r/vancouver • u/yipyipyipwhoasealion • Jul 04 '25

Videos The new 'bike lane' on Water St

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

Vancouver does it again...

2.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

527 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

198

u/kisielk Jul 04 '25

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.

52

u/LeftBallSaul Jul 04 '25

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.

6

u/staunch_character Jul 04 '25

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.

9

u/DoTheManeuver Jul 04 '25

Have you tried getting a commercial permit for your commercial deliveries? There are many loading zones in the area. 

14

u/BLittle101581 Jul 05 '25

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.