There are several examples in Metro Vancouver of what a greenway can be, and here’s one on the North Shore. It’s called the North Shore Spirit Trail, and is described this way by one of many involved in making it happen, the City of North Vancouver:
Greenways are a key component of the City’s Official Community Plan. To achieve its vision of a liveable, sustainable, diverse, complete community, the City saw the need to integrate its parks and streets systems and create “linear greenways”. This vision was recognized with the 2002 Parks & Greenways Strategic Plan.
The Parks and Greenways Strategic Plan complements both City’s Bicycle Master Plan and Traffic Calming Program by adding to the choices and ways in which people move through the City. Greenways also incorporate a variety of other civic infrastructure in innovative ways. Sidewalks, innovative storm water management, urban forestry, naturalized landscapes, habitat corridors and recreation amenities are all integrated as part of a sustainable approach to connect an increasingly dense community.
Under the Parks & Greenways Strategic Plan, the City aims to provide greenway systems that are accessible to all, including cyclists, inline skaters, pedestrians, seniors and people who use mobility aids.
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- Spirit Trail. Note the blackberry bushes
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- Crossing treatment reflects the art and the contribution of the Squamish First Nation in the Spirit Trail
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- A mid-trail rest stop, complete with bike rack
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- The Harbourside West Overpass spans the CN Rail lines, providing a safe, convenient and accessible route for all, enhancing local community connections, providing sustainable travel alternatives and encouraging walking, cycling and wheeled user access. The overpass improves connections between the City’s Marine Drive neighbourhood and Harbourside Business Park, which were previously only easily accessible via motorized vehicle use.
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- Due to the intended use by people, not motor vehicles, the bridge is light and elegant.
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- A place to stop and admire the view
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- Note the vegetation (including blackberry bushes)
It is interesting to note with this Spirit Trail, that it is paved throughout, except for one section (near the big grain elevators) where it becomes gravel, but in this section, there is a specific split between the bike route which is higher on the hill, and the walking route which uses a small suspension bridge and has some stairs.
This intimates an assumption that bikes = paved, walking = paved or gravel both ok. Seems like a safe assumption to me. I’ve ridden countless miles on rail-trails that have gravel surfaces, and usually avoided them altogether when they were wet because they either got sloppy, or simply didn’t want to get a muddy skunk stripe on my butt. Also, these trails were never plowed in winter because doing so is almost impossible (not that this is the primary concern usually in Vancouver, but something to consider all the same).
You totally can bike on gravel paths, especially in nice weather it basically makes no difference in my book, but for a year-round choice, they certainly aren’t great, and won’t entice many (I would bet) to consider them an alternative to driving.
Even the best gravel trails get rutted and develop puddles of hidden depth, so are more dangerous to use. Rolling resistance is also higher, requiring more effort. Where given the option, pedestrians and wheelchair users will use the paved trail, as was found on the BC Parkway, where the pedestrian unpaved path saw very little use.
Maybe anyone who has any further questions about path design should just go to this:
LIVING STREETS LAB: Dutch Innovation in Shared Space and Streetscape Design
http://center.uoregon.edu/NCBW/2016/program/session_details.php?sessionid=13976891
In the spirit of AAA mobility design, I propose a special price for Vancouver’s own version of AAA – Angsty Anti Arbutus … 50% off if you want the greenway gravel to ‘slow bikes down’ … 60% off if you think brick paths can’t be suitable for wheelchairs … 90% off if you have made a public comment saying that Cypress Street is as good as a bike route ever needs to be … and 100% off if you’ve made the public comment that either the Arbutus Greenway or Point Grey Roads should never have been made more accessible in the first place.
In the spirit of giving, I’ll pitch in the first $20 to pay for this special pricing.
Looks nice. Eventually the Arbutus Greenway will look like it: benches, stone work, mini-parks, trees, bushes, grass, art.
Nice to show how “green” N-Van is while ignoring utter gridlock due to more and more condo towers without adequate infrastructure spending on transit. Missing is the E/W subway under clogged Marine Drive, eventually becoming a loop via downtown and E-Van. It is not even in the failing/outdated 2040 transportation plan. More on that here: https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2016/03/12/2040-transportation-plan-update-required
I didn’t notice any gridlock during my ride on the Spirit Trail with Ken. Nor the last few times I went to North Van or West Van.
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Not in the summer. Wait to school start, then Second Narrows approach, Hwy 1 and Marine drive (from both sides) over LG bridge is VERY busy, as is Taylor Way sometimes onto Hwy 1 and past Ambleside exit is bumper to bumper as NO fast alternatives are on offer for N-Van and W-Van residents to get to downtown or further south. Plus more towers coming in W-Van and N-Van. Where is the transit upgrade. A bike trail is nice but just more buses won’t cut it.
Exactly. I said the same thing, but the editor removed my comment = discrimination.
There are no accusations in Thomas’ comment, just a personal observation. I haven’t seen any discrimination by the moderators on this list.
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“Utter gridlock” is a catastrophic phrase and not reflective of traffic on the shore for 95% of the day. There will be no subway under Marine Drive before 2060, if ever, so the majority of people who choose (yes, most of them choose) to drive and suffer through occasional slow traffic will garner little sympathy. It’s certainly frustrating to be stuck in slow traffic, but you can’t complain about traffic when you are traffic.
Folks up here on the shore complain about new condos because they are human and like to complain like everyone else. But Vancouver, and to some extent North Vancouver, made the very wise decision a while back to not panic when the Little Lord Fontleroys of this world complained about “gridlock”. It’s better to keep streets as appropriately proportioned as practicable for the 90%-95% of the day they’re not at full car capacity than bulldoze every boulevard and historic narrow street so some entitled motorists can all drive home without ever having to stop behind another stopped vehicle.
If you’re routinely stuck in traffic on your commute, you’ve made some incorrect decisions in your life about where to live and where to work. If you blithely think it’s the taxpayer’s responsibility to ensure you have a zippy, unencumbered twice-daily drive between your chosen place of residence and employment, you are mistaken.
Rant over. BTW, the Spirit Trail is great. Arbutus could definitely take some notes.
The Spirit Trail is really nice but the places where the side streets cross it are badly designed. there is unclearness of priority, poor visibility, etc. These could be fixed fairly cheaply though. It just takes some good designing and understanding of how these things should work.
But it’s still really good and a useful transportation and leisure corridor.
And, there is the problem — we don’t have good engineering design in our city under the current Council.
Interesting take. I certainly can’t argue the validity of your interpretation, but I’ve never had that experience on the trail. I find it very legible with (mostly) good sightlines and no trouble with visibility or understanding priority. But it’s good to know that that view of the same stretch of trail is not shared by everyone. I’ll keep an eye out for those issues next time I’m on it. More lessons for Arbutus I suppose.
Dan:
It’s overall a good route. I’m just getting picky about details here. One has to be observant when approaching any crossing, regardless of place or travel mode but there are designs that make observation and predictability better.
Susan:
This is North Vancouver and the Squamish Nation.
I think if it was in Vancouver though it would have been better designed because we have good engineering in our city under the current Council.
Dare I say as a person who worked for the two North Vans until a couple of years ago, that, yes, the Spirit Trail is indeed great and popular and a good example for the Arbutus Corridor.
But, further to Thomas’s point, vehicular traffic on the main North Shore routes has gotten iridiculously congested – if not exactly gridlocked – an increasingly large percentage of the day. (Marine Drive, Taylor Way, both bridges, Highway 1, Keith Road, Capilano Road, etc.) The directional split on the Second Narrows Bridge, for example, went from about 70%/30% to almost 50%/50% in just a few years, making the so-called reverse commute very painful rather than easy. I hope new changes at the north end of the Second Narrows will improve matters there.
Contrary to his point, though, it isn’t additional traffic caused by residential population development on the North Shore, which is actually quite modest and incremental. I’d hazard to say it is mostly generated by explosive development along the entire Sea to Sky Highway corridor since that facilility was widened for the 2010 Olympics. Living in Squamish and commuting to Metro is now about as common as living in the Fraser Valley and doing so. That, plus the fact that almost all freight is carried by truck and construction workers drive vans and trucks, both of which originate south of Burrard Inlet and probably even south of the Fraser.
Oh, how I wish that railway infrastructure was selected for the Sea to Sky route rather than yet more Motordom!
How does that square with the fact that traffic numbers on the sea to sky are also apparently below projections? In 2013 for instance, there were only ~7000 cars entering west van every day from the sea to sky: https://a100.gov.bc.ca/appsdata/epic/documents/p404/d38963/1430416078260_ThJpVCgbGTvFQXhHXfSpyrbypQMQPzQZHMGrGFZKCfwWxK1gSJ8k!-91937584!1430413467110.pdf
I can’t find data otherwise, but the projections in that document suggest they anticipate 1% growth per year, so doubtful that that 7000 cars has changed that much, and given a previous post on pricetags that says that lions gate traffic numbers have been dropping, I really doubt that the sea to sky is a big contributor to NVan traffic: https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/trick-question-how-fast-has-traffic-been-growing-on-the-lions-gate-bridge/
I’d agree that traffic on/over to the north shore has gone bonkers. My friend who lives in lower lonsdale and has her child in daycare at capilano college has often found herself in traffic jams in the PM rush hour – taking over an hour to go across town (i.e. staying on the north shore) – this summer, when schools are out and many people are on holidays. This is a drive that should take 15 minutes tops.
The West Coast Express should run up to Squamish and back. I can imagine commuters being attracted to a reliable comfortable way to get to Lonsdale Quay.
It’s crashes that cause the backups. Not a week goes by that there isn’t a motor vehicle incident somewhere on or near the Ironworkers’ bridge. Stricter penalties, more stringent licensing, and a little bit of patience and common sense on the part of motorists would be the ounce of prevention that would save us all countless delays and eliminate the need for massive infrastructure investments like a mega-bridge over at the Massey Tunnel (where the exact same conditions of bad motoring choices lead to the exact same abundance of backups and delays.
And enough with the ‘gridlock’ already. We deal with some congestion at these locations, not gridlock. It’s like calling an orange a pumpkin because they are the same colour and shape — totally erroneous and overstated.
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