Vancouver snow response: when ideology trumps reality

The pictures above could not all refers to the same snow fall day, but every snow day convey the same story: A transit meltdown when the city seems to not spare any energy to clear the bikeway network.

The biais has been noticed by several media outlet, and seems encouraged by some which could have some influence on the city hall culture:

2 key #Copenhagen maps: #cycletrack streets, & those where winter maintenance is prioritized. Notice anything?… twitter.com/i/web/status/8…

—
Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) December 06, 2016

albeit, some city staffs seem to want to make sure no tax dollars are spared toward the well being of cyclists:

But we can always improve our cycling comfort- I'll make the sure my team considers 'snow clearing bike wayfinding'… twitter.com/i/web/status/8…

—
Dale Bracewell (@Dale_Bracewell) December 09, 2016

It is  possible that local advocates misinterpret how the things are done in Copenhagen, where the bike lanes use to be along the city’s arterials:

The city of Vancouver explains it has 14  “priority” route: in fact, it has 14 route, period: one of them looks like:

Only ~50% of this route cover either a truck route or a frequent transit network route. and the crux of the underwhelming Vancouver snow response lies here: there is virtually no route priotization which leads to high inefficienies in the way snow removal equipment are deployed.

~200km of high priority route to clear in the city limits, covering the Frequent Transit Netwrok, major truck routes, main hospital accesses, and the municipal “Disaster response routes“

the above map covers the frequent transit network, major truck route, hospital access, and the municipal “Disaster response” routes in the city limits: that represents ~200km of streets: 14 snow plowers can clear this entire network, one lane/direction, in ~1 hour (assuming a ~30km/h snow plow average speed): On friday, February 3rd, the total snow accumulation was ~12cm, falling at a rate of less than ~1cm/hr on average, and still the city let much more than 5cm of snow to accumulate on the main arterials such as Granville where the transit service was halted several time during the day…same on 41st and 49th avenue to speak only of few I have been made aware, not discounting the bus 20 was still not able to make south of 54th on February 8th. A similar transit meltdown occured on Monday 6th, total snow precipitation for the day: 7cm!

another problem could be due to the deployment procedure of the snow plowing equipments: plowing takes place if there is more than 5cm of snow accumulation. The 5cm trigger is the same as in Toronto, however the level of water content in snow tend to be 50% higher on the west coast, so that the same level of snow precipitation leads to significantly more slushy condition in Vancouver than in Toronto [1]…. Also, Toronto deploys snow plowing equipment as soon as 2cm of snow accumulates on its expressway networks.

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[1] this is extrapolated from USA data. for more information on the relative level of water content in snow, see Martin Baxter: Snow to liquid ratio, climatology and forecast methodologies, 2005

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Arbutus corridor and accessibility: a straw man argument?

the debate is framed like it: to be against a blacktop path  is to be against accessibility.

Accessibility for all activities or all abilities?

It is no secret that the debate is mainly  geared by the Vancouver cycling community, and the main local organization, HUB, has made clear its vision; a cycling highway -where one can “bike from the Fraser River to False Creek in  30mn” (that makes an average speed of 20km/h+) [1]. From there,  the conversation regarding accessibility is mainly reduced to wheelchair accessibility concerns, while at the same time accessibility is understood as skate board and roller skate users inclusion.

However, if we understand accessibility as “universal access” for people with impairment of various nature, the conversation take another turn: A trail where a cyclist can  zip at 25km/h  becomes quickly unfriendly to people with a visual impairment [2]. The accessibility problem is multidimensional and can’t be reduced by how comfortable it is for the small wheels.

A cycling corridor or a  greenway Promenade/trail

Emphasis on cycling speed, as  Hub is advocating for, is in full contradiction with the concept of Promenade as inferred by a Greenway designation  [3].  We can consider 2 main family of promenades:

• Scenic promenades; and
• Experential promenades

The Vancouver Seawall is a great example of scenic promenade: the emphasis and the purpose of the promenade are the views it can offer. The west Richmond dykes falls also in this category. other trails could not offer too much of a view but  a more experiential aspect: the Stanley park  inner trails fall in this category, as well as the Richmond Shell road trail or the Lynn valley trails (including its suspended bridge).

If the focus of a trail is a  viewpoint, one would like then provide the easiest access to it, if the focus of a trail is experiential, then one would like provide the best compromise comfort/experience. That is the trail itself, and noticeably its surface shouldn’t distract of the experience, which sensorial aspect must not be neglected. A universal accessibility  trail exists in Stanley park, it is Beaver lake trail [6]:

Stanley park: Beaver lake trail entrance

Similar trails exist elsewhere in the region, Fitzsimmons trail in Whistler, the Panorama trail at the top of the Squamish SeatoSky Gondola or the Spirea nature trail in the Golden Ears park are among them. However some other trails, though not designed universally accessible  could in fact be much more wheelchair friendly that the Stanley park’s Beaver trail (which has not keep up with the up to date standards): it is at least the case of most of the Burnaby Central park trails:

The wide and flat enough trails of the Burnaby central park offer good rolling condition, and stay in good condition during raining periods as illustrated in this Google view.

The Stanley park trails accessibility could not be up to the current standards:
What about the state of the art?

In BC, the very recently opened Great West Life trail in Prince George is pretty much the state of art:

The Great West Life Trail of Prince George

A hard packed surface, soft enough for the knees of the elder, and still presenting good rolling capability, as well as other surface treatments, such has woodboards, provide a rich experience [4]. It features wheel-guard where required and slope not greater than 3%. Such a trail design is the result of a cooperation with the Spinal Cord Injury-BC society.

Trail head accessibility?

It is another aspect where the Burnaby central park is hard to beat: it is directly serviced by the Skytrain (Patterson station) as well as 2 frequent transit bus routes (19 and 49). Something Stanley park can’t compete with.

What about the bikes on an universally accessible trail?

The state of the art doesn’t seem to have found a compromise much better than this:

The all ability accessible GWL trail in Prince George is not allowed to bike

The banning of bike from Universal accessible trail, seems to be common [5] for reasons previously touched. Cycling is in theory also not allowed on the “universal accessiblity” trails of Stanley park , but the rule is not well respected.

A preliminary conclusion

Our region is surrounded by trails often offering first class experience, but when time comes to find an accessible trail, the region becomes  a laggard. When it is time to find an “universally accessible trail” reachable by public transit: pretty much nothing exists.

it is where the Arbutus corridor becomes a golden opportunity: it presents many characteristic required for  an “universally accessible trail”, first of them, being the gentle grade, second being the experiential aspect- including the sensorial aspect capitalizing on the meandering among community gardens. third it is easily reachable by many frequent transit routes, allowing to experience it in many different ways.

It is also clear that an  “universally accessible trail” vision capitalizing on the experiential aspect of a greenway is not compatible with the cycle track vision as exposed by Hub, and a compromise will need to be found.

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[1] Arbutus Greenway Announced, Hub news, March 14, 2016

[2] Similarly, Accomodating visual impaired people is also the main challenge the designer of shared space has to address

[3] A reason why a cycle track on the Paris Petite Ceinture (a disused rail corridor) has been dismissed, as we have seen in a previous post

.

[4] It is also  good at maintaining the motor skills  and enhance  the mental health, a reason why such surfacing are often preferred.

[5] It is also  the case for the promenade built on the Paris Petite Ceinture, among others.

[6] The ravine trail is also presented as “universal accessible” by the Vancouver park board, thought it has some questionable access impediment.

On the capacity of bikeways

it has been lot of research carried out on the capacity of roads, transit or pedestrians infrastructures, with results proven empirically. Such don’t really exist for the cycle tracks, but as the success of the London’s “Super cycling highways” shown, it will become a significant matter

NACTO, in a recent publication [8], estimates the capacity of a 2 way bike lane (3 to 3.50m) at 7,500 bike/hour. This number seems to be derived of the Highway Capcity Manual citing very dusty publications [1]. this post argues that the capacity of a bikeway is more in the 1,500 cyclist/hr/lane (where a lane is 1.20m to 1.5m wide)

A short Litterature review

Most of the papers trying to estimate a bike lane’s throughput tend to rely either on mathematical models, experiments or a blend of both:

An example of experiment leaded by [2] to determinate a bike lane throughput. The experiment above has allowed [2] to conclude that the capacity of a bikelane should be in the 2,500 bike/hr range

The problem of such approaches is they are not (yet) validated by practice (…and in some case, the experiments seem to be more representative of a velodrome typology than an urban bike lane). They also tend to provide a great range of result: One literature study [3] found a capacity of 1,500-5,000 cyclists per hour and traveling speed around 12-20 km/h. Another literature study [4] found a capacity of 2,000-10,000 cyclists per hour for a 2.5 m wide cycle track. It is also important to notice that all these numbers concern an uninterrupted bike lane (e.g bike lane with no intersection).

However, [5] ( as cited by [6] ) reported that the theoretical and practical capacities of a Chinese bicycle lane are about 2000 bicycles/h/ln and 1280 bicycles/h/ln, respectively… That is also in line with an empirical result presented by [7] concerning the Denmark:

Bike lane capacity as a function of its width, as according to [7]

How much lanes of cyclists fit in 3.5m width bikeway
[7] tend to answer to it:

If a 1.8 to 2 m wide bikeway fit 2 lanes of cyclists, any additional lane could require a 1.20m additional width (notice that the cyclists could have a tendency to ride in quincunx to increase their available lateral room). That is the reason for the suggested significant increase in capacity as soon as an unidrectional bike lane reach 3m in the graph above. (There is also some reasons to believe that a 4 meters bidirectioanl bike lane is not width enough to enable 2 lanes of cyclists in each direction in a sustainable way: see video below)

Validation of the numbers in practice

Up to recently, it was basically no opportunity to validate a bikelane model capacity in real life. China of course has wide and busy bike lanes, but they has never presented a typology directly applicable to Europe or America, be by their different geometry or by the type of vehicle: many trikes (up to recently), and nowadays those bikelane tend to be overwhelmed by sccoter (electric or not) (- 70% in Hangzhou as measured by [6]. Bikes also tend to move much more slowly). However, with the recent opening of the London cycle highway this things could change:

Good Morning, London. This is what London's Blackfriars Bridge looks like #cyclesuperhighway https://t.co/byAMWq1QLz

—
Sustrans London (@SustransLondon) May 17, 2016

This video represent the cycling traffic on the London’s Blackfriars bridge: The incoming lanes presents the symptom of a bikeway reaching capacity (bike moving slowly, at speed apparently just enough to maintain balance, and the rare occasional take over use the opposite lane)

What is the effective throughput of Black friars Bridge bike lane?

Sure enough, some cycling supporters quickly raised the question while some other provided some numbers. Here are ours

• there are 37 incoming cyclists crossing a a line (represented by the bottom of the video)
• there are 24 outgoing cyclists crossing the same line

that represents an “instant” throughput of 11,000 cyclists/hour on a period of 20s, or ~3,300 cyclists/hour/ln in the busiest direction (or the equivalent of 10,000 cyclists/hour per car width lane).

First issue, Instant throughput ≠ Throughput

Traffic tends to not flow homegeneously (move in wave, aka “stop and go” traffic), and a measure on 20s can’t be directly scaled into a more generalized throughput. [7] faced with similar issues applied a correction factor based on freeway traffic observation (by comparing maximum observed traffic volumes in 15 minute intervals and maximum volumes in 10 and 20 sec intervals on freeways): this correction factor is estimated to be 0.63

The estimated maximum throughput per lane observed on the Blackfriar Bridge video above become closer to 2000bile/hr/lane. Still a sustantial number (but already significantly less than the number touted by NACTO), a number also in agreement with theorical number exposed by

[5]

Second issue, Uninterrupted bike lane throughput ≠ Interrupted bike lane Throughput

The video below better illustrates the later issue:

Wow, exactly as predicted! RT @steinsky: Nobody uses the #cyclesuperhighway because the queues are too long. pic.twitter.com/YEcPVdkzz9

— Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman) May 10, 2016

There are right and left turning cyclists, which fatally indhers the capacity of a bike lane…and there are signal controlled intersections (a necessity as illustrated by the difficulty of the cyclist, waiting at an intersection, to integrate itself in the main bike lane). As for motor traffic, all these tend to halve the real capacity of a typical interrupted urban bike lane vs an hypothetcal uninterrupted one. So that the real capacity we could measure here tend to be more in the ~1,000 to ~1,700 bike/hr/ln (according to if we apply a correcting factor or not). Those numbers are also in line with results from the field carried by [5] and [7]

Why all that matters?
Notice the 2 double deckers in one lane, seen in less than 30s: Could we conclude that the transit capacity of this lane is 24,000people/hour?

It matters since wrong numbers could lead to wrong decisions on the allocation of the street space, but also on the “right sizing” of a bike infrastructure.
The matter is of importance, essentially in regard of transit:

There is no question that a bike lane can achieve a very high throughput but does a 3.5 meter bike lane can carry as much as people than a tram or a BRT?

According to NACTO, a bus lane (BRT) can carry 4,000 people (8,000 if train): Those number thought slightly optimistic [9] are fairly realistic, and can be verified empirically…Here we infer that a bike lane of similar width (3 to 3.5m) can be competitive with a buslane but not a trams transit system, in term of throughput.

Furthermore we have not touched the whole notion of Level of Service: the mentioned capacity for Transit are design capacity, that is capacity allowing the transit system at its design (optimal) speed. Reaching the capacity of the bike lane as measured on the BlackFriars Bridge tend to infers a degradation of the speed for cyclists (at least by queuing at traffic light). We also didn’t touch the bike parking issue

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[1] the third edition of the Highway capacity Manual suggests a capacity range of 1700-2500 bicycle/hr/ln where each lane is 3 to 4 feet. Those numbers are inferred of previous publication (“bikeway planning design and guideline” institute of traffic and transportation engineering University of California at Los Angeles 1972, “Geometric Design” by W. King, C., and Harkens, in Transportation and Traffic Engineering Handbook, Institute of Transportation Engineers, 1972). the 7,500 number touted by the NACTO correspond to the highest range of it considering that a 3.5m wide can feet 3 lanes of bike

[2] “Experimental feature of bicycle flow and its modeling” Jiang R. Hu M. , Wu Q. and Song W.

[3] “Operational Analysis of Uninterrupted Bicycle Facilities”, Allen, P., Rouphail, N., Hummer, J. E., and Milazzo, J. S. Transportation Research Record, 1636 29-36, 1998

[4] “Bicycle Traffic Flow Characteristics: Experimental Re-sults and Comparisons”, Navin, F. P. D. ITE Journal, 64 31-36, 1994

[5] “Capacity and level of service for urban bicycle path in China”, Feng Li, China MUnicpal Engineering magazine 1995, 71: 11-14

[6] “Estimating Capacity of Bicycle Path on Urban Roads in Hangzhou, China”, Zhou D., Xu, C. and Wang D. , Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting, 1995.

[7] Analysis of Bicycle Traffic on One-way Bicycle Tracks of Different Width, Thomas Skallebæk Buch and Poul Greibe, Trafitec,

[8] Transit Street Design Guide, NACTO 2016

[9] The French CERTU suggest a design capacity of 3,500 for aBRT, 6,000 fro a tram. Translink considered a design capacity of 3,000 for a BRT, and 7,000 for a LRT on Broadway.

Burrard Bridge: a follow-up

Some remarks on the report to be presented to the Standing Committee on Planning, Transportation and Environment [2], On July 22.

Bus stop and line of sight at Burrard#Pacific

As mentioned in a previous post’s comment, the COV planners indicated some line of sight involved by the Burrard street concave alignment at Pacific were cause of concern for CMBC toward the implementation of a South Bound bus stop on the South West corner of the intersection. The problem is illustrated below:

due to the concave alignment of Burrard. A bus could need to be positioned at an angle preserving line of sight on incoming traffic, before reentering traffic: that would be an angle similar to the current slip-in lane to  not compromise lines of sight

Hindered lines of sight for bus leaving a stop, due to a concave alignment of the street, exist in multiple locations on the Transit bus network. a short list below:

• University Blvd at UBC
• 41st avenue at Mc Kinnon
• Kingsway at Patterson
• The exit of the Bridgeport bus loop

While the line of sight concern are legitimate, they could have been overblown in the case of Burrard bridge. They can be addressed by external safety mirror, as often seen in Europe. Here there is sufficient room to accommodate an articulated bus at an angle preserving the line of sight for a safe pull-out:

A design, where the bus bay is in the alignement of Burrard street North of Pacific [4], bus bay designed in accordance with [3]. The tall cypress is obviously not in the way. A protected bike box with an advanced traffic signal allow EW connection along Pacific

We were admittedly too optimistic to see the City elaborates on the above solution. Instead, The line of sight concerns expressed at the open house, have since been replaced by the concerns on the preservation of a cypress tree which could not have been endangered by a bus bay on the south side.

We tend to see all that as excuses for inaction. Whether not, the restoration of the south bound bus stop on the North West corner of the intersection should have been in order. However, after feedback of the public, the initial proposal to move the South Bound bus stop further north has been given up. Instead, the bus stop will be moved south by half a block (from Burnaby to Drake). It is a step in the right direction, but insufficient: It seems nothing more than paying lip service: Transit accessibility is still much worse than it was in 2009 and before.

Pacifc East West bike connection

Our above proposal integrate them with an island to create a protected bike box, which can be given and advanced signal. the design to be submitted to the council also propose a bike box, but in what seems to be a more clumsy way:

the bike box for thru movement is in a right turn bay! this right turn bay is supposed to have green light while the the thru lane could still be on red (to protect right urning from Burarrd to Pacific East). That creates confusion and place cyclists in an uncomfortable spot

The Suicide prevention barrier

This part was not presented at the open-house, and “popped up” afterward, the reasons why are unclear, since the City is supposed to have engaged with stack-holders ahead of the general public open-houses, where the issue could have been identified. Burrard bridge being such a iconic bridge, its alteration by suicide barriers, which also hinder the view of the bridge span, and affect negatively the user experience, raise some legitimate concerns from heritage groups.

Mapo Bridge, Seoul, Korea, use technology, art and interactivity to reduce suicide rate, without relying on high suicide barrier

Due to this, the request for more consultation seems reasonable. The city could explore alternative to physical barriers. The Mapo bridge in Seoul, Korea, using technology to detect suicide attempt, and then connect victim with help, could be an option to consider, after having a correct assessment of the experience [1]

Overall, The Burrard North end project seems to be a bit rushed.

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[1] Many medias, especially in North America, have reported the experience as failure, because the reported “suicide attempt” have increased by a 600% after the introduction of suicide prevention measure. However many observers consider the experience as successful, since the effective number of committed suicide has been reduced by 77% . One can conjecture that distressed people could target Mapo bridge, knowing they get a chance to be recognized as such and get helped. On the Authority side, it also help to locate those distressed people, and provide them with the needed help to prevent suicide in general.

[2] Burrard Bridge Upgrades and North Intersection Improvements, City Of Vancouver, Lon Laclaire, July 13, 2015

[3] BC Transit Infrastructure Design Guidelines, Nov 2010.

[4] here we provide a design maximizing the line of sight. However, the required length of the line of sight could be shorter, allowing to reduce the angle of the bus bay.

Burrard bridge: the war on Transit continues

On June 1st, The city of Vancouver released its plan to upgrade the intersection at the North side of the Burrard bridge [3]:

The revamped interestion feature a Bike lane on the East side of the Burrard bridge, granting access to pedestrian on the east side too, and the removal of the accident prone slip lane

Beside the removal of the accident prone slip lanes, and the reopening to pedestrians of the East side of the bridge deck; granted by a new bike lane; there is little improvement for the cyclists and pedestrians: Many connectivity options are still forbidden, either by law or by design:

In red, the prohibited directional change for cyclists (see bottom of the post for the bus stop suggestion)

Notice that the design allows to do a left hook turn from Burard Northbound, or Pacific Westbound since the intersection presents a Dutch interesection characteristic on its North side

• Same could be possible on the South side, albeit at the price to add a traffic signal cycle, to allow unimpeded bike/pedestrian East-West movement on the South side of Pacific. (but what are the priority of the city?)
• Alternately, the construction of ramps to allow to use the bridge underpass (lane on the south side of Pacific), could provide a solution if such is possible

Worth also to note that the planters separating the bike lane on Burrard Street would be gone:

• Such planters are insulating the bike path too much of its environment, what create a safety hazard at interesection

That said such a wrong step seems to be taken on Pacific

All in all, due to the non addressing of prohibited turns for active travel mode, the proposal looks more as a missed opportunity to improve connectivity for cyclists and pedestrians than a real improvment: in some sort, the whole exercise seems more guided by the ideological desire to remove a lane of traffic on the Burrrad bridge than anything else.

All that could be not that bad if the proposal was not used as a weapon to attack the city buses once again.

The Transit issue

bike lane in Vancouver are typically built at the expense of anyone not cycling

When the West side bike lane has been built in 2009, the southbound bus stop at Pacific#Burrard has been decommissioned: another bus stop has been implemented at Burnaby#Burrard. Especially due to the steep terrain nature in the vicinity [1], that has defacto put the south side of Pacific street out of reach of the Burrard buses, hence the Frequent Transit network, while he Burnaby bus stop is widely redundant with the Davie bus stop in term of coverage:

400m Catchement area of bus stop considering the street grid and terrain elevation change: in green the Davie bus stop coverage. In red, the additional area covered by the Burnaby bus stop. In blue the area not covered any more due to the lost of the Pacific bus stop Southbound.

Far to improve this dire situation, it is suggested to make it worse, by relocating the Burnaby bus stop ever farther away: the new Burnaby bus stop could be a mere 30 meter away of the Davie bus stop!

Why that?

Because the city so far has conceived its bike lane at the expense of Transit. The “legacy” bike lane on most of Burrard looks like below:

The existing bike lane on Burard is sandwiched between general traffic lanes and a bus lane: a less than ideal situation credit photo (2)

An obviously less than ideal pattern, which call for correction: a protected bike lane. That is good, but on the city watch, it is apparently not compatible with a bus stop. Of course it doesn’t need to be…even in Vancouver:

Bus stop on Vancouver Dunsmuir avenue – Credit photo Paul Krueger

Several ways to address the bike+bus interaction exist, as noticed by Jarret Walker. As him, we prefer a “table” or shared space solutions for the bike lane that alert the cyclist to yield to peds in this situation, as we have seen before:

An example of bike + bus stop inetgration

It looks the city is more leaning toward a floating island concept, which is at least considered for the Burrard#Pacific Northbound bus stop: the important is to see the access to transit to be addressed. What is possible for the North bound bus stops, must certainly be too for the South bound bus stops

In the present case, it looks like the removal of the slip lanes allow for ample room at the south-West intersection to implement a floating island concept with a bus bay (to not impediment traffic) as suggested in the second illustration of this post.

In any case, the lack of connectivity improvement for cyclists and more critically, the absence of consideration for transit, make the city proposal a bad one. On a positive note, those shortcomings are relatively easy to address and we are hopeful to see the proposal modified in a postive direction

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[1] a rule of thumb is to consider that 10 meters elevation change is equivalent, be in time or energy, to 100 meters distance on flat (e.g. the Grouse Grind hike is 2.8km long but with an elevation change of 853meter: that is equivalent to a hike of 11.43km (2.9km+ 10*0.853km) on a flat terrain.

[2] Girls and Bicycles.ca

[3] See also the discussion on Pricetags

Transit on Commercial Drive…or the cost of a bike lane

Some numbers extracted from the Translink GTFS feed [4] (for the day of Sept 5th, 2014), for the 2km segment between Hasting and Broadway. The current average speed is ~11.5km/h, could be increased to ~15km/h with a bus lane…or reduced to ~9km/h according to the tradeoff done to implement bike paths

• number of #20 runs: 304 (but I counted only 276 between Broadway and Hasting) requiring a minimum of 19 vehicles in revenue service [3]
• time and speed between Broadway and Hasting [6]:

Min time	Average time	Max time
10.3mn	5.3mn	12.4mn
Max speed	Average speed	Min speed
22.6km/h	11.65km/h	9.65km/h

• ~15,700 annual operating hours meaning $1.57 millions in annual operating cost (at $100/hr, in line with [5])

bus lane Impact on Commercial Drive
We are considering the previously presented Commercial Drive proposal as illustrated below

4.5meters wide bike+bus lanes, with bus keeping in its lane at bus stop. It features transit signal priority and right turn specific signal to protect both transit and cyclists – Transit average speed is estimated at 15km/h

• This bus lane, featuring clearly marked corridors (protected in one direction) and transit priority signal, suggests that average speed typical of BRT or urban LRT could be achieved: that is ~20km/h.
• That said, noticeabily because the stop are closely spaced, an average speed of 15km/h could be more realisticaly and conservatively achieved:
That is roughly the average speed of the bus 20 outside the Commercial Drive segment.

Annual operating cost

average speed	Average time	Annual operating cost
9km/h	13.3mn	$1.9M
11.5km/h	10.5mn	$1.5M
15km/h	8mn	$1.2M
20km/h	6mn	$0.9M

The potential operating cost saving is in the tune of of $300,000 to $600,000/year.

On the opposite, a configuration of Commercial Drive with a single lane of traffic per direction to preserve parking [2], negatively impacts the speed of the bus, as we have seen before:

Commercial street redesigned as per StreetForeveryone group – Transit average speed is estimated at 9km/h

Similar configurations, be on Davie or Robson, suggest a reduction of the average speed to ~9km/h; That could increase the route 20 operating cost by $400,000/year:

the bus+bike lanes proposal is conductive of $1 Million in operating cost saving versus a proposal favoring street parking over transit.

A bus lane + traffic signal priority, allows an increase in the bus schedule reliability: lay over can be reduced accordingly, increasing the operating saving

Operating cost is only part of the picture:

Capital cost

the slower a bus route is, the more buses are required at same frequency/seat capacity:

The steeper the slope of a line, the faster the travel, and the sooner a vehicle return to its orgin, ready to do another run. the number of starting lines in between represent the required number of vehicle – credit Melbourne on Transit

The bus requirement is compounded by two conflating issues:

Demand is at its greatest at peak hour, but

transit speed is also at its slowest at peak hour

.

On the route 20, afternoon peak hour traffic cost ~4 buses:

number of vehicle in service on route 20 according to the time of the day (graph for friday Sept 5th, 2014)

A bus lane, making transit more immune to traffic congestion, allows to reduce drastically the peak hour buses requirement (in our example, the average speed maintained at ~15km/h, vs 9.5km/h currently in peak hour)

Adding a peak hour bus is a very expensive proposition: it means (to preserve spare ratio, and other contingency)

• the Purchase of an additional bus
• Adding storage capacity for this bus (even if in use 20mn a day)
• Adding maintenance cost
• adding a driver on payroll and all ancilliairy cost (training, administration)

According to a conversation with a former Toronto Transit Commission employee, the TTC is costing an additional peak hour bus at $100,000 a year (that is for a 40footer, typically sold a ~$300,000)

It is worth to note that Translink is in very short supply of articulated trolleybus, estimated each at $1M

Revenue

It is no secret that the faster a transit service is, the more ridership it will attract. That has been again recently verified in Seattle, with a quasi linear relationship:

• an increase of 20% in speed is conductive of a similar increase in the ridership, which de facto increase the bus operator revenue[1]

This coumpounded to lower operating cost makes Transit much more financially sustainable.

Conclusion

When all the effects are combined, it is relatively conservative to estimate that a bike lane, done at the expense of transit on Commerical, could end up to cost more than $1 million/year to Translink, when compared to a solution improving both

…and here we have analyzed only the direct cost for Translink…

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[1] New markings aim to keep drivers out of Battery Street bus lane, Aubrey Cohen, SeattlePi- Tuesday, October 21, 2014.

[2] We refers here to the “Street for Everyone” proposal we have previouslly discussed, which has also been discussed on the pricetag blog.

[3] That makes the route 20 the 4th most frequent bus route of the network, behind route 99,9 and 41.

[4] See our reference spreadsheet (which has been updated with the 2014 data) for further detail.

[5] We use here the hourly operating cost as stated in the 2013 Bus Service Performance Review (see Annex A): it is worth to note that this hourly operating cost doesn’t include neither bus lay over and dead end trips. It doesn’t differentiate artics buses from standard ones too: the $100 mark is a very significant under estimate of the real operating cost of a route. A $180 per customer hour service could be closer to reality as we have seen before.

[6] It seems that the average speed of the route 20 is decreasing year over year, almost 10% reduction in the last 7 years according to our spreadsheet [4] (which also depends of the Translink data quality): A probable consequence of the city council inaction on Transit front

Bike Lanes on Commercial Drive?

The first round of segregated bike tracks has essentially concerned non essential transit corridors (Dunsmuir, Hornby…), but it is natural for cyclists to expect similar bike facilities on the Main arterial of the city, where shopping destination are located. Not surprisingly some groups are making pressure toward it. That should be an opportunity for the various municipal candidates to offer their vision and their differentiators on a complex problem which will require significant trade-off, and priority setting. Since transit has been much neglicted by the current council, the prospect of bike lane along transit corridors become a matter of concerns for Transit advocates

Below is an exert of the “Commercial Drive Campaign” by “Streets for Everyone” :

Commercial street redesigned as per “Streets For For Everyone” group [3]

The main strength of this proposal is that it exists and provides a basis for discusssion. It also highlight the reason of our concerns in regard of Vancouver bike lanes: They obey to a disturbing sense of priorities:

• “Our plan leaves parking intact on both sides of the street”

…The same sense of priorities which could have lead to pave Kitsilano park to save street parking. Here there is no park, but there is the very important transit route 20, which is neglicted: It is nevertheless called a “win-win-win” proposal by some bike lanes advocates for the reasons below:

mode	Improvment
Pedestrians
Cyclists
Transit Users
Car Users
Emergency Vehicles

This layout, where the bus can be hold back by left and right turning cars, as well as the occasional parking car, is obviously very detrimental to Transit:

• On could expect the average speed of the bus 20, actually ~ 14km/h, to slow down to the one of the bus 5 or 6 (lower than 9km/h), which face similar street configuration (single traffic lane + parking lane). Speed is an issue, reliability is another one.

Such a slow down can have a dramatic impact

• On the attractivity of Transit, defeating a purpose of a street calming effort (get more people to choose alternative mode to car)
• On the operating cost of the line. so such proposal can be in be fact very costly [1].

It is hence very important to find a compromise which not only is not detrimental to Transit but can also be an opportunity to improve it:

Thought Commercial Drive is relatively narrow (80feet), it is possible to find an arrangement which improve the bike experience as well as the Transit experience:

The bike lane + bus lanes is 4.5meters wide…the all purpose lanes total 9m wide (including separator), leaving space for sidewalks not narrower than today

The width of the all purpose lanes is what can be seen on most of the Vancouver residential street, such as 6th avenue (#Commerical),

• It is enough to preserve a parking lane, but that means drivers must be willing to “share the street” and negociate with other drivers, as illustrated in the above rendering, on some uncommon but possible traffic case involing large vehicles
• Traffic lane are ~3m wide, not unlike the traffic lanes on Number 3 road in Richmond (North of Westminster Hwy)
Narrow traffic lanes are a powerful device toward traffic calming
• The bus lane on the parking lane side is “protected”, both from dooring and ill parked vehicles, while the one on the other side can be infringed (“mountable obstacle”) to allow occasional passing of large vehicle
• The Bus+bike lanes are 4.5meter wide, a parisian standard [4]. Could it be possible to slighlty separate them, in a Dutch way (that is by having raised bike lane)? may be, but the preservation of a parking lane make the proposal difficult.
• The bus lanes morph in emergency lane when needed

All in all:

mode	Improvment
Pedestrians
Cyclists
Transit Users
Car Users
Emergency Vehicles

The above is a suggestion fitting better the objective of the 2040 Vancouver transportation plan: It must certainly exist better layouts. A complete economic analysis of a street layout could be useful to determine the objective value of one layout vs another one [1].

This proposal, as the “Streett for everyone” one, is uncompatible with the Mayors council idea of a hierarchized (local+express) transit service on Commercial, idea proposed for the Transit referendum

Intersection treatments

“Street for every one” suggests “dutch intersections” pretty much every where:

The ducth intersection offers dangerous conflict points, if one street doesn’t have bike lanes

We prefer a more traditional bike box (doubled of a “queue jumper”) on street bereft of bike lanes: A solution avoiding some unnecessary conflict, and also more friendly to pedestrians (no detour imposed around the dutch “circle”):

Bike boxes on crossing streets are used to do a left turn

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[1] Here, we mention only the Transit operating cost, which could increase in the tune of million of $ due to lack of bus priority, but Transit lack of efficiency has more generalized social cost, in term of lost time,… as suggested by George Poulos on Price Tags

[2] See also Urban reality and transitized viewpoint.

[3] The blue car in the rendering is a Toyota Passo, it is a sub compact car, not seen in North America. We have included the same car in our rendering along other more common model seen in the Vancouver street to provide a better idea of the width of the different lanes.

[4] The STM is also experimenting a 4.5 meter wide bus+bike lane on Viau Street in Montreal, albeit with slightly different configuration (see “Can buses and bikes safely use the same reserved lane?, Montreal Gazette, July 14, 2014 )/p

Cycling or not in Hadden park

This article has been mainly written in November 2013, so could need to be read in the context of a still active law suit regarding the construction of a bike path in Hadden park [4]. I have added further information made available in the interim

Is it legal to cycle in Hadden park (block 136-137)?

Like in most of the urban parks, cycling is prohibited in Vancouver parks, except on footpath or promenade specifically designated as a cycle path [2]: Does such exception exist for Hadden park?

The cycle maps provided by different sources from City of Vancouver seem to be confusing:

The Vancouver cycle map (1) seems to indicate a path thru the north of the maritime museum, hence not on the land covered by the Haden covenant, but that is not practcal, while the report (3) seems to indicate a shared bike/pedestrain path thru the Hadden donation

The signs, along the seaside route, say a total different story again:

various sign along the seaside bike lane in Kits point

The real sanctioned route is apriori:

the existing seaside route, as according to signage

The Vancouver street and traffic by-law confirms this interpretation [5]

extract of [5] showing that the existing Seaside bikeway doesn’t infringe Hadden park

The lawsuit [4]

The Nov 2013 Megan Carvell-Davis vs City of Vancouver lawsuit states two important points:

• The City of Vancouver approved an “active transportation corridor” which mandates a bicycle path through Hadden park but requires the approval of the park board to approve the construction of the bicycle path
This first point insisting on the bike path rational, tend to support the idea that the goal pursued by the construction of the bike path thru Hadden, is not for the enjoyment of the public, what is a first contravention of the Hadden covenant
• The construction of a paved bicycle path through Hadden park is a violation of the term of the Hadden trust.
The second point claims that the bike path is an alteration to its present state of nature which is not reasonably motivated by neither park preservation, safety or enjoyment of the public

It will be probably an important legal point to demonstrate that either or not, a legally sanctioned bike path already exists or not in the Hadden park land under covenant (block 136 and 137).

It will be also eventually important for the petitioner, to demonstrate that the current use of Ogden avenue constitutes a reasonable, and safe alternative for cyclists to enjoy the current state of nature of the park, making the request for a bike path in the park an unreasonable alteration of it.

There is little question that cycling along Ogden allows cyclists to enjoy the park and the view it has to offer. The arrangement chosen to the under construction bike route along Point Grey road (near Trutch) will support the idea, that Ogden avenue is

• either safe enough for cyclist of all age and ability to cycle,
• or the city can modify Ogden avenue to achieve a desired safety without infringing the Hadden park covenant:

The seaside bike way on Point Grey Road at Trutch: cyclists will share the road with local traffic, demonstrating that such arrangement can be considered safe enough for cyclist of all age and ability on “neighborhood” street, such as Ogden

Addendum

To give more strength to its case the petitioner has provided reference to a peer reviewved scientific paper titled ”Safe Cycling: How Do Risk Perceptions Compare With Observed Risk?” [6] (affidavit [7]). A paper, we have already studied here. What is important to retain for the case under trial is that this paper states that a “bike only path” and “residential street designated bike route” exhibit a similar level of objective safety (thought that the perceived risk is measured greater in the later case) as shown in this graph:

A study on Toronto and Vancouver (Canada) from [6]: “bike only path” and “residential street designated bike route” exhibit the same level of objective safety

Epilogue

The petitioner case proved strong enough to have the City of Vancouver finally renouncing to fight against it on February 17th. That also makes the route alignment, thru the picnic area, in Kitsilano park, meaningless.

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Main source is the lawsuit filled by [4]

[1] City of Vancouver cycling map

[2] park by laws City of Vancouver, Jan 1st, 2008.

[3] Seaside Greenway Completion and York Bikeway (Phase 1 of Point Grey-Cornwall Active Transportation Corridor),General Manager of Engineering Services, City of Vancouver, July 16, 2013

[4] lawsuit filled by Megan Carvell-Davis vs City of Vancouver, on Nov 4th, 2013

[5] street and traffic by-law no. 2849, City of Vancouver, January 1st, 2014

[6] Route Infrastructure and the Risk of Injuries to Bicyclists: A Case-Crossover Study, Teschke K, Harris MA, Reynolds CC, Winters M, Babul S, Chipman M, Cusimano MD, Brubacher JR, Hunte G, Friedman SM, Monro M, Shen H, Vernich L, Cripton PA., American Journal of Public Health: December 2012, Vol. 102, No. 12, pp. 2336-2343.

[7] Megan Carvell-Davis vs City of Vancouver: 3 affidavits filed on January 29th, 2014

Hadden park, a bit of history

Most of the below come from Megan Carvell Davis affidavit in [1]. She had already stated the issue in a comment on the bike lane vs the park post, but then unaware of the covenant exact terms, I have no commented on that before. The below is under the light of this covenant attached in [1]:

Some historical context

Hadden park (right part) and Vanier park (left) circa 1907…the staircase seems at the same location as today

The land known now as Hadden park (originally given to CPR as a provincial crown grant in 1886) was promised to be a harbour, according to the CPR wishes:

Kitsilano plan by the CPR – circa ~1890

The CPR always had some development plans for this Kitsilano area, and those encountered opposition at the time (“already many nimby there!”): Even the park board objected to see this area (the land east of Chestnut, was also slated to be an indian reserve by the federal government), to be turned into a major facility for shipping, this in July 1919 [1]. The area was then looking like below:

1919 aerial view of Kitsilano, and what is now Hadden and Vanier parks

Picture from 1982 Ogden avenue, circa 1923- future Hadden park is second grown bush – it will be restored in a more “natural” state by 1928 – (credit photo CoV archive ref AM1376-: CVA 1376-691)

“According to the 1933 journal of Major J.S. Matthews, Vancouver’s first city archivist, on his final trip to Vancouver in 1928,
Mr Harvey Hadden, a real estate business man from London, expressed the view that he would “like to do something for Vancouver which had done so well for him-in his real estate investments”. Hadden accepted the proposal of his former architect and friend, Mr S. M. Eveleigh that there should be a waterfront park connecting the Kitsilano Indian Reserve to Kitsilan Beach.” [1]
In October 1928, Mr Hadden, gave for a $1 and subject to a covenant, to the city of Vancouver, the properties he had just purchased from the CPR. That is block 136 and 137 (DL 526), then valued at $41,000, are shown below:

Hadden donation to the city consists of the block 136 and 137: only those blocks are covered by the covenant

The city accepted the gift, and the covenant.

Hadden park, as we know today, consists of

• Block 136 and 137 (DL 526) as donated by Mr Harvey Hadden
• “Closed road” Maple and Cypress, North of Ogden, on April 27, 1931
The Centennial Totem pole erected in October 1958, is in the Cypress ROW north of Ogden
• “water lots” 5780 and 5781 granted by the Province of british columbia, on June 12, 1935
Part of those land has been filled up, noticeabily to erect the maritime museum in 1958, and the unleashed dog area is also on this area

The covenant
The term of the Hadden Trust are that Hadden Park (that is stricto senso applying to block 136 and block 137 as illustrated above)

• “shall be used as and for a Public Park or recreation ground and not for any other purpose whatsoever”
• “shall be improved and put in shape as a public park or recreation ground, but in carrying out such improvements the Board of Park Commissioners shall keep the property as near as possible in its present state of nature subject to such alterations or changes as may be reasonable necessary for its preservation and for the safety and enjoyment of the public. it being the desire of the grantor that those using the Park shall as far as reasonably may be enjoy the same in its natural state and condition”

The maritime museum

In the 1950’s, the city had acquired the St Roch vessel and was looking for a place to moor and preserve it.
After much controversy, a decision was made to house the St Roch into a new building: the maritime museum. This will be built circa 1958, on land granted by the Province in 1935: The “water lots” 5780 and 5781 have been partially filled for that purpose, and that has been considered at one point as not violating the covenant by the city [3]. The fact that the blocks 136 and 137, have lost de facto, their waterfront status, is considered as a violation of the riparian right of the said blocks, this, according to the Hadden park conservators [1].

The dog off-leash area

The covenant, stipulates that “the grantee shall use and maintain the properties for park purposes and the beach for bathing more especially for women and children”. In 1998, the park board approved Hadden Park Beach as an off-leash dog area, while that dogs are not allowed on bathing beaches, according to the park bylaws [2].

The enforcement of the covenant in that matter per-suppose, that the blocks 136 and 137 have riparian right, but the city viewpoint could be that:

Mr Hadden rights did not extend below high water mark as he did not hold title to the water lot which was at that time in the name of the crown. He therefore had no power to convey any rights with respect to bathing on the beach [3].

The letter and the spirit of the covenant

The spirit of the covenant could not have been respected that well, but so far the letter of the covenant has been relatively well respected (neither the maritime museum, nor the totem pole are on properties donated by Hadden). Basically, the only alteration the properties has seen since 1928, has been the installation of benches (already there circa ~1940), and can be considered, as a reasonnable alteration forward a better enjoyment of the park. The construction of a bike path, directly on block 136-137 could certainly set a major precedent:

the “approved” bike path routhe into Hadden park. Some cyclists currently use the path on the right, but is it legal? (credit photo facebook)

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Main source is the lawsuit filled by Megan Carvell Davis [1]

[1] lawsuit filled by Megan-Carvell-Davis-vs-City-of-Vancouver, on Nov 4th, 2013

[2] park by laws City of Vancouver, Jan 1st, 2008.

[3] Corporation counsel letter to city, November 20th, 1957, as attached in [1]

the Kitsilano bike freeway

Some critics of the park board plan [1] have called the infamously bike path approved by the park board, a “bike freeway”. Is it an “over the top” rethoric”?

A freeway definition:

freeway /ˈfriːweɪ/ nounN. AMER. dual-carriageway, especially one with controlled access.

The park board plan for the bike lane:

The dual carriageway is there, albeit on a short section, where downhill bikes can accumulate lot of speed (the reason for the “freeway”?). That is a point for the bike freeway qualification. Unfortunately it is also at the most convoited picnic area site…If the project proceeds ahead, picnickers will be separated from the shore by no less than 3 rows of paths…The bike path takes more space than we have initialed thought

Notice, that the gradient of the slope is roughly similar to the one on McNicoll, but the elevation difference, 6m, is 50% greater than between arbutus and Maple, along Mc Nicoll (4m). That increases the risk of speedy cyclists, and potential safety hazard

Notice also, that from a cycling effort perspective, it makes little sense, to go down to the parking lot from Arbutus (2m elevation change), to have a longer hill.

The route above is extracted from the RFP No. PS20130532, providing detailled engineering plans: this finding call for a recap of the Kits beach bike lane saga

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• On october 7th, the Park board approves a bike lane bisecting Kistilano beach and Hadden parks, the approved report [1] mentions that benches need to be relocated, and fences erected around the playground area (see more here)
• On october 14th, thanks to some chalk lines materializing the approved bike route alignment, park users and residents discover the existence of the project. That creates an outrage in the community, Howard Kesley seems to emerge as a leader, and seems to be behind @savekitsbeach and the associated facebook page (Raymond Tomlin, is also following this on his blog Vanramblings)
• On october 15th, Park board commissioner Aaron Jasper explains it is a “done deal”, and there is no intention to consult the public on it [3]
• On october 16th, The city of Vancouver issues the request for proposal PS20130532, with detailled engineering plan – specifying at least 5 memorial benches to be relocated, in addition of picnic tables, and the fencing of the playground area. the deadline is November 5th
• On october 18th, Park board chair Sarah Blyth issues a media release [2] qualifying as “untrue rumour” the above and stating that the “White chalk lines outlining a wide route through the Park” as not in any way reflect the route to be taken”. The park board staff said otherwise the day before. She goes as far as to say that “The final route has not been determined”, and advisory group will be established to work on the final design of the route. Some media, like the Georgia Straight, reprint the media releases in extenso without pointing any contradictions
• On october 20th, a town hall meeting organized by savekitsbeach is held at the Kitsilano boat house. NPA park board commissioners Melissa De Genova and John Coupar, NPA city Cuuncillor George Affleck and Vision park board commissioner Constance Barnes are attending. Ms Barnes then recognizes than the lack of public consultation was a mistake, explained the the park board has been misleaded by its staff, and agreed to correct that…
• On october 22th, Park board chair Sarah Blyth and commissioner Constance Barnes agree finally to qualify the attendance to the sunday town hall meeting, as a “mob of retiree loitering around the Boathouse” and “enjoying obsolete pasttime…as picnicking” [4].
• On october 28th, NPA Park board John Coupar and Melissa De Genova issued a motion calling for Special Meeting on Kits Beach Park, to be held on Novemebr 4th, 2013, 6pm

In principle, After all the damages inflicted to the public trust, by more noticeabily park board commissioners Barnes and Blyth, the park board, recognizing it has been off track, should be eager to regain this trust and approves the NPA motion…and finally forms the promised advisory committee….

…let see how gonna unfold all this….

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[1] Seaside Greenway Improvements,Vancouver Park Board, Oct 1st, 2013

[2] Park Board statement on Hadden and Kitsilano Beach Bike Path – Next Steps, Sarah Blyth, October 18th, 2013

[3] Kits Beach bike path a done deal, Sandra Thomas, Vancouver Courier – October 15, 2013

[4] See various tweet from the concerned indviduals: as here and there for Constance Barnes. Sarah Blyth did the same.