Making cycling routes safer would put more bicycles on the road, which would mean fewer cars, less pollution, reduced need for street maintenance and healthier people.
Victoria’s plan for cycling improvements moves the city a little closer to those goals, but one of the flaws of the plan is that it is confined to Victoria. The entire region should get serious about cycling as a mode of transportation, rather than merely recreation.
A city staff report identifies about $5 million in improvements over the next five years, with the aim of creating safer cycling routes. The plans target major streets with a focus on completing east-west corridors, developing low-stress routes and improving connections to attract new or less-experienced cyclists.
The climate of Greater Victoria is conducive to year-round cycling, but one of the major factors that keeps people off their bikes and in their cars is safety, and the biggest safety concern for cyclists is motorized traffic. In a competition between a car and a bicycle, regardless of who is in the right, the car always wins.
Mayor Dean Fortin says feedback from the public indicates that safer routes will persuade more people to commute by bicycle.
“What we’ve really heard loud and clear … is both the committed cyclists and those that are thinking about cycling came to the same conclusion, which is: It is about safe streets and about safe routes. It is about separated bike lanes — that physical separation,” Fortin said.
The University of B.C.’s Cycling in Cities study, which included research from Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria, backs that conclusion.
The research shows features that encourage cycling include:
• off-road paths: paved and for cyclists only;
• residential streets: marked for cycling and with traffic calming;
• on major streets, cycle tracks separated from motor vehicle lanes by a curb or some other barrier;
• good lighting and lanes marked with reflective paint.
“In our earlier study of route types that motivate and deter cycling, we found that people preferred to ride on bike-only paths, multi-use paths, residential street bike routes and cycle tracks,” says one of the project’s reports. “They preferred not to ride on major streets.”
A common perception of cyclists is that they are the authors of their own misfortunes because of recklessness, disdain for traffic rules and a huge sense of road entitlement, but a 2010 Australian study found that drivers were responsible for 87 per cent of collisions between cars and bicycles, not out of malice, but because of the lower visibility presented by cyclists. The study found that cyclists were obeying traffic laws 89 per cent of the time.
So any improvements that separate bicycles and cars will enhance safety and encourage more cycling.
Budgets dictate that improvements must be made in stages, but when those improvements are piecemeal, change will come slowly. Cyclists are not likely to be enthusiastic about a bike route that has safe sections alternating with stretches where they must compete with heavy traffic.
A good cycling route should not stop at municipal boundaries — a co-ordinated intermunicipal vision for cycling infrastructure is needed. That isn’t an empty dream — it is already partly realized with the Capital Regional District’s 100-kilometre regional trail system and its pedestrian and cycling master plan.
Motorists might resent resources being dedicated to cycling routes, but a street full of bicycles moves a lot more people than a street full of cars. As more people favour bikes over cars, congestion on streets will decline, we will reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, the air will be cleaner and the population will be more physically fit.
