Vancouver: West Coast Cycling Paradise?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ค. 2024
- We've covered Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa on this channel-but what's Vancouver like for cycling? In 2019, the Copenhagenize Index of Bicycle-Friendly Cities listed the city (along with Montreal) in the top 20. In this video we take a look at the pros, cons, and interesting quirks of cycling in Vancouver.
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The Granville bridge is getting redeveloped! It’s part of connecting it with a streetcar and supposed to convert 4 middle lanes to transit and bikes only!
That great
the city downsized the redesign last fall, the plan now is to move the centre median to the west, and extend the pedestrian lane and cycle path on the east side of the bridge. $12 million to basically make a wide sidewalk with a barrier.
@@derosa1989 how much should it cost?
@@martinkent333 😂
@@martinkent333 stop signs are tyranny imposed for the dangerous car and should be abolished in favor of proven better alternatives like traffic islands.
As a Torontonian cyclist, one big difference I noticed when I travelled to Vancouver was the pedestrian/cyclist-oriented landscaping. There's far more greenery which adds an overall pleasantness to their pathways even amidst the city centre, making cycling comparably more inviting than on Richmond/Adelaide, downtown Toronto's key east-west cycle lanes. Toronto added potted plants in some portions but I still think its lacking.
Visited Toronto a month ago, cycling there was not fun and felt a bit like a Canadian New York... Cars cutting me off even when walking on a crossing. An highway cutting through downtown and right turns on red don't help.
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Montreal is greener with the largest urban park and 450 km of biking lanes in Canada .
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the progress Vancouver has made in recent years. I hope the city keeps developing its bike infrastructure because it has all the ingredients to become a truly great bike city. Not there yet, but it’s getting there!
Living in Seattle, I'm so envious of Vancouver bike and transit infrastructure. We are getting more bike lanes and transit, but we are always playing catch up. From here Vancouver feels so close, but so far.
@Jackie Zhang Well, it took us 50 years to get to where we are now. Even 25 years ago, Rotterdam and (parts of) Utrecht were so car centric, bicycle infra felt like an afterthought.
Here in Hayward, California, we're lucky if we have unprotected bike lanes. Vancouver looks like PARADISE by comparison!
Yeah, but we're going to be playing catch-up with the Netherlands so don't feel too bad.
Vancouver's transit only looks good if you haven't visited countries outside North America. There's also a lot of Vancouver east of Main Street.
Such an awesome video and overview of the bike infra in Vancouver!
Thanks, Reece!
3:32 You’re spot on about the Granville bridge… it *is* a relic from another era. It’s part of an urban freeway system that was never built, leaving only the Granville bridge and the Georgia & Dunsmuir viaducts as evidence that it was ever planned.
We are so lucky that more of those freeways were never built! I came to Vancouver from Edmonton and you can see some 50's freeway relics sprinkled around the core there too. Its an interesting thing. Seems that here in Canada the freeway uptake was much less than it was in the US.
@@bradcomis1066 Also in Toronto, an entire freeway network was planned. Starting with the Spadina Expressway. Fortunately, the whole thing was cancelled.
@@kevinlove4356 It would be better if the whole thing was never built, but part of the Spadina Expressway was built (Allen Road), and it's been a problem since day 1. The expressway ends abruptly and all the traffic is dumped onto Eglinton Avenue.
@@Henri.Virallinen Yes, my comment was poorly worded. By "the whole thing," I was referring to the entire freeway network. And yes, we should imitate Seoul and remove the Allen Road.
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I made the mistake when new to Vancouver of cycling over Granville out of downtown, since it was the shortest route. I'm a confident cyclist, and in the years of cycling in the bicycle gutters of my car-centric hometown before or all the time I've spent amongst downtown Vancouver traffic on a fixie since, I've never felt as unsafe and likely to be run over as on that bridge trying to get home at the end of a work day.
The bridge is an over-built relic of a planned highway system that was (thankfully) never built - eight underutilized, unobstructed lanes that encourage drivers to go too fast for the roads that are on either end. A terrible walking experience with unsafe crossings for pedestrians, and a terrifying experience for any cyclist who unwittingly ends up on it with nowhere else to go.
I'm glad that plans are in place to reallocate space for a wide pedestrian walkway with greenery and benches, cycling lanes, and dedicated transit lanes.
There was opposition to each of the lane reductions on Burrard bridge to increasingly allocate more space for cyclist and pedestrians, but the bottlenecks were always the inefficient intersections at either end. Congestion is better today even with fewer vehicle lanes, and the improved intersections are both better for traffic flow and safer for pedestrians and cyclists. The roads accessing Granville bridge don't even have the capacity to saturate it, so reallocating space makes sense to make travel across it safer and more enjoyable for every mode of transport.
You've showed the only reasonable use of sharrows I've ever seen in this video. Its on a single lane road, and is backed up by the roundabouts, the barriers, and exceptionally narrow streets.
I'm used to seeing sharrows on four and six lane roads with high speed limits and no consideration for bikes other than the painted sharrow.
Its interesting the section of sharrow seen in this video is only a couple blocks long. The rest of the route is cyclists plopped on to a narrow side street. Albeit a designated side street, with more roundabouts than others, but that doesnt stop the cars and trucks driving on it.
@@thesuperjohn57 10th Ave is quite comfortable to ride on and the ridable portion of it is quite long at about 5km. To the east it connects up to a MUP that runs under the Skytrain line for maybe 10km. Its a good east-west connector and its something I use frequently. Car traffic is very light and slow but like the video says it can be a real squeeze to get past some large trucks.
@@thesuperjohn57 I've commuted in Vancouver for the past ~15 years and I disagree. There is little traffic on the designated bike routes. This is mostly because of the traffic calming measures making those streets much slower to drive on than adjacent routes. E.g. 10th, Union/Adanac, Woodland bike paths.
the one other item of the bike infrastructure in Vancouver that deserves mention is that many intersection on the bike corridor streets with light changing request buttons have dedicated one just off the street in reach of the cyclist , no need to step on the sidewalk to use the pedestrian ones like I encountered way too many times street biking in Ottawa.
We have a few of these cyclist friendly request buttons in Victoria. Sadly, they've been implemented at many intersections that don't need them.
@@jasonarthurs3885 I was about to say exactly the same thing lol. Like sure it's nice and safe, but personally I'd much prefer crossing with the flashing yellow lights that don't require you to wait 20+ seconds for the light to decide to change and stop all the cars for much longer than you needed to cross on a bike
I'm happy I made the choice to move to Vancouver instead of other major cities in Canada. And your video has reaffirmed my choice. Because after living 15 years in London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Beijing and Sydney. I can confirm that public transit and cycling are terrible in North America. Vancouver included. It's just that Vancouver is better in North America but terrible if compared to other major cities in Europe and Asia.
Montreal isn't bad ;) Except of buses, but metro is great
Agreed, and Canada is GOOD compared to the US.
Yep. Fully agreed; alright compared to the rest of North America, but that's a VERY low bar.
I live in Richmond, just south of Vancouver, and when I bike for fun, I always bike up to Vancouver since bike infrastructure in Richmond is horrendously bad, with the exception of a few greenways and gravel bike paths.
Iona Beach, Steveston's Dyke, River Road, Railway, Shell Road, even Westminster Highway all have decent bike routes. Richmond is not perfect but they've got pretty decent routes.
Honestly South Vancouver is worse. They want bikes to use local streets but the wayfinding is poor and it's easy to miss the streets that are designated for cycling, much less any kind of destination based signage. I cycle in Richmond mostly and easily get lost in the south part of Vancouver whereas toward downtown it's much clearer where you're supposed to go
I mean, pretty much everywhere in metro Van is bad compared to the main city. But we're working on it. I think.
I hope they get their act together in Richmond; being so flat, it's a natural for biking!
I just wish they took the No. 3 route seriously, that place is a menace
@3:15 "and we live in Ottawa" - nice zinger!
I almost spit out my coffee 😂. Lately, when someone makes reference to any O-Train infrastructure, I feel compelled to say "oh you mean the abandoned train station/tracks?"
Vancouver is the only North American city I've seen much of, having visited from the UK. I was pleasantly surprised at the infrastructure, and it was easy to use, even as a very rare cyclist back then. I went with my family, and we hired bikes to do a lap of Stanley Park, then continued around to Sunset Beach and went back through downtown.
Critics would say cycling in Amsterdam works because it's a very flat city.
Vancouver is a very hilly city and bike lanes work. I grew up in Vancouver and I used to bike all over Vancouver when I used to live there from the 1970s to the 1980s when there were no bike lanes- and that included cycling on the park drive in Stanley Park.
Well, hills really do put a damper on things.
When I moved to Victoria, I bought a bike to ride to and from UVic.
When the bike lanes ran out 30% of the way through my route and I was still going uphill, I gave up on it.
Nowadays I would like to bike to work, but I have to cross the Alex Fraser bridge... It's uphill both ways :)
If it were flat here, then I would be a cyclist.
Depending where you live, taking a bridge into downtown might be the biggest hill you encounter
Well traffic was a lot less back then.
The rain in Vancouver is really not that bad. It is mostly light drizzle, rarely a drenching downpour. And rarely below zero Celsius. You mostly just get splashed a lot by riding over puddles, extensive fenders are a must. One risk is that it tends to be quite dark in the winter
agreed. The winter i spent there the only issue i encountered was getting used to the occasional black ice on roundabouts. the first time taught me., weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
My experience is that the rain in Vancouver is about the same as in The Netherlands. So should pose zero obstacle to cycling. I even have the latest high-tech gadget called a "rain coat."
Thanks for the nice feature on Vancouver. The infrastructure has a long way to go, but has made some pretty huge leaps in the past decade. Definitely a lot of opposition to repurposing roads to bike use but also a lot of changing opinions in the positive direction have been occurring.
Thankfully the city has been tending to rely on data rather than knee-jerk opposition from local businesses. Really hoping they take a lane out of Commercial drive to add bike lanes.
I once went to Vancouver for a job interview and would have totally stayed there. I went thinking that it would be "Canadian Seattle", in the sense of being Seattle but with public healthcare (I had lived in Seattle for a summer and loved it), but the amazing protected bike lanes and general human-centric feel of the city exceeded all my expectations. (I did not get the job.)
As a former Vancouver bike lane critic, and now converted enthusiast, the city has made big changes. I used to live just outside of the areas you biked in(downtown, Stanley, Kits, Mount pleasant). Unfortunately, most of the rest of the city is too dangerous to bike. No separated bike lanes, shared lanes on side streets that people rip down trying to avoid congestion. Vancouver is a great city to bike in if you live in ubc or downtownish. Much of the rest is as bad as a car centric suburb.
@@canadafirstdog9051 I used to think the exact same way. How could reducing lanes generate money. I guess what I've seen from #ohtheurbanity! And #notjustbikes is that if you steal a lane from cars, you make it more livable. If you make it more livable you attract people. Where there's people there's opportunity. Where there's opportunity there's business. And where there's business, people spend money. It's perhaps a less visible or slower evidence that it works, than building parking lots and seeing thousands of cars in it.
@@canadafirstdog9051 @Scrubbed is right! Please watch this channels "7 bad arguments for bike lanes". I once was angry as to why they were placed in my suburban neighbourhood but am now all for them.
In downtowns where nearly everyone walks to stores, bikers are more likely to support businesses than someone driving through.
Also remember a road isn't just asphalt, there are multiple meters of aggregate and material needed to make them. Combine that with wide roads in the suburbs and you realize gas taxes and vehicle registrations don't cover all the costs of road construction while also polluting and causing health problems like disabilities, heart disease, heightened stress levels, respiratory illnesses, etc. The costs of these health problems compounded by the removed work productivity of people cost our society. If people biked on relatively cheap bike infrastructure, the exercise and lack of emissions actually create a financial positive for the government.
The problem with Vancouver is that outside of the downtown core most of the city/metro area is made up of car centric sprawl no different than the rest of Canada and the US. Vancouver gets praise for its urban planning but it really shouldn't, at least not to the extent that it does currently. It's hard to have a great city/metro area when 80% of it is zoned for single family detached homes and commercial strips.
@@canadafirstdog9051 Please explain to me how CARS generate a revenue to pay for CAR LANES? What a dumb question.
Seriously… one bike lane is 4 feet wide. One car lane is 12 feet wide. 1 biker takes up 4 ft^2 of space. One car takes up 150 ft^2. Bikes do not weigh of enough to have a noticeable impact on road life, cars have a significant impact on road life.
So bike lanes cost way less to build and way less to maintain. Bikes are 37 times more spacially efficient than cars (theoretically 37 bikers can fit into the area of one car), bike lanes take up 1/3 the area of a car lane, they are safer, they don’t pollute the environment which has extra costs, and they are healthier which costs the health care system less.
To summarize: cars are an expensive use of space that require high infrastructure, environmental, and health effects all leading to an extremely cost ineffective design.
@@canadafirstdog9051 don’t forget good bike lanes take cars of the road, which will decrease traffic so there doesn’t need to be revenue from these bikes. They are reducing cars on the road
Not going to lie. I live in Utrecht and this seems pretty good. Just a bit more consistency but i like the design.
Yeah I agree, but it still needs improvement for the suburbs in terms of bike infrastructure
Lived in groningen for 4 years and now living in Vancouver. Cycle paths here and in the Netherlands are not at the same level, not even close..
@@wsmzq who said they were?
@@TalwinderDhillonTravels i think the area probably is 10km by 10km.
I live in the suburbs of Vancouver and the bike infrastructure sucks. However they are making improvements they recently just installed a lot of dedicated bike lanes (unfortunately no barriers) on a lot of their roads
I love how Utrecht is on the temperature graph at the start of the video:) Moved from Vancouver to Utrecht in May
If you want to see and hear loud and aggressively driven cars, come to New Orleans and it's suburbs, where ubiquitous muscle cars race down the streets, boulevards, and highways, even in neighborhoods like mine where the speed limit is 20mph.
On a positive note, thanks for great video with so many examples of bicycle infrastructure and traffic calming that make more people want to ride their bikes instead of driving cars.
I live in Montreal and just came back from a trip to Vancouver. Coming in, I thought Vancouver was not a super bike friendly city, and was pleasantly surprised. The sea wall was an absolutely amazing experience with stunning views and great infrastructure. What i didn't really see in Van were people with fun bike carragies for kids/dogs or groceries, either as an external attachment or just bike seats for kids. Not sure if you experienced the same. Im wondering what conditions need to be in place for these to be more common? More time with biklanes so a culture can be formed, flatter territory, better protected bike lanes... what do you think?
Ps. love the channel, keep it up
@@TalwinderDhillonTravels I love seeing all the fun types of carriges and kid stand here in mtl, they are everywhere! Hopefully Vancouver can catch up
I don't have first hand experience with Van and MTL, but as a parent with such a cargo bike, I think having somewhere to secure it both easily and securely is crucial. They are nearly impossible to carry up stairs and even put through regular person door, vs. garage doors. So the difference may have to do with the types of places people live in and whether they can easily accommodate owning such a bike.
I think Montreal is still better. In Vancouver it's mostly about scenic exercise, but in Montreal, they're actually trying to make it for everyday transport. Far better street infra in Montreal too.
Most people with kids live in the suburbs. Buying a house in the bike friendly part of Vancouver is impossible for average people.
I think most of the comments here in this regard are from tourists that haven't ridden in the routes that locals use. I see plenty of people with trailers on their bikes around the city (though not so much in the 'burbs). The seawall is really nice, but few locals use it on a regular basis.
Loved meeting with you! I should explore more in Vancouver. Can't wait for your next adventure!
I'm always happy to see improvements to bike infrastructure. It is annoying to see how many car enthusiasts oppose bikes
Great report! I had no idea Vancouver cycling infrastructure is so nicely developed. I'm drooling here in Toronto. 😉
The Granville Bridge reminds me of the Jean-Talon underpass next to the Décarie in Montréal in terms of uncomfortable non-car transport.
With the fierce opposition to the changes to the Burrard Bridge and the Cambie Bridge, Vancouver is taking it slowly getting to Granville. Honestly with the proximity of those two bridges to Granville Island, it doesn't feel like a big deal that Granville hasn't been converted to more bike friendly infrastructure.
Vancouverite here. Once you get out of the actual city, all hell breaks loose. 80% of the North Shore is a right off, and Burnaby/New West isn’t much better. We’re definitely getting better cycling infrastructure, but it’s coming slowly, and often isn’t very seamless.
From my experience, the North Van waterfront has improved significantly with the completion of the spirit trail between Park Royal and Sealynn/Phibbs Exchange area. Other than that, bike coverage is limited, although more projects are underway
Ontario Street in parallel to the Arbutus greenway is also a dedicated cycling street. It is fun to climb 100m in less than 5 kilometers, have a little detour in Elizabeth Park and dash down to the False Creek or Marine driver.
A beautiful part of the world. Makes me want to visit! Thanks for the video.
Awesome video. You really have to spend more time exploring outside of Vancouver. You will enjoy the connectivity of all the suburbs.
Wow! Beautiful city! I love the greenery you’ve shown in this video!
Love the video! Vancouver is definitely very unique even comparing to it's neighbouring municipalities. Hope to do some videos of routes there soon!
I took the arbutus greenway yesterday south toward Richmond and I was shocked when it just suddenly ended by the Arthur Laing bridge, with no wayfinding toward more bike friendly routes. I had to backtrack up to a quieter street to find my way east to Cambie so I could get to the Canada Line bridge which is a much nicer experience
I wish the city would put more effort and resources into improving the local street bike routes. The seawall route is a beautiful ride but local street routes like Adanac Street and 10th Avenue are the backbone of Vancouver's cycling network and very popular commuter routes. The traffic calming is inadequate and crowded street parking on both sides of the road makes some sections dangerously narrow. Also, roundabouts and bikes aren't a good mix.
Still, Vancouver has better bike infrastructure than most cities I've been to, especially by North American standards. I think it beats every US city. In Canada, Montreal is pretty good too but the winters are brutal at least in Vancouver you can easily bike through the rainy season with just basic rain gear.
You should check out Victoria. It's a smaller city but it should definitely be in the running for Canada's top cycling city.
I also take 10th and Adanac/Union frequently and I think the traffic calming is adequate with few people driving on those streets. But the parked cars on 10th between Commercial and Cambie definitely make it sketchier than necessary. Would be great if they only allowed parking on 1 side. Maybe add some more speed bumps to deter drivers from driving faster with the added space.
What's wrong with roundabouts? I've honestly never noticed them and I've been biking past them for years.
Having biked around Vancouver for the past ten years, I would say one thing that concerns me is the narrow 'bike friendly' designated streets have parking on both sides in many places, and you have to be careful not to get 'doored' on those streets... it would be much better if there was only parking on one side of the street, but I guess local residents wouldn't have enough space for parking, so there's that...
And yes to the comment about aggressive exotic cars... they are super loud and annoying as hell. Just rich goofballs with no imagination on what to do with their money.
I have a loud exhaust on my Subaru B4 and i am glad I have it. Ppl know I am nearby and are not surprise, I live in Kits and cyclist/pedestrian/car/uber do stupid things 24/7. If you are door you will receive almost nothing from ICBC. I have been run over by a car while I was on the side walk with my DH bike and all my gear. I had to fight hard to get the money for a new frame and payment for physiotherapy.
Overall a good video but a few points. While the Granville Bridge is not currently bike friendly, the Burrard St Bridge to the west is a main cycling option, even though that faced a lot of flack from motorists. Outside of the downtown core, where I agree separated bike lanes are a bonus, Vancouver's older system of bike routes through less-used side streets (with lights at major intersections) is better than more recent decisions to try adding bike lanes to busy main streets (such as the rarely used bike lanes on Nanaimo St).
Also having seen people fall even on calm cycling streets I actually support mandatory helmet laws now - you don't need them til you need them.
i think the position on helmet laws was really odd. To not want them based on same type of usage of bicycles? That would be like saying we shouldn't have seat belts laws because they are not needed when driving 30km/h to the corner store (yes i know you shouldn't do it, but people do). The only reason to be against helmet mandates would be thinking they have 0 impact on safety.
(and yes i am staying away from other mandates)
It's clearly not the case that anything with a positive impact on safety should be mandated though. I just went for a run, which would have been made safer if a helmet was mandated. The reality is that everyone draws the line somewhere. We didn't get into it in the video because the research is kind of complicated, but we're also worried about the possibility of helmet laws reducing rates of cycling, which means losing out on a lot of other benefits.
We still wear helmets and think they're generally a good idea, especially here in North America, but we're just not comfortable making it illegal to not wear one.
If you return, it would be great if you could talk to some locals who commute by bike here. Most routes have one or two "hiccups" that only really matter when you're trying to pick an efficient route. The leisure cycling you experienced is really nice here. Luxury cars are not something I've ever found to be an issue cycling here, it's more the "bike streets" with parking on each side and vehicles squeezing through, the stop signs on "bike streets" (particularly when used at traffic lights), and the major intersections on "bike streets" that don't even get a light to cross!
Vancouver also has a big road cycling community as well. Lots of spandex warriors that don't use the bike lanes instead bike on the main roads because they're not intimidated by cars.
I've biked the seawall around falsecreek/downtown hundreds of times its so fun zooming through the hustle and bustle of the city on a segregated bike lane
Thanks for your share 🤩 really appreciate
I hope the lost cat at 3:40 was found 😞 Also, when you say you felt wronged by the Granville bridge, and you're from Ottawa: I visited Ottawa for the first time last January, and I absolutely loved it! I was seriously impressed by how urban and pedestrian friendly it was! Just goes to show that grass is always greener on the other side. Ottawa is a beautiful city.
Edit: Just wanted to say thank you for always adding street name/area name labels! Also, I completely agree re: mandatory helmet laws, even though I also always wear a helmet myself. Great video. Thanks!
Edit 2: This doesn't take away from your point at all, but it's funny that at 7:29 when you talk about loud luxury cars, you showed footage of a Porsche Taycan, which is an electric vehicle.
Oh yeah Ottawa isn't a bad city at all, but there are some gaps around us where it's very car-centric. Thanks for the feedback!
These are some beautiful modal filters!
I live in Vancouver and it's so much better this decade in a lot of areas but the bike infrastructure here isn't a bonus it's a necessity. Separated bike lanes and the scenic routes are highly used because sharing any other road with cars is so dangerous. The city does a great job of trying to support transit, cycling and walking against constant opposition.
When I traveled to Montreal I had a moment where we were on the bike path at a cross street and of course we stopped to wait for an opening in traffic because in Vancouver cars will never stop for pedestrians or bikes even in marked crossings. To our surprise a car stopped for us and we had to get moving again from a dead stop while they waited for us to cross.
Drivers in Vancouver (bus drivers included) hit their horns first, brakes last and turn signals never.
I live in Van and never think of the Granville bridge, so many other options. I leave that one for the cars.
I haven’t done much cycling in Vancouver, but I constantly visit from Vancouver Island as a pedestrian. The city’s bike lane game has definitely improved extensively over the last several years and I’m sure will continue to do so. If you ever make it over to the Island, check out Victoria’s bike network - it’s consistently rated among the top biking networks in Canada, and is currently expanding throughout the city. Especially nice are the Galloping Goose, Lochside, and E&N rail trails, where old disused rail lines have been converted into active transportation corridors.
Victoria has by far the highest rates of active commuting (walking + cycling) in the country, so we wanted to visit on our trip to Vancouver, but unfortunately the timing didn't work out
Loved my time biking in Van. We lived near 1st and cypress near the Burrard Bridge and rarely used our car. The Burrard Bridge bike bath is amazing and they should do the same to the Granville St bridge. The same unfortunately hasn't been the same for Ottawa. Where due to infrastructure and safety we drive more :(
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I live in Bellingham, WA, just 10 minutes from the border. I can tell our town is taking after Vancouver in many ways
The wealthier Vancouverites also have vacation homes down here.
Great video thanks for sharing
I see parents biking with their kids to school all the time, its nice
7:30 "Loud and aggressively driven luxury cars" - it's a universal problem, not just Vancouver.
Great video
Biking is my primary mode of transportation in Vancouver. It would be nice if you addressed biking outside the core but still within the city which is much different. Also bike theft is a huge problem here
We mostly relied on Mobi bikes because regular bike rentals are very expensive. This limited us to the central city where Mobi stations were available.
Hopefully theyll continue making good progress with transit and cycling infrastructure
A big reason why you see more luxury cars in Vancouver is to do with the weather indirectly. Since it snows so infrequently, the city doesn’t need to salt/sand the roads like they do in Montreal or Toronto. And that material really ages a car body. So cars naturally last longer in Vangroovy.
From what I've seen and heard, Montreal is still far better. Vancouver is mostly for scenic recreation, but in Montreal they're actually making a real effort to make it for everyday transportation. Far better network connectivity in Montreal, and better bikelane design and infrastructure.
I simply cycled for pleasure and commuting in traffic for decades in Vancouver & Toronto - no problem.
I felt that the seawall was good, but going through the downtown core, bike lanes were lacking. That indicates the idea that biking is for leisure not for getting to your destination. So yeah, still some ways to go
4:36 that's lovely! I wanna see more mini roundabouts, even here in Europe!
A Vancouver study showed those mini roundabouts are dangerous, and are associated with more collisions on that bikeway
Raised crossings would probably be safer and do a better job on slowing down cars.
The Burrard bridge is close to the Granville Street bridge and has a great bike lane, it's definitely the preferred bridge to take.
On a bike that would have made sense, yeah. The detour would have been more time consuming given that we were on foot and leaving from our hotel on Granville Street, although it still probably would have made sense. That, or the aquabus.
Yes, that stretch of Burrard is one way but who actually rides down Burrard that way when Cypress is only 1 block away?
I'm grateful I live in a city with decent cycling infrastructure. I commute 45 km (round trip) to and from work every day and the bike lanes and paths make it actually faster than taking transit.
3:15 LOL; Great review.
Biked and subscribed
You guys should visit Kitchener/Waterloo, ON. Although the cities were car dependent for a big part of the time, it does have a sizable transit system for its size (including a uniqueness that arose from the weird road system) where some routes go into neighbourhoods, has decent trail systems to bike/walk across town and along the central corridor, and now "multi-use" trails in the suburb parts(one lane asphalt that acts as a sidewalk but is wide enough so bikers and pedestrians can travel safely)
Thanks for the comment! One of us actually grew up near Waterloo so we are pretty familiar...we may do a video about it at some point. We do have some footage from there which we've incorporated a bit.
It's such a shock. I can't believe it's improved very much all these years later. It has been a very long time since I lived there. I grew up there never to return. No grid. Huge suburbs with wandering streets that dead end and all have variations on the same name. Country Hills Way, Country Hills Drive, Country Hills Ave, Country Hills Crescent. Stroads and malls. Worst spider web transit system design with every bus route slowly wandering their way towards downtown where you can wait outside to transfer to a completely different bus to eventually end up where you wanted to go. Glad to hear it's changed somewhat.
I'd invite you out to do a video on bike infrastructure in Abbotsford (about 30-45 min east of Vancouver), but I don't think it would be safe for you to do so. The handful of trips I make to Vancouver each year for cycling seems like a utopia.
Helmets are not mandatory for adults where I live, but I always wear one every time I sit on a bike. It's got nothing to do with fear of dying, and it's really sad that people think that you must be at risk of death to wear a helmet.
I feel a helmet is similar to the seatbelt in a car. You don't think about dying when you put your seat belt on (although our roads would probably be safer if driver's did think that way), you just put it on as a standing precaution, so you *don't* have to think about whether it will be needed because it's already there. People should really look at every safety precaution like that. You don't take precautions because you need them every time, you take them so you don't have to think about how dangerous and things might be if you have already prepared for it it to happen at some random unknown point in the future.
Accidents happen to all of us eventually, but habits that increase safety change those accidents so they don't hurt as bad on the one in a million times something actually happens.
Great video! The helmet law is definitely more of a … suggestion at this point. Personally I never wear one.
i love vancouver.
you guys are in Ottawa now? Hope to see some more Ottawa videos! :-D
Yep, moved here because of a job a few months ago! We're working on videos on a mix of cities now but Ottawa will definitely be included.
I'd say Vancouver is pretty good, but it gets pretty difficult to bike around further you go from the city centre. When you get to Burnaby and other somewhat affordable places to live, the bike infrastructure gets significantly worse
Currently in need of a really good long cry, but also- bike.
Ok so I think you two should take a trip to Sherbrooke, QC for the bike infrastructure here. It's not great but it's getting better. (And we have a couple of those stupid huge bridges with narrow side walks so I feel you)
Definitely would be interesting to go there, we've never been! We'll put it in our list.
Oh boy, the loud and aggressively driven luxury cars is definitely an issue here in Toronto as well
The bicycle routes outside the city core are also fairly good, i.e. good and functional by North American standards, although not up to Dutch or Danish standards by any means. The use of quiet side streets as bike routes works fairly well, with separated or well-marked cycle paths on a few routes (e.g. along some parts of the skytrain lines), although these diminish in quality and utility as you get further out into the neighboring (more car-oriented) cities. It's when you have to cross the various waterways or encounter the highways that you really notice a less safe and more unpleasant environment for cyclists. Other than that, I agree with most of your comments.
Most people in the metro area of Vancouver live in the suburbs, is the problem. And yes you're right, the infrustructure is not great, though it has dedicated bike roads like the "central valley greenway". But once you get out to the arterial roads it's one close call after another.
Do people use electric unicycles in Vancouver?
You guys should check out Victoria, BC
Vancouver is nice, but I prefer Minneapolis' method for creating purely Bicycle lane areas within the various city parks build on flood plain.
theres some rubbish captions at 3:34, they appear really briefly between the other two, and it says "01506 dunsmuir and richards separated GOOD cyclists.MTS"
i imagine this is a relic from formatting? or a notes?
Thanks for catching that, we'll fix it! (It's a note from the script about which clip to include.)
Bike infrastructure need to be planned that same way as car infrastructure:
You need you collectors and arteries, and very good connectivity in between.
The collectors are your protected cycle lanes, arteries are extra wide bike roads built for a higher speed, preferably any crossing car traffic has to give way.
As for the connectivity, this is where you have streets that are one way for cars and two way for bikes, where you cut off the car road to avoid through traffic, but allow pedestrian and cyclist to pass through.
But I wonder, what kind of urban road can handle a volume of 6000 cars per day? Just to compare with a half decent cycle road parallell to the car road.
I've never been to Canada but the inner suburb bicycle infrastructure looks very similar to Melbourne where I live. Strangely it's all too familiar. I'm wondering if you guys have dedicated bike paths that go out to outer suburbs in all directions. Where I live, I'll soon be able to ride 25km directly into the city without crossing a single road, this is perfect for ebikes, escooters and bicycles because very few people use the bike paths so you can just breeze into the city at your own pace without being held up in traffic or having to slow down or speed up to accommodate other people.
Hahaha dedicated bike lanes to the suburbs of Vancouver or even outside the centre? In our dreams!!
Seawall chapter, yeah it's funny that they really nice carless unites are so expensive that most living there would never dream of biking.
I will admit that the rain is a problem, but personally I'm looking to get a face-rain shield and hopefully a fender.
Being there amidst the NOISE of the downtown traffic is different than watching it through a video. But I guess if you're on a bike, you pass by it pretty quickly. As a pedestrian, not so much.
do a video on Victoria!
Great video - me crying in LA
Please do Victoria BC too?
Victoria has really impressive cycling statistics, so we did hope to visit to see the infrastructure behind that. Unfortunately the four hour trip each way to get there was too much for the time we had in Vancouver.
@@OhTheUrbanity Thank you for your reply! Hopefully you get to do it the next time! I am using your videos (and others) to judge which Canadian city to move to, based on urban design and mobility factors. Thank you so much for your interesting, well-researched and balanced approach to these topics!
@@OhTheUrbanity I lived and cycled in Victoria over a decade ago and the bike usage anecdotally seemed pretty high back then too, and there was no real infrastructure other than a few painted bike gutters. I think Victoria's high usage is related to its culture, demographics, compact downtown, and lacklustre public transit. If you want to complain about hills though then that's definitely the place to bike.
I was in Victoria a couple weeks ago, and it spent a day biking in the area (45km overall). As a visitor I mostly used the regional biking trails/roads (along the coastline up north up to Mount Douglas Park, and then back using the Lochside regional trail and the Galloping Goose trail back to downtown).
I was pleasantly surprised, especially that cars, pedestrians and bikers all seemed to share the road relatively smoothly. I was also surprised to see that the Lochside trail is able to cover such a long stretch of the area without the need to intersect with roads (except the weird triangular detour at Cedar Hill road where I got lost a bit). You don't feel much in suburbs but rather in the countryside with the parks, lakes, etc... It looked like there were multiple connections with the neighborhoods, but hard to tell if those bike lines are really useful for the daily commute. Still, it looked a lot better than what exists in Vancouver for regional commute by bike.
Vancouver is great, but my biggest complaint is discontinuity of the protected bike lanes/bikeways. For instance, the seawall and the Central Valley Greenway are separated by two blocks of terrifying stroads
locals know you dont bike across Granville! Burrard bridge is the one you take to cycle from Kitsilano to downtown:)
On a bike that would have made sense, but we were walking (from our hotel near Granville Street to Granville Island), and the Burrard Bridge would have been a big detour. I guess the Aquabus would have been a better choice!
@@OhTheUrbanity The Granville bridge is too big and it is a highway design. The new redevelopment is a waste of money, the city need more mental health support and solution for the drug/homeless crisis than extra bikelanes that are used 4-5 months per year.
@@OhTheUrbanity The city is hoping to redesign the bridge sometime in the future. not sure how to speed you are but essentially its going to be a pedestrian space in the middle of the bridge with cars on the outside. It'll be safer to walk but it seems weird not having pedestrian space on the outside to look at and enjoy the water view.
Its funny 24 years born and raised in the city and i've never taken the aquabus. I've spent many days at Granville island watching the aquabus go by though. I think it's time to play tourist in my own city!
7:20 ye the rolls royce cruising through the neighorhood which houses Vancouver's drug problem, classic Vancouver
- On bike infrastructure farther from downtown: There are some really excellent green ways, separated bike lanes, and traffic calmed cycling routes that can take you out into pretty far flung areas of suburbia. Some of them have holes and odd spots, but there's a really good backbone, and great stuff is being added all the time.
- On Mandatory helmet laws: Helmet laws with minimum enforcement seems like the sweet spot. We want to encourage people to wear helmets, because it's absolutely safer, and those laws do that. But the widely known lack of enforcement allows people to bicycle without a helmet who would refuse otherwise. I'm happy with the compromise.
- On aggressive, terrible drivers in luxury cars: Yes, that's not just your imagination. It's an epidemic.
I love riding in traffic in Vancouver I respect motorists and motorists respect me I have never had any issues with motorists on my road bike motorists can sense I respect them that's why.
I've been living and cycling in Van for 3 years (no car) and it's the first time I hear that helmets are mandatory... Clearly it's not enforced
@@martinkent333 How many people in BC killed in or by cars every year? How many killed by bikes? You don't sound stable.
It used to be heavily enforced - to the point that the police did regular blitzes where they would sit at the side of busy bike lanes and pick off bare-headed cyclists. I had four tickets back in those days. In around 2012(ish?) they pretty much stopped enforcing it altogether. This was after much campaigning by cycling activists, a constitutional challenge, big media coverage and public debate - and the realization that the law might be stifling growth in cycling that the city really wanted to promote. And there just wasn't a lot of evidence that it was doing any good.
The supportive politicians would never say out loud that they encouraged the police to back off but I suspect a bit of that happened. Unfortunately the law remains. Proposing to dismantle it comes across politically like eating babies. But we have tons of laws that simply aren't enforced.
I haven't seen or heard of it being enforced since I moved here in 2013-ish, but as a provincial law I wouldn't count on other places ignoring it the same way (I've heard of North and West Van police being stricter on cyclists - not about helmets, but other things like road cyclists not always riding single file when in vehicle lanes)
There are other streets to bike on. You do not need bike lanes on Granville because it is a more bus-focused street.
We walked over the bridge, we didn't bike, and it was mostly cars, not buses.
There are other bridges you can use. Granville street is a major street connecting the airport with downtown. Cambie and Burrard are alternate options
LONG LIVE THE BIKES!
Not gonna lie, if Vancouver is the best for biking in Canada then that makes me, someone who has lived in the greater Vancouver area my whole life, somewhat frustrated. I mean, yay, we're tied for #1, I guess, but I still look at Not Just Bikes's experience with Amsterdam and Rotterdam and think "man, we're pretty shit at this".
Granted, all but eight years of that time was spent in an exurb about 40km away from the City of Vancouver, and even in that time only one year was spent in the city's suburbs, the rest in its exurbs, though all of that time was spent working downtown. Speaking of, while Granville Street downtown has no dedicated bike infrastructure, it's also only open to busses from Hastings to Robson, and is otherwise basically a pedestrianized street.
7:34 That's not also a thing in Toronto? I mean, you would have been biking through and around the financial district of downtown (or at least that's what the streets shown for illustrative purposes are) and the other bike areas are the super-ritzy areas of town. I know the affordability crisis was intended as a separate issue, but those areas are places you don't live in unless you can fork over or manage to get a loan of at least $3 million, and closer to $5-$10 million for the west end homes.
Oh, lastly, the other major concern for bike lanes I've heard is more a suburban/exurban concern. Since the transit system is only really complete inside the city of Vancouver, and even then outside of the central downtown area and Cambie street it's all busses, people generally have to drive into Vancouver, so when new announcements of plans to reduce downtown car lanes for bike lanes come up, the complaint is "oh these city assholes still don't understand that people need to be able to actually get into the city!"
They should standardize the bike infrastructure. Some lanes are together on one side, after crossing a road they are not together anymore but on different sites of the road.
5:37 why are pedestrians forbidden from using the street? Seems like there is plenty of space!
s i d e w a l k
Calgary, helmets are mandatory for children, but optional for adults, although most do.
if you think that bridge is bad you should see Hobart's Tasman Bridge