Vancouver Veloculture

Bikes!! Bike culture in Vancouver is going strong and is visible by the hundreds of passing cyclists out and about using their bikes as transportation to the array of cleverly installed pieces of bike infrastructure that make up Vancouver’s overall bicycle network. The key here is that there IS an infrastructure at all, the city really does want a bicycle presence; a refreshing change from most of the pitifully equipped North American cities (Portland and a few others of course excluded).

I took a short ride and photographed several of the bicycle amenities riders will find on their way around town:

There is a well laid out network of bicycle routes on low traffic residential streets that parallel the major thoroughfares. All streets that are part of the bicycle route system have a bike logo on their street sign (as seen above). Not only is the bike logo on the small street sign, its also on the large sign in the middle of the intersection. The very fact that the bike network was so visible to everyone was impressive to me and it made route finding a cinch without ever looking at a map (try that in any other city!).

Routes also include painted bike logos to let cars know they are on a bicycle priority street and also, as seen above, serve as routefinding aids to tell cyclists where to go to continue along the route. There are also posted green signs along the road for wayfinding as well.

Residential roundabouts are not uncommon on any old street but are heavily used on bike routes. They very successfully slow down cars and also provide a seamless, quick and safe intersection for bikes to cross. I find they also discourage drivers from using the route since they’re forced to slow down keeping these streets quiet. These are a common sight in Seattle, Portland and Berkeley as well.

It’s a common around the city to see signage for cars that makes exceptions for bicycles. These are present often even off bike routes. The signs usually allow bikes to continue straight through an intersection while cars cannot, calming traffic through quiet residential neighborhoods.

For the busier intersections, buttons have been installed to trigger a traffic signal change. These are also found all over the place, not just on the routes; surprising how many there are. This is where the concerted effort of the city to accommodate for bikes is really apparent. These buttons have been contentious in the past though: some bike advocates claim the buttons do harm by putting the rider to the far right of the road where they are in the danger area of right turning vehicles. Their preferred method are road embedded sensors (the more expensive and complicated solution). My opinion: the buttons work and the fear is a bit overstated.

Off topic but I thought it was funny

All that trouble of flipping the bars and levers and retaping and I’d figure they’d just get a riser stem. Never seen STIs on flipped bars before (AKA “bum bars”)

I stopped into a few bike shops (of which there are many) and they had a pleasing supply of commuter oriented products and utilitarian style bikes for sale. There are recreational riders here for sure but I’d dare say the majority of riders are merely point A to point B type of folks which definitely brings a big ol’ smile to my face

23.Sep.09 West Coast Tour