You are hereWhy are we still debating the Burrard Bridge?
Why are we still debating the Burrard Bridge?
It's municipal election day in Vancouver on Saturday. Voters must be feeling a sense of deja vue: we're still being asked to vote on what to do with the Burrard Bridge, the 6-lane, art deco bridge that forms a gateway to downtown Vancouver.
We've had 15 years of debate, reports, and consultations and still the council dithers. The bridge is crumbling and we had another bad accident just weeks ago when a cyclist fell off the raised pavement and got concussion.
With this snail's pace of progress - at a time which calls for urgency in the greening of our cities - is it any wonder we have such a low opinion of politicians?
The worst culprit of this municipal dysfunction is mayoral candidate Peter Ladner who in the space of a few years has flip-flopped between 3 different positions on what to do with the bridge.
At first he supported councillor Fred Bass's bold plan to trial out the re-allocation of two of the six car lanes in either direction for cyclists.
But then Ladner bowed to pressure from West Side drivers, turned 180 degrees in his stance for the 2005 election campaign, arguing in Sam Sullivan's NPA council in favour of widening the bridge.
Three years later and he's changed his mind again. This time he's saying that the solution to the Burrard Bridge is a railing along the shared pedestrian-cycle route so that more cyclists don't inadvertently fall in front of passing cars.
From a cycling point of view, it's the worst of his three solutions, taking away precious passing space for pedestrians and cyclists rather than offering more room.
Ladner likes to remind people that he rides the bridge all the time and doesn't have a problem with it. I'm sure many regular cyclists don't either. But that's missing the point. It's sufficiently scary that many more don't even attempt the crossing.
I can vividly remember the apprehension when I crossed the bridge from Kitsilano for the first time in the late 1990s. It was a blustery, wet October and as if the noise, the rain, and the wind wasn't bad enough, a passing bus sprayed me head to foot in water.
Other cyclists talk about the sensation of being sucked into the vortex of passing large vehicles and dodging pedestrians and other self-propelled traffic coming in the other direction while crossing the bridge.
You get used to it, if you do it regularly, but that's hardly a sound policy to take if you are trying to build a decent bike route across Vancouver's signature bridge.
So now we're left with Ladner's dismal solution. Unless, of course, Gregor Robertson and Vision are voted in this Saturday. Vision want to reallocate a single car lane to cyclists for a 6 month trial - which is a better compromise in that it appears to have a certain amount of flexibility and is relatively inexpensive.
More than anything, it would just be nice to be discussing something else for a change rather than rehashing the Burrard Bridge debate yet again. Maybe then people would take a keener interest in where the City is taking us.