A lane of one's own, an argument for bike lanes
A recent Statistics Canada survey tells us that people who commute by bike are the happiest of all commuters. We could have guessed that, of course; a surprising number of people tell us they would love to ride their bikes to work but feel it is unsafe to ride in or next to traffic, so they don't. Given 28,000 additional cars per year fighting for already congested road space, this is hardly surprising. Better bike lanes might be the solution.
Statisticians count daily trips by bike as compared to people who drive their cars wherever they need to go and to those who walk, and express these as a percentage of the total daily trips taken. Vancouver's current rate of daily trips by bike is between three and four per cent. By North American standards, that's higher than average: most cities in Canada report a bit below two per cent. Victoria has the highest at around eight per cent.
Staff at Vancouver City Hall aspire to a target of 100,000 trips by 2010, which works out to five per cent. To that
end, we now have bike routes where none existed before and small bike lanes are appearing on downtown streets. They consist of a 1.33 metre (52") wide lane defined by a white line painted on the pavement, wedged between parked cars and moving traffic.
How safe are those bike lanes? We don't know: there's no data yet. They don't look very safe and they don't feel very safe. The problem is that they're built right where a parked car's door can suddenly swing open possibly causing a cyclist to crash into it, or – much worse – be knocked off the bike and into oncoming traffic. Moreover, there aren't any traffic laws addressing them yet. We know from David Hay's Legislative Slumber article in momentum 24 that there is no mention of bike lanes in the BC Motor Vehicles Act.
When asked about liability, ICBC carefully stated that while they obviously prefer to investigate on a case-by-case basis, in general they would probably rule that if a car driver is intruding on a bike lane and causing a car/bicycle accident, that car driver would be found liable.
In European cities, bike lanes are often entirely separated from traffic by curbs and bollards. In some places, notably Berlin, they run along extended-width sidewalks attached to, but separated from, the pedestrian sidewalk. The bike lanes have differently coloured pavement, ramped entrances, their own signage and – in some cases – their own traffic lights. In addition to being protected from traffic, they are also covered by legislation, which clearly defines the rights and responsibilities of those using them.
Some studies have suggested that separated bike lanes are, in fact, more dangerous for bike riders than is riding in traffic. In fact, the debate about this is endless. Disagreements occur for two reasons:
1) Most of these studies are not statistically valid since they use very small sample rates. Most of them also ignore the needs of novice riders.
2) Most come from the United States and, as such, are statistically questionable. Out of 11 countries* studied in valid research, the United States spends the least amount per capita on cycling infrastructure, has the lowest daily trip by bike percentage and has the highest number of cyclist injuries or fatalities. In that country, it seems, cycling anywhere except in parks is dangerous.
European countries that spend the most on cycling infrastructure have the highest daily trip by bike percentages and the lowest number of injuries or fatalities. There, the governments began planning for urban cyclists in the 1970s and the results achieved are dramatic: as high as 32 per cent daily in the Netherlands. Children are required to take bike safety training as a part of their curriculum, since most of them ride their bikes to and from school. A special bike sticker from a police inspector shows they have passed the test.
The European cities also implement user-pay policies on private auto use. Many cities have congestion pricing where drivers must pay a toll to enter the downtown core during rush hours. Many have pedestrian-only streets and all have better and more heavily used public transit. Additionally, gasoline is not subsidized to keep prices artificially low, so it is priced at a rate that reflects what it actually costs, usually about twice North American prices.
Who is going to pay for all these bike lanes, then? Who pays for the roads now?
The costs associated with building and maintaining inter-city highways is borne mostly by those who use them , that is, by the motorists and truckers themselves. The government got that right and balances the mixture of user fees and tax allocations fairly and properly for highways. And their usage patterns reflect that: you don't find many bicycles on the highway.
Within the cities, though, it's a different story: Here, the costs for local roadways are derived mainly from local taxes, with few user fees applied. These costs are skewed to favour motorized transport. The table shows the costs imposed through taxes on two fictional users, Mike Motorist and Frances Footpower.
The point here is not so much that Frances is overpaying (given that she represents a small percentage of the population), but rather that the remaining Mikes are being subsidized by a bit under $20 per month. There are a lot of Mikes, and if there are 28,000 new ones each year, that represents $6,600,000 in extra hidden subsidies, escalating and compounding per year. There's obviously money available.
Additionally, motorists benefit from zoning bylaws requiring that parking be provided for their vehicles. As such, it's hardly surprising that so many drivers believe the road is there for them alone. That belief is conditioned and reinforced by an urban environment that is overwhelmingly designed to accommodate cars rather than people.
Some commentators claim that European cycling infrastructure wouldn't work in North American cities, for several reasons.
First: our cities are much larger and less dense than theirs; we have a lot more sprawl. That is a suburban problem (one of many) and should be addressed by the suburban municipalities. Some are beginning to do so. The City of Richmond has good bike lanes but they are not separated, and a cyclist was killed in one of them in October 2006. That is tragic because if there's anywhere that has available space to build and test separated bike lanes, it's Richmond.
Second: downtown real estate costs too much to waste on bike lanes. If that's true, it also costs too much to waste on parking lots. Roads and parking already take up 30 per cent of urban real estate and, as noted above, the motorists are not paying their fair share. This space needs to be reclaimed and redistributed fairly.
Both of these arguments are short-sighted. The European cities mentioned here have 30+ years of experience building such infrastructure, testing it, and seeing what works and what doesn't. They have already solved most of the inherent problems. They have provided safe and usable bike lanes into and throughout their central cities and as a result, people use them.
Of the cities studied, Copenhagen seems to have the wisest approach. Each year, two to three per cent of car parking is removed from the central city and redistributed to cyclists and pedestrians.
Vancouver has done well so far with its bike routes, and the mid-arterial medians that allow a bike to pass through, but not a car. Traffic calming in neighbourhoods is well-implemented, as are the push-button stoplights but, PLEASE put some red-light cameras on them. The city could make a lot of money from fining drivers who speed up to blast through those, something the author sees every day.
We're not so thrilled downtown, though. Downtown traffic does not move very fast, but it is still dangerous to cyclists. The narrow painted bike lanes feel tentative and exposed. We need better and safer facilities for riding.
To make this possible, we suggest cong-estion pricing for people driving a car to the downtown core during the day, and the gradual removal of public space currently subsidized for vehicle parking. There's also room for innovation: try putting bike lanes in some alleys – before the condo developers claim them all for driveways; remove a parking lane from a one-way street and designate it for bikes only; perhaps even try a (gasp!) car-free street or two.
What cyclists want most is to avoid conflict with motor vehicles. Some separated bike lanes into and throughout the downtown core would go a long way toward achieving that and greatly increase the number of happy bike commuters. Guaranteed.
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