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Free bicycle valet parking opens in downtown Victoria

Service acknowledges risk of parking bicycle downtown; valet service will be at Centennial Square until early November
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Bicycle Valet manager Molly Peters parks a bike at Victoria City Hall on Friday. DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST

The facility wasn’t even officially open, but the poles used to hang bicycles at Victoria Bike Valet were already laden with them by noon on Friday.

There were road bikes, ­commuter bikes, e-bikes and ­colourful children’s bikes.

The pilot project is an ­initiative of the City of Victoria, which this week put the finishing touches on seven cycling corridors that have been in the works since last year.

Victoria Bike Valet is a free, coat-check style valet service for up to 150 bicycles, strollers and other forms of personal transportation. The service, which will be staffed and located in a secure, covered zone in Centennial Square, will operate seven days a week until early November.

Expect it to be open for extended hours for select events throughout the summer, including Canada Day.

“The Bike Valet service is just one in a number of initiatives we have embarked on with the $500,000 we received from the Canada Community Building fund,” said Mayor Lisa Helps. “We will make bike parking both safe in the parkades and safe on the streets.”

Plans call for retrofitting the Yates Street parkade, as well as offering bicycle shelters at schools and community centres.

“These are family-friendly, livable initiatives,” said Helps.

Jeff Bray, executive director of the Downtown Victoria Business Association, applauded Friday’s announcement.

“This is a game changer for downtown,” said Bray. “Here we have a service that is both secure and at no charge to the public. I predict it will be full a week from now. In fact, I want to see it made permanent.”

The service will be operated by Capital Bike in conjunction with Vancouver-based Better ­Environmentally Sound ­Transportation.

While Capital Bike has had ­experience with pop-up valet services for special events, they lacked experience in longer-term, day-to-day ­operations. Better Environmentally Sound Transportation, which advocates walking, cycling, public ­transportation and other forms of sustainable transportation, has operated for 16 years, ­hosting between 20,000 to 30,000 clients per year.

“The service is all about ­feeling safe leaving your bike downtown,” said Molly Peters, the non-profit organization’s local bicycle valet manager.

“Anecdotally, we find that we reduce bike theft by between 60 and 70 per cent wherever we operate.”

When people leave their bicycles at the new Victoria Bike Valet they can register their bike for free with 529 Garage, a national bicycle registration database endorsed by about 400 law enforcement agencies, including the Victoria Police ­Department. Cyclists will get a free 529 Garage shield to attach to their bicycle upon ­registration.

The Victoria Bike Valet location on Pandora Avenue is adjacent to Government Street, where the City of Victoria recently unveiled protected bicycle lanes up to Gorge Road.

This week, the city was ­completing seven bicycle ­infrastructure projects, which it calls All Ages and ­Abilities cycling corridors.

They include bikeways on Kings Road, ­Haultain Street and Richardson Street, as well as three connector routes into the Oaklands, Fernwood and North Park neighbourhoods.

The total distance of the ­completed ­projects is just under 10 kilometres.

“Our goal is to build a 33-kilometre network which extends into every part of the municipality, connecting ­neighbourhoods, employment areas, parks, schools and recreational spaces,” said Sarah Webb, the city’s manager of sustainable transportation ­planning and development. “We are already seeing ­people out there, ­exploring the new network.”

She said the goal is to turn roadways into “multi-modal” corridors on which pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles can ­co-exist seamlessly.

A cycling advocate said the bicycle valet ­initiative, while positive, is “not enough.”

“While it is exciting to see a $500,000 investment by the current city council, we still need to see how the next mayor and council tackle their climate obligations,” said Corey Burger, policy and infrastructure chair of Capital Bike. “We will look forward to how they lay out All Ages and Abilities 2.0.”

“People who live downtown and people who cycle to work already have their parking taken care of,” said Burger. “It was the people who come to town to shop or have dinner that weren’t served. Surveys have told us that people like to park near where they shop.” Burger said in communities where similar ­initiatives have been offered, bicycle thefts in the community have dropped from several a day to one a week.

He is already hearing from people using the new routes.

“I heard somebody recently say: ‘This is my first time downtown in 20 years’,” he said.

There is more work to be done, most pressing being a bike lane on the Bay Street Bridge for ­commuters from Esquimalt and View Royal.

The bike valet facility is open from now until November at Centennial Square. Its regular hours are:

• Monday to Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

• Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

• Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

• Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

parrais@timescolonist.com

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