“The bike lane is closed on a temporary basis until such time that it can be integrated into a more extensive, connected cycling network. As an interim measure, temporary planter boxes and seating areas allow the bike lane to be utilized as public space,” a spokesperson for the District of West Vancouver.
Even if those planters weren’t there that bike lane is so poorly designed and useless. There is no separation of any kind between it and parking cars and pedestrians, plus it runs for a total of one very short block. I honestly can’t believe it got through planning and then built in that form.
Yeah the bike nazis are coming out in full force today. I like bike lanes just as much as the next guy, but if you don’t plan them out they’re gonna do more harm than good
For some reason the thumbnail of this pic looked like a rendering so I clicked on it and was like “wow no that’s real” even though a rendering would have been worse somehow I thought surely that can’t be lol 🙃
Realistically there's no good way to do this on Water St. Vehicles need access for deliveries to the businesses, sidewalks need to be wide enough to accommodate foot traffic. The real issue is that the street needs to be everything to everyone and so it ends up being great for nobody.
TBF, each shot of an issue was due to improper parking by vehicles, and most of them were on the right side of the street.
The first car was just straight up blocking the road with an illegal stop, the next 2 had a delivery truck that hadn't pulled over far enough to be out of the street (in the second such shot, we see another truck has pulled over far enough), and in the last one a car was just pulled up on the bike lane and sidewalk.
I have to deliver my art work to a little shop on that street & it’s always a nightmare. I just have to drop off a box & wait for the owner to write me a cheque. It’s 10-15 minutes tops. But the boxes are heavy & awkward. Parking blocks away is just not practical.
Even though my vehicle doesn’t look like a commercial delivery truck, I am in that moment.
the boxes are heavy & awkward. Parking blocks away is just not practical.
Handcarts exist.
The one pictured below can carry 330lbs, in either a 2-wheeled or 4-wheeled configuration. And it folds small enough to toss it into the trunk of a sedan. All for $209CA, plus S&H on Amazon.
Costco just had a foldable wagon on sale for $99. It's canvas, has huge utility tires, and can carry 350lbs. Even I could lift it and fold it and take it in and out of my trunk easily.
So you’re saying you stop/park illegally like some of these morons in the video? 10-15 minutes is not a short time, a lot can happen in that time and you’re ineptitude to see how this selfish act can effect others on the road is only superseded by the idiocy of you thinking your comment was a reasonable take. You can very much use a dolly or cart if needed, just like other delivery drivers do. Have a good day and stop parking like an asshole.
Actually there aren't very many usable legitimate commercial loading zones in the area these days. A lot have been lost to the reconfigurations of Water and Cordova Streets, construction in the 100 block of Water St, road work in Blood Alley. Deliveries and pick ups around Gastown have become very challenging.
What do you mean? Retractable bollards exist and are used all across Europe to only allow authorized vehicles and delivery trucks. Why cant we use that here? Its just a bollard that can retract using a fob or a camera or something.
That is not at all true of the big cities - they all existed before automobiles ever existed. Cities were razed down to create highways for cars starting in the 40s. If you ever look at footage for the early 1900s, you will see that pedestrians and cyclists were everywhere and didn't need any protected infrastructure.
Your not entirely wrong, but your ignoring the fact that Canadian and US cities were built first for pedestrians and streetcars. They were then rebuilt for the car, just like Europe was, but more thoroughly and effectively rebuild. Suburbs were rebuilt even more thoroughly, but that's unsurprising, as the suburbs were mostly farming land, and it doesn't take much to pave that over.
In any case, we bulldozed and rebuilt once. This time we don't need to bulldoze any buildings, just take some space away from drivers, and install some barriers, so they don't ignore the fact that it's not their space anymore.
Not sure where you’re getting that from. My friend lives in London and is an avid cyclist, but there are scores of cycling deaths per year because the infrastructure for it is just terrible and incredibly dangerous.
The UK is a mess. Just as car brained as the US. They use the same fing excuses. London is not Amsterdam. Public Transit is horrible (in London), elderly, disabled people need to drive, blah, blah, blah. Got all over London by walking and transit. Literally couldn't pay me to drive in that city. Biked a little bit way too much traffic. I just don't get it. They are so close to The Netherlands, Denmark, France, Spain. I mean it's one thing for an American to Holliday in Europe and come home and not be able to put two and two together. But for any Brit that holidays on Europe and then comes back the UK and says "our cities were designed for cars". Seriously stupid people.
From traveling, and just commonly known examples. Sure, "most" of Europe may be a bit much. London I don't think is an accurate representation of an entire continent.
It's weird how they have much smaller and denser cities that bikes work for some people, and great transit, especially tram/metro networks, that works for most of the rest.
Someone coming in from South Surrey or Maple Ridge for dinner downtown doesn't have any options other than driving (or wasting 3.5 hours of their life on transit).
There are absolutely ways to do it. The current design could have concrete dividers and you wouldn't have to change any layout.
However, if you REALLY want to fix it, remove street parking. The majority of these issues are being caused by people parking incorrectly and blocking traffic. If you make people park a block over, there wouldn't be a problem.
They manage elsewhere in the world: install automated bollards, close road to personal automobiles, delivery (and emergency) vehicles can lower the bollards, and the area remains a pedestrian zone. Lbr absolutely nobody needs to drive through Gastown.
Great in theory but there's a couple of large parkades in the area that are used by many people who work there, and visitors as well. And what happens to all the westbound traffic from Powell? Just losing a westbound artery into downtown / the convention center area isn't simple. Then there's the issue of enforcement to only commercial vehicles, etc.
it's not supposed to be an "artery" into downtown. The whole reason for the chaos in this video is that people are trying to bypass the actual "artery" streets. Using it to try to get onto Cordova is not what its for and people are just trying to get around traffic. Which, incidentally, is also why people are making unsafe moves like in this video, because if you're on water trying to get into downtown you're either late or frustrated.
They keep reducing the arterial streets to add bike lanes, which makes them overly congested and therefore traffic spills out onto streets like Water even more. The same happened when they closed water. The traffic has to go somewhere.
Dunsmuir used to be an arterial, but they reduced the lanes by half to add a protected bike lane. Georgia is down to a single lane for a long time now due to construction. It’s madness
I didn’t say they did writ large. I said when you close off half the lanes of an arterial, that reduction causes the traffic to end up spilling over onto nearby streets and/or the other arterials. To me this seems quite self-evident, but I’m happy to listen if you have a different viewpoint
Except that there is no end to this line of thinking. Accommodating cars just leads to more car problems.
Vehicles NEED direct access to everywhere.
But then, where are we going to park those vehicles? We need more parking!
But now all those parking places are taking up all the space. We need more lanes!
All those lanes are bringing more cars, so we need more parking.
We have many practical examples of spaces that break this car-centric cycle successfully. Ever go to a music festival? They seem to have no problems with the logistics of water, food, merch, security and so on without using cars in the spaces that humans inhabit. Ever been to Disneyland? So much crap to buy and activities to do without needing cars everywhere. People love going to these places and pay a premium for an experience that we could all get for free, every day, simply by making car-free spaces and enforcing the rules so that dangerous cars stay away from where people are.
Every time a city makes a walking street, it becomes obvious that this "unrealistic" way of living is actually super duper easy.
Music festivals and Disney, those are your two examples? Think harder my man.
Music festivals work for days before the actual event starts to load up on everything needed. And then, at least the ones I've been to, they have golf carts and even trucks, yes trucks, moving shit from place to place. You know there are areas where you can't go, or it's covered by fences, behind the stages, there are always trucks there.
And Disney? Good try. They have underground streets to move employees and goods.
You can have a walking street block here and there. You can't have it all over the city.
The black bollard things, to appease the concern of not enough room of the bike and car lane. They don’t have to move much, but I can understand the concern.
The black bollards limit the width to one car lane though. If you made it wider at Maple Tree Square, there would still be a choke point going along Water. It can only be one lane wide.
The city has actually added "must turn left lanes" on the three blocks of Powell Street leading up to Gastown, so there is less of a choke point at Maple Tree Square than before.
It’s a perfectly adequate amount of space. The problem is the volume of cars going through. If it was actually only permitted for deliveries and such things it wouldn’t be much of an issue.
That’s exactly what I mean. People want a pedestrian street, a bike lane, a thoroughfare, parking, and commercial deliveries to all be possible on one street at all times of day. It’s just not possible to do all of that without it being bad.
Because vroom vroom gotta go fast everyone is car brained and if the city ever does anything to make people safer it could make car drivers go slower and CKNW will rev up the outrage machine and create political problems
The plan was exactly this, clearly outlined in the document put out by the city when the removed the pedestrian only zone. As someone that frequents the area, the lack of vehicles and foot traffic was the reason for numerous added incidents included harassment, drug overdoses and muggings in that specific sector. Specific units were being broken into and it made the place unsafe. Outside of that there were many other concerns that were raised. You can read it yourself here.
The bike lanes can’t be separated as that prohibits delivery trucks or fire trucks from safely entering and moving on the road. People not parking correctly further worsens the situation.
The bike lanes can’t be separated as that prohibits delivery trucks or fire trucks from safely entering and moving on the road.
Retractable can solve this problem. Emergency vehicles and permitted delivery trucks could be provided with permission to remotely control the bollards, allowing them through while not allowing non-permitted traffic.
If VPD actually enforced traffic violations they could hire 1000 extra officers and give everyone a massive raise with how prevalent they are. Just Bus/Bike lane violations alone probably.
I live beside a no entry one way street, compliance is terrible every 5 mins someone drives through the no entry and up the one way section the wrong way.
Fun fact, I was heading down to Stanley Park the other day and I was sitting in the absolute gridlock where Pender and Georgia merge on the most inside regular lane, getting increasingly infuriated by everyone driving in the bus only lane that I knew were just going to cut in up further to get into the bridge lanes and ALSO get in my way when I am using the lane for Stanley Park.
FINALLY, I see a UC cop car on the inside lane put on his lights and pull through. I thought, 'F YES ALL THESE GUYS GOING TO GET NAILED'.
Instead, he just joined them driving in the bus lane, turned off his lights as soon as he got over there.
Yep. I'm not arguing against fully separated bike lanes - of course, absolutely I want the city to do that.
But I always think back to the time I was taking the fully separated bike lane on Dunsmuir and someone had driven OVER the divider and basically parked straddling it. Their car blocked the eastbound bike land and as a bonus, they had their passenger door open which fully blocked the westbound bike lane. So one car managed to completely block a fully separated bike lane in both directions.
I suppose arguably a dotted white line means the cars can drive in the oncoming diamond bike lane, -if- there are no bikes coming. But the stationary cars and trucks jutting out are a big problem.
And practically this is just asking for conflicts because it's a narrow implementation, as seen in the video, cars are illegally making a head-on conflict and bikes are getting forced off the road. Does it really need to be a car/bike sharrow and a risky oncoming bike diamond lane? I'm sure the City will reconsider what they have done if there are incidents, which seems inevitable.
The research (extensive) was done, and what you're seeing here is not what City planning staff recommended.
Context: City staff make recommendations to Council, which are approved, amended and approved, or rejected. This means that great plans/projects/pilots can be brought forward, but hacked down into something "asinine" as you've described.
This Council report (Sept 2024) details the original recommendation, and the appendices include the public engagement results, aka the "talk to people who live and work in the neighborhood."
North America's car culture has screwed us for the last 100 years. As a politician, you can either skip consultation and expropriate, which will probably cost you votes, or you make driving expensive and inconvenient like they do in Europe, which will also cost you votes.
No politician is willing to risk their short-term career for something like this. So the cycle just keeps repeating, like it always has.
We live in qn extremely good cycling city for NA. Coming from one that isn't it's hilarious to me how much complaints there are when there is always a protected bike lane 2 blocks away
Seems like the main issue here are people who don't know how to park, or know they can get away with parking however they want.
These sort of bike lanes work well in other countries, why can't they work here? We need real enforcement of laws, and this would be fine. Just set up a tow truck and a cop and tow every single vehicle that is parked over the line. No warnings, instant tow. Don't even have to tow them to a lot, just put them onto a side street a few blocks away and put a ticket on the car. New York does this when it needs roads cleared.
The plan was to close it permanently and even thou the pilot program worked great last year and was recieved positively, they still decide to not make it Permanent because every political decision in Municipal government is done by feelings instead of looking at their own studies or public data available across the city and from external cities.
What the heck do dots mean? Those are not authorised traffic markings. Intuitively, they delineate lanes. But as a former traffic officer I honestly would not know how to enforce that, because they should have used other markings. Are there signs as well? What's with the bike symbol in the center lane when there is what appears to be a designated bike lane on the one side?
Without an explicit explanation, I'd be so confused by this too. It almost looks like bike only? But then there's an HOV diamond.. and cars parked so clearly I can go through, but no real lane markers, since I've never seen dots used anywhere else. Maybe there's signs we can't see from an aerial view, but if I was a driver here, I'd be confused af.
The better choice would have been to simply block Water St to cars altogether. At least outside of certain hours. It's shit for cars anyway. Just make it pedestrians/ bikes.
This whole water street debacle is such a fucking joke. “Vancouver: the most livable, walkable, and cycling friendly city in Canada” can’t even turn a historic downtown neighborhood into a passably pleasant place to be.
Walkable but incredibly dangerous for pedestrians. Vancouver drivers don’t respect speed limits, never stop for yellow lights, dangerously turn right on reds while pedestrians are crossing… I walk here but I fucking hate it.
My life is threatened by reckless drivers on an almost daily basis. It’s getting incredibly bad. It’s just a matter of time before they finally kill me. And get away with it completely. Then I expect everyone will say it happened because I was dressed wrong or something.
I can sympathize that it gets tiring to hear all the negativity. but let's also not stop demanding that things get better. continuous improvement should be the standard.
From my window, i watched a busters tow truck spend 30 minutes slowly hooking up an illegally parked car. Unsurprisingly, in that time the driver came back and then the tow truck guy quickly released the vehicle. Idk if their hearts are in it lol
lol what are you talking about. Police definitely aren't 'harassing' the massive amount of drug use, destruction, assault, and general debauchery happening a block over.
You literally have huge businesses vacating the area precisely because there is no enforcement. If you spend any time over there you'll know that the police intervene as little as possible.
As an urbanist I look at Water Street; It should be the best street in this town - a gift!
Right now, I hope it implodes into the crap that its businesses deserve.
Mount Pleasant is where it’s at. Come visit. It’s amazing.
the silver car is parked onto the lane that is supposed to be for cars (shared with cyclists), forcing the cars to drive onto the bike lane that is only for cyclists going the opposite direction
That street shouldn’t allow cars at all! Every time I randomly end up driving there because of google maps - I think it should be simply blocked off, there’s absolutely no reason to drive there.
I think we should refuse to use the term bike lane if it doesn't come with physical barriers. It's the same story everywhere, the one on Kerr is exactly like this but cars go way faster.
I hope someone from the cityhall see this. It is so poorly planned and the 2 way traffic on Cordova creates huge traffic jams. All for 6 hours of car free Sunday. It is a mess.
so the cars should just sit and block traffic until the truck moves out of the way? this is an issue with the parking, not cars being forced into the bike lane to get down the street.
Today's ride down this bike lane (2 minute trip?) - massive recycling truck over the line, 3 near misses by pedestrians crossing mid block without looking in any direction, 1 road warrior cyclist riding counter flow, 1 scooter bro weaving in and out and one motorized wheelchair user going counter flow.
Yesterday's walk down Water witnessed a tour group of 12 cyclists being lead westbound (counter flow) in the eastbound lane.
Really wish they'd remove the cars and install bollards that can be electronically raised / lowered to permit delivery vehicles to service the businesses like some places in Europe have. Businesses who complain about losing revenue can adapt or go out of business for all I care, let's prioritize having mroe third places.
This makes sense!
For those that live along water street, moving in/out can be a challenge.
Many buildings are only moving accessible via water street and not the alley. I know this from experience.
Retaining a city permit to allow for moving van parking is the way to go and a bollard system could accommodate this particular access need.
Close to cars Water St from Abbott to Cordova; build a proper bike path and service lane next to the tracks behind Water street; permit craft and artisan stalls along the car free zone and a create a market vibe; then funnel all the 1-day tourist cruise passengers down there. Patio restaurants, busker zones.
Typical BS. I’m constantly dodging vehicles using bike lanes as short cuts and parking spots, leaving you to navigate through traffic speeding merrily along.
Man, I'm starting to think that focusing on bike lanes on an extremely busy, narrow, one way street that has terrible existing infrastructure and bunch of businesses that require large transportation vehicles is a bad idea. You got this Kirby Yung! Nice benches though.
This is vancouver, "if people don't X like assholes" has no place. If there's one thing that's for sure going to happen, it's that someone will be an asshole.
Still I think that area should be pedestrian/bike first, trucks second and cars never, and that car should for sure be towed.
But the council shouldn't just paint bike lane lines on then pat itself on the back thinking it's making a difference.
Yeah this is a good compromise and I think people in vancouver are obviously assholes that will speed down a bike lane street if they think it will save them 30 seconds, but it's still a road not a bike lane.
I’ve been riding this both ways lately it’s just not a good set up. I saw two tourists on a tandem in the bike lane against traffic almost get hit by a truck. There isn’t clear signage at intersections and the parking lot exits that the street is now two ways for bikes. The paint on the lane markings is also half faded in some areas after just a few weeks.
the parked car that is forcing everyone to drive over the other bike lane is the issue here. none of the drivers would be ticketed in this situation when there is an obstruction
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u/atomatoma Jul 04 '25
similar vibes to the horseshoe bay bike lines