Or: Why spend $10 million building 8km of protected bike lanes on a high street when you can spend $20 million replacing two blocks of an existing bike lane that you once called “perfect.”
If you follow active transport news in Vancouver, you already know the story of the Broadway active transport lanes. The previous council voted overwhelmingly to support installing these lanes on Broadway:
These lanes made so much sense: the timing was perfect with Broadway already an active construction zone due to the subway; all the shops and businesses that locals, tourists, and food delivery workers frequent are on Broadway; and aside from a few protected blocks near VGH, the majority of 10th Avenue – the main “bike route” in the area, looks like this:
But when the implementation vote came in 2023, Mayor Ken Sim and ABC decided to backtrack and cancel the plans for the active transport lanes. The main excuse concerned money and resources: Sim argued we couldn’t afford the estimated $10 million cost because “we don’t live in La La land.”
Later that meeting, Sim noted that this project isn’t necessary because we already have a “perfectly good” bike lane on 10th Avenue (likely referencing the few blocks outside VGH; the rest of 10th has no protected lanes). Well, it turns out this lane wasn’t so “perfect”, since on July 14, ABC passed an amendment to potentially tear it out and replace it with a single bidirectional lane on the north side of the street:
Why does this matter?
When Sim spoke in rejection of the Broadway active transport lanes, he was very clear that we shouldn’t spend more money in this area and instead use the resources to build out our bike lane network in other, underserved areas of the city:
(Needless to say, Sim and ABC have added zero new bike lanes outside of the downtown core in their 4 year term).
So it’s bizarre to see them now pass a motion to rebuild an already functioning bike lane outside VGH. It’s estimated this could cost around $20 million – double the price tag of the entire 8km Broadway active transport lanes.
Even worse, replacing the two unidirectional lanes with a bidirectional lane is a terrible idea. We’ve written a letter to the City outlining why, which you can read in full, but briefly: the new design is less safe, it’s extremely expensive, it creates unpredictability for those with vision disabilities, and it creates new confusion and conflicts between cyclists and vehicles.
Let’s recap
➡️ Mayor Sim and ABC broke a promise made by the previous council to build active transport lanes on Broadway.
➡️ He claimed the money would be better spent elsewhere – then did nothing to expand the city’s bike network.
➡️ He wrongly claimed we already had a perfectly good bike lane on 10th – and are now tearing it out the only good part and replacing it with something worse.
➡️ He claimed the $10 million price tag was too high – but will now spend $20 million doing this.
This is terrible resource management, terrible public safety policy, and terrible governance. A reminder that we have a municipal election this October.
As a bonus, here are two more fun clips: ABC councilor Montague explaining how despite voting against the Broadway bike lanes he cares so much about safety but simply doesn’t have time to explain it to us peasants!
And for a breath of fresh air, OneCity councilor Christine Boyle, who passed the original motion, expressing her feelings on this vote:
Vision Zero Vancouver 