial loading requirements, and improving both pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Let’s not forget the importance of transit. The move to more complete streets is a good way of summariing it.
I believe it was 2011 that the former Bicycle Advisory Committee was changed into the Active Transportation Policy Council (ATPC). HUB does not hold a seat on the ATPC, but we do have individuals participating.
For the specific case of the Grandview Woodlands plan, the use of the Citizen’s Assembly may provide some differentiation from typical local participation, maybe more grass roots.
“…often spurred by advocacy groups and the (former?) Bicycle Advisory Committee, probably the most powerful civic body back in the day. Thus, not always a result of a true “grass roots” processes.”
Out of curiosity, Frank, what is your definition of grassroots? Why don’t the advocacy groups you cite and the BAC meet your definition? And what are some examples of groups that do meet your definition?
Thanks for writing that rebuttal.
It can get exhausting listening to ingrates sometimes and it’s nice to see things laid out straight. Hope it makes a difference.
The CDBS seems to have no clue what a bike highway is. Designed for speed and mostly free flow bike highways are built for longer (commute) trips by bike, including ebikes. Reducing car congestion and transit demand are the most common goals of bike highways. Commercial Drive with its intersections, shops and restaurants is the antithesis of a bike highway route.
To further my comment above and to also to reply somewhat to Augustin: in community planning programs the planners are supposed to be responsive to the public and stakeholder input, while engineers often seem to have their lines already drawn on maps, just waiting to deliver them. Neither extreme is completely right, of course, but people could be excused for reacting negatively when something just seems to be dropped on them from above or out of the blue. They rightly begin to question the validity of the process and may, as we saw earlier in the earlier iteration of the GW’s draft plan. A transparent process is always preferably, one that takes all concerns seriously. Even those of merchants.
I don’t follow your point: there is certainly lots of demand from local people for cycling infrastructure on the Drive, but you make it sound like it came out of nowhere.
The way I’m reading you, it sounds like you think the merchants are grassroots, whereas the people advocating for cycling infrastructure are not. Is that what you intend?
Sometime these two groups you mention are indeed in apparent conflict, as we are seeing. One, bikers, can be quite organized and vocal, while the other group not so much, certainly not in my experience with CityPlans and many other planning initiatives. While both groups can be very legitimate in their expectations, I’m sure, some are very active and the others are of necessity reactive.
Again, the Drive’s merchants don’t seem willing – yet -.to be the non-Downtown pioneers in this kind of thing. There is precious little for them to go by outside of … Europe. Hardly a convincing example from their point of view.
Personally, I’d rather widen sidewalks on the Drive than provide a bike route. Pedestrians first and all that. But since I haven’t live there anymore, I don’t expect to see this happen anytime soon. Somewhere in town it would be nice, though.
Actually, widening the sidewalks on the Drive is the plan. That is a core part of building a more complete street. Pedestrians, people on bikes, transit, commercial vehicles, and then private vehicles. It is just that the bike lanes get the press.
Streets for Everyone isn’t a biker group, as you term some people. It represents a community driven push for more complete streets. Which just happen to include better cycling infrastructure.
Remember when a “biker” was someone on a motorcycle only? Now it seems to be another word for cyclist.
I wonder which right wing think tank thought of redefining the word.
“Again, the Drive’s merchants don’t seem willing – yet -.to be the non-Downtown pioneers in this kind of thing. There is precious little for them to go by outside of … Europe. Hardly a convincing example from their point of view.”
Why not? Europe isn’t a magical land where merchants begged for bike lanes. It met exactly the same resistance there. Will the last street on earth to have bike lanes proposed meet the same resistance?
Yes it will. Even if business improved on every single one before then. So change your word “yet” to “ever” so we can move forward knowing it won’t happen with all of their blessings.
To jump in here, and declare an interest right off the top: I worked with the CDBS on their 2012 Vision document, which, just to be clear, did NOT oppose bicycle infrastructure improvements around and along The Drive, but rather offered some thoughtful alternatives to what some bike advocates (and the City’s Transportation Engineers) are advocating: that is AAA (i.e. fully separated) bike lanes on The Drive. The issue is more complex than pro-bike v. anti-bike. I am pro-bike. I am also pro-Commercial Drive not turning into a commuter cycling route – which is what AAA routes are largely intended to be – especially since there are two existing cycling route streets parallel to The Drive, just a couple of blocks both east and west. So, for example, why not consider enhancing those routes and improving connections from them to regular points along The Drive, as one approach? Also, if you look at the City’s Transportation 2040 bicycle network map, it makes little rational sense to develop a new AAA route on the The Drive if the purpose (as is often stated by City staff) is to enhance bike network connectivity and focus on critical network gaps, since the proposed AAA route dead ends just north of 1st Avenue and does not (and presumably never will) connect to the rest of the cycling network (north of 1st Avenue the street right-of-way narrows, making it impractical to fit in a AAA route without completely removing traffic lanes… hmmm…maybe that’s the undeclared Phase 2 plan?).
Also, the fear that many CDBS members have expressed around losing much of the public parking along The Drive, and the potential real impacts of this on their businesses, needs to be taken seriously and understood from their perspective as the owners and managers of the businesses that exist on The Drive, whether we agree with them or not. It’s their businesses and livelihoods at stake, not ours. I for one would like to see a respectful, real exchange of views and a genuine engagement by the City with the local businesses, leading hopefully to a solution that everyone can live with. Let’s listen to each other, and not demonize as delegitimate the very businesses that make The Drive the much-loved commercial destination that it is, just because they may not all share our own perspectives on the merits/impacts of cycling infrastructure.
Oh, and I too would like to see wider sidewalks as a priority over separated bike lanes on The Drive, in case anyone’s asking.
“…not turning into a commuter cycling route – which is what AAA routes are largely intended to be…”
Who says? Just because there is always so much resistance from fearful merchants that that is largely what they have become does not make it what they are intended to be.
AAA /= bike highway. It can just as easily be for shopping and entertaining.
The Drive’s orientation does not make for a great cycle highway.
“So, for example, why not consider enhancing those routes and improving connections from them to regular points along The Drive, as one approach?”
How about we do that for cars instead. If it’s good enough for cyclists it’s good enough for motorists.
My personal opinion of Victoria (to the east) is that it’s not much of a cycling route and has all the same problems that are currently in place on Commercial as it stands. Lakewood is four standard blocks to the east, looks to be about 500 metres roughly. Hard to imagine people detouring a kilometre there and back every time they wanted to move a few more blocks along the Drive to another business.
Woodland is closer (one block west) but there’s a significant grade up to Commercial that gets worse the further North you go (until about Venables) — again, quite a disincentive to make that detour again and again while patronizing Drive businesses, esp. if you’re a parent pulling a kiddie trailer or trying to bike and shop with younger cyclists, or for any reason not a strong cyclist.
I feel like these options that are presented as seemingly so obvious and natural often feel like the transportational equivalent of ‘man-splaining’. If people who are cycling regularly are saying that the alternatives aren’t going to be used enough to warrant their creation, perhaps they are just telling the truth of the matter and that’s all there is to it? If people wanted to include a long walk (or ride) in their shopping experience why do the parking spots at the Mall fill up closest to the entrance first?
An anecdote FWIW. I’m on the Drive fairly regularly, but the only places I shop regularly are Donald’s (right off the Great Northern Way bypass with a marked bike lane) and La Grotta because c’mon it’s La Grotta, those paninis are worth the line-up and they have the mega-jars of anchovies I like. It’s just way easier to shop at other food stores where cycling is an easier choice and I don’t have to ride along Commercial with my shoulders hunched in dread of being run over by the folks who drive so aggressively along that street. And that’s a another thing about Commercial. Grab a coffee somewhere between 1st and Broadway, pull up a chair, and observe the motorist behaviour. It’s not pretty.
correction: Woodland is 2 standard blocks to the West.
AAA does not mean commuter route. It means safe. That is like saying that a sidewalk is a running track, or a paved road is a raceway. One might use it for that, but it isn’t the design intent.
AAA routes simply allow people using bikes for transportation to get to where they want to go, often with family members. In this case, shops and cafes. The Drive is the network gap.
The bike lanes will have to connect to the north eventually. Imagine this scenario: bike lanes are built to Gravely. Then they drop down to Woodland to continue north, essentially creating a bypass around the most interesting part of the Drive (IMO). Merchants on the north stretch say “What about us?” when they notice the traffic dropping. They charge the City with drawing away business. Watch for it.
Even though the CDBS did some dishonest stuff with their survey, they still aren’t going away and need to be acknowledged that they have fears about any improvements.
There is no plan at the moment but there are some sketches that Streets For Everyone put together and in those plans there still would be parking lanes on each side.
By the way, the intent of AAA cycling facilities is not for commuting. And if people cycle through the Drive on the way to somewhere else, why is this bad? It happens every day on the Drive with cars. What kind of design or technology could prevent it anyway? Why would you want to? Aren’t more eyeballs viewing store signs a good thing?
But really they should do all three. Upgrade Victoria, Commercial and Woodland.
“the fear that many CDBS members have expressed around losing much of the public parking along The Drive, and the potential real impacts of this on their businesses”
Honest question: are your fears not mitigated by DVBIA’s assessment on this issue? If not, why not?
A long-standing theme of the conversation regarding bike lanes has been that claim that they may work somewhere else, but we’re different. It starts with “we’re not Amsterdam”, then “we’re not Portland” or “we’re not Montreal”, and now it seems like CDBS may be thinking “we’re not downtown Vancouver”. Given that time and time again (including in Amsterdam and Portland and Montreal) it’s proven that the fears of business collapse are unfounded, when will this theme end?
(For what it’s worth, in Toronto and Calgary they say “we’re not Vancouver” but guess what? Bike lanes work there as well.)
“I am also pro-Commercial Drive not turning into a commuter cycling route – which is what AAA routes are largely intended to be”
AAA stands for All Ages and Abilities. In other words, not just commuters.
“Let’s listen to each other”
Amen.
Thanks for jumping in, Lance. You’ve expressed the merchants’ concerns much better than I.