The Burrard Bridge bike lane trial starts next week however traffic flow will be affected starting today. Crews will be working on Pacific Street and either side of Burrard Street all through this week. Re-paving will happen on the weekend and crews will also be on the bridge itself before next Monday.
Starting July 13th there will be new lane markings, signals and protective barriers for a bike lane on Pacific Street and on the Burrard Bridge southbound into Kitsilano. Check out the mocked-up photo below which is courtesy of the City of Vancouver.
The trial is set to last three months and the City of Vancouver is encouraging Kitsilano drivers to use the Granville and Cambie Street bridges.
Traffic to and from the downtown core is light over the summer months, so the true test of the bike lane trial will come in September when school is back in session and everyone is back to work.
Last modified: July 8, 2009
Is it a true test of how well this new configuration will work if they’re encouraging drivers to take alternate routes for the duration of the trial?
If their request to drivers is effective, are we getting an accurate picture of how the traffic will flow when drivers go back to their normal behaviour?
Don’t get me started……
the logjam has begun!
http://www.katkam.ca/
Hard to say what is normal. Traffic on Burrard increased by 6,600 vehicles per day due to the construction on Cambie. Now that Cambie is almost back to normal, that traffic will likely go back to Cambie.
Here is some research on similar such reallocations and road closures:
http://www2.cege.ucl.ac.uk/cts/tsu/disapp.pdf
A excerpt:
The findings suggest that predictions of traffic problems are often unnecessarily alarmist, and that, given appropriate local circumstances, significant reductions in overall traffic levels can occur, with people making a far wider range of behavioural responses than has traditionally been assumed.
I still struggle to understand what the point of this project is. I cross the bridge twice a day on the bus and I see hardly anyone cycling across it.
Tz…perhaps if they build it the riders will come…
Lol 🙂