Pandora Bike Lane

[sailor]

For those of you who are not on the list list and may be interested:


Hello Bike Victoria Supporters,

It is almost exactly a year since 125 of you signed a letter to the Victoria Mayor and Council asking them to step up their efforts to make cycling in Victoria much safer for everyone. In August 2014 Council and Mayor approved a new cycling network guide that included five priority “All Ages and Abilities” (AAA) routes. The first of these – the downtown Pandora corridor - is slated to start construction later this year.

Last week City staff submitted to City Council a report that assessed three different options for the Pandora corridor (please click here to read the report or click on the attached pdf). Included in this report was a recommendation to move the discussion of these three options to public consultation. Council will vote on the report’s recommendations this Thursday, February 26th.

This is generally very good news. However, there is concern among a number of people who are actively promoting safer cycling throughout the city that one of the options is actually not an AAA route at all because it includes design elements that make intersections along the corridor quite dangerous for people riding bicycles. Not surprisingly this option also happens to be the least expensive (at least at first blush) and, reading between the lines of the report, the option preferred by City staff. To find out more, I suggest reading the staff’s report (it’s only 9 pages long), reading the Greater Victoria Coalition’s response to the report, and/or having a look at my letter to Mayor and Council (please see attached pdf). The risk is that by allowing a substandard option to go to public consultation, we will be left with substandard cycling infrastructure on Pandora St. for the next 20 years or more.

The bottom line is that Bike Victoria along with the GVCC and others want Council to direct staff to remove Option 3 from further consideration for the Pandora Corridor because it: a) is not safe, b) is not an AAA design, c) will do little to attract new cyclists along this route, and d) is not consistent with the City’s approved cycling network guide. To help remove Option 3, we need to flood Council over the next couple of days with letters, phone calls and emails requesting them to remove it as a possible design option for the Pandora Corridor. A number of councillors and city staff have told me that these letters do get taken very seriously by Council and have been effective in helping to make safer cycling one of the City’s top priorities. So if you can, it would be great if you could write to the Mayor and Council requesting them to remove Option 3 as a possible design for the Pandora Corridor. You can leave a message for Mayor and Council by clicking on this link or by emailing councillors@victoria.ca

Thank you once again for your continued support and action to help make riding a bike in Victoria safer and more enjoyable for everyone!

--
Tom Berkhout (on behalf of BikeVictoria.ca)
6-242 Ontario St
Victoria, BC
V8V 1N2
250-507-0800 (h), 250-634-1192 (c)

[Rolf]

Looks like after public consultation, City staff are recommending to Council to go with the option highlighted as problematic in the letter above: a separated but two-way bike lane on Pandora. http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local ... -1.1982481

This two-lane option is cheaper and saves more parking spaces than doing the sensible thing and having single separated lanes, both running with the flow of traffic on Pandora and Johnson. These intersections with three lanes (2 car, 1 bike) running east to west, straddling a solitary westbound bike lane should be interesting to see.

[Dave L]

If they use the same designer who is responsible for the complete cluster of an intersection on the northbound side of Foul Bay at Lansdowne, I think I'll take the bus!

[sailor]

Penny wise but pound foolish. They should spend the extra bit to do it right and it will pay dividends for years.