Transportation, a major issue in cities, is changing from car-centric to multi-mode and active: walking, riding a bike, taking transit. But which cities are doing what in the world of bikes?
The Pembina Institute has published a new report comparing Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa on cycling. This Canadian non-profit advocates for clean energy and reduced usage of fossil fuels.
Cycle Cities: Supporting cycling in Canadian Cities.
The results are both expected and unexpected.
Vancouver people ride bikes the most — with highest mode share at ~ 4.4 %. And over 106,000 trips per day, despite Vancouver’s population being lower than all but Ottawa. But Calgary has more multi-use trails (578 km).
Vancouver and Ottawa each have 100% of their rapid transit stations within 400 m of a bike path, which helps encourage multi-mode travel (a powerful concept). Note that bikes can go on Skytrain and Canada Line, with rush hour restrictions.
Vancouver has a bicycle crash rate far lower than the other 4 cities, by a factor of between 5 and 10. Crashes are notoriously under-reported, and some data is quite old, so this comparison is necessarily fuzzy.
The writers quite correctly draw the conclusion that safety is the key to growing the number of people who choose a bike for some trips, and that infrastructure is the key to safety. As Prof. Teschke has said, physically separated bike lanes are, and are perceived to be, the safest bike infrastructure.
Vancouver’s 23 km of separated lanes is second to Montreal both in total and per 100k population; but first overall in separated lanes in the downtown core (8.5 km) despite Montreal having roughly 3 times the population. To me, this points to a courageous decision by City of Vancouver to locate major separated bike lanes in the downtown core.
Price Tags 
Vancouver council made the decision in its 2003 Downtown Transportation Plan that exclusive cycling lanes would serve the entire downtown core. The dominant thinking at the time was often that speeds were low enough in the core that exclusive cycling lanes made less sense. Other cities altered their plans in subsequent years. Vancouver can still do a lot more in the downtown core, but also in the immediately surrounding areas that generate most of the cycling commuters.
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Calgary appears to lead the nation in multi-use trails, but they tend to be more recreational, following the rivers, and either not going to cyclist destinations, or difficult to navigate to specific destinations because the planners overlooked the simple expedient of placing signs on the route informing riders (particularly those from out of town or unfamiliar with Calgary’s streets) of the street name of the overpass up ahead. Doh!
When I was in Calgary with my bike in June 2012, one of the rivers had overflowed slightly, and parts of the path were underwater and impassable. The downtown bike lanes were OK.
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3 thoughts:
1. I’d be interested to see where Victoria ranks- in the past they’ve had the highest cycling mode share in the country.
2. Also, Vancouver could instantly, at almost no cost, add many kilometres of safe, separated cycling lanes by repainting bike lanes to put them adjacent to the curb, with parked cars pushed out into the street and thereby providing a safety barrier for cyclists. It’s working on Richards St. and on Union St. and all over Europe. I’m happy to hear that HUB is looking into changing the (inter)national engineering standards that preclude many cities’ cautious engineers from adopting this cheap, minimally-invasive form of bike lane.
3. Fear of theft prevents some cyclists from using those nearby rapid transit hubs, yet neither TransLink nor the Province (or anyone yet) is willing to fund even rudimentary protected bike parking at the end of the new Evergreen line. Odd, since this would boost transit revenues at a very small cost.
Protected bike parking– not necessarily as fancy as those not-very-popular monthly-fee lockers — would be a natural amenity for EVO carshare to champion, given their access to decision-makers allocating parking spaces near transit hubs, and their desire to attract bike riders who want to carry bikes on the roof (a great service, BTW)
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Quick answer to 1). For mode share they used 2011 NHS, so technically only bike-to-work mode share. Nothing new there, Victoria + Oak Bay clock in at a little above 10% http://censusmapper.ca/maps/34?zoom=9&lat=48.4114&lng=-123.2024
For the crash rates they used newer numbers from the transportation survey, I am having a hard time understanding the framework they used to decide what numbers to use for what stats.
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