January 18, 2018

Something people don't believe

From The Sun: Vancouver city council approves new bike lane for Cambie Bridge.

Staff said fewer vehicles use the bridge today than 20 years ago, and that modelling studies have shown it has enough capacity to handle projected road traffic even after the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts are torn down.

The number of vehicles has dropped not only on the Cambie Bridge but into the core of the city and into the city itself.
And people don’t believe it, deny it or simply ignore it.
Why is that?  Probably because it defies ‘common sense’ and personal experience.  As well, every few months there is another story on worsening congestion in metro Vancouver. And, likely, because it makes it more difficult to argue that bike lanes cause congestion – even though there’s lots of anecdotal and statistical evidence that it doesn’t happen.
Remember, for instance, all the media stories after the Dunsmuir, Hornby, Point Grey and Burrard Bridge changes were made: the worsening congestion, the longer back-ups, the angry motorists, the apologies from engineering staff for their mistaken projections …?
What, you don’t remember those stories?  Probably because they didn’t happen.
If there had been even modest increases in congestion that anyone actually noticed, the media would have been there with cameras roaring.  But they don’t report stories of bad things that didn’t happen.
We go through this cycle (pun certainly intended) every time: the City announces some bike infrastructure committed in plans publicly vetted and council approved, the media do their ‘another bike lane in face of public disapproval’ stories, the shock jocks yell ‘Carmageddon,’ the NPA says it’s too much too fast, the lanes get built, nothing bad happens, bike traffic improves and the traffic flows (sometimes better) – and then we start the cycle all over again with the next project.
And car traffic continues to drop.
And most people don’t believe it.

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  1. Sadly, some people seem to believe (or want to believe) that city staff make up their own numbers, which is obviously not the case.

  2. I met someone recently who used to ride his bike a lot but has quit 4 years ago due to health reasons. He now talks just like the rest of the anti-car crowd including that the city makes up these statistics.

  3. Eternal vigilance. Yes, it’s frustrating but the good news is that council (for now) sees through the noise and follows the numbers. Competent adults can’t allow themselves to get derailed by the deranged ramblings of a few frightened rabbits. Just look south of the border to see how that turns out.
    There are a lot of people living on this planet who believe it is actually flat, that vaccines cause autism, and that water has memory; people who vote and procreate. You can’t argue with crazy, but you can often ignore. Kudos to Council and its staff for doing so.

  4. Thomas Aquinas opined “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” The quote works for any group with strongly held beliefs.

  5. I loved the CBC headline : “Changing lanes: Cambie Street Bridge work removes car lane to improve bike safety.”
    The story could equally have been about adding the bike lane with no significant mention of cars.
    I had cause to drive over the new Burrard bridge this week. Wow! Did they get it right. No confusion, traffic flows smoothly and intuitively, and none of the dreaded fear that a cyclist might suddenly appear out of nowhere.
    If other bridges can be re-engineered this well there’s no reason why any driver should complain.

  6. I think the experience many have is that traffic congestion now varies from awful to dreadful to intolerable more hours of the day than, say, before the 2010 Olympics. Before then it was fewer hours of awfulness, especially if one had to use a North Shore or Fraser River bridge or the tunnel.

  7. Obviously the biggest factor in north-south traffic stats would be the opening of the Canada Line in 2009.
    You can’t expect that car traffic – esp. given eth astronomical cost of parking – would remain static or continue to increase.
    Those factors – cheap alternative and high cost of parking help with “demand side management”.
    Other factors include the maturation of Vancouver’s suburbs.
    On the shopping and restaurant side of things, there isn’t as much of a need to come downtown anymore unless you live or work here (except maybe younger Granville night-clubbers).
    The movie houses are gone from Granville St. and Robson Street shopping is waning (Forever 21 is leaving after just 5 years, the big box space being a rarity snapped up by Indigo). There’s Nordstrom and Holt Renfrew – but those are so high end that they pretty much cater to wealthy tourists. Hudson’s Bay will be downsizing by 2 floors when WeWork takes over the top 2 floors.

    1. Don’t forget the other big factor, far fewer people actually working on the west side due to aged boomers or foreign buyers . Two decades ago there were actually senior managers, lawyers and doctors who actually lived on the West side and worked downtown.

  8. Maintaining their perfectly predictable reputation, Global News this morning led with the Cambie Bridge bike lane story accompanied by a minor sarcastic lilt and a suppressed eye roll. “Here we go again …” Naturally, the bike lane story was placed just ahead of a piece about a car hitting and pinning a pedestrian underneath (yes, there was video of the tarp under the car) killing them, followed immediately by yet another story about a car severing a power pole and causing a blackout over a wide area. Cars kill and destroy things and cost society immensely while bikes …. well, are pretty harmless and cheap.
    In my view the separated bike lane on the Cambie Bridge can’t come fast enough (I’ll be a user myself). But let’s also talk about removing through-travel on the curb lanes all the way to Marine Drive and building dozens of crosswalk and bus stop bump outs and widening the sidewalks in the Village. This work should have occurred concurrently with building the Canada Line.

    1. What the media has completely ignored is the fact that the impact to motor vehicle traffic is insignificant to none. The bridge is way overbuilt for the current capacity. Yes, it does back up during the afternoon rush, but it is easy to see why. It is because of the lights at the south end. The number of lanes at those lights will remain the same, so there will be no impact, as the maximum throughput will be the same as it is now, with the exception that bike capacity is increasing, as is cyclist and pedestrian safety. It is a huge win/win/win all around.

    2. Alex, watch for the complete street improvements coming to Cambie from King Ed to SW Marine. It is in the plan. It is what you are describing, with walking, transit, and protected bike lane improvements. Then the task will be to figure out 6th to King Edward.

    3. I used to think that the news media was just out to create divisions among people in order to make drama and sell ads. Now I think there’s something else going on. They seem to be always be against any alternatives to cars. Transit, bikes, skateboards, light rail, high speed rail, whatever. Meanwhile any problems with cars are always framed as accidents or as an individual failure. Any problems with an alternative travel mode and they frame it as a problem with the existence of the mode itself.
      I wonder if the eye roll was in the script. If so, who put it there? Is it an order from higher up? Corporate owners who have shares in the oil industry, pipelines, auto industry, etc.
      It’s too consistent to be random. I’m suspicious.

      1. The auto makers pay big bucks to advertise in the news media. All the rest are like public service announcements, we’ll fit you in if we can.
        Was anyone surprised by the NPA’s vote against the motion? I was puzzled by George Affleck’s remarks on Global that we need a more holistic approach to the matter. It seemed rather half-hearted. Bring on Melissa, she’ll straighten us all out.

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