A member of the City of Vancouver’s bicycle advisory committee has claimed that she and her colleagues were not consulted on the one-lane reallocation trial starting on the Burrard Bridge in mid June.

Kari Hewett told the Straight that the committee passed a resolution at its March 18 meeting in support of a two-lane trial. At city council’s transportation and traffic committee meeting on May 5, the overwhelming majority of speakers favoured the same option, called A1. However, council voted 8–2 on May 7 in favour of the second of two one-lane options presented by engineering staff (A3), with COPE councillors David Cadman and Ellen Woodsworth opposed.

This means the southbound curb lane of the bridge will be used by cyclists during the trial, while northbound cyclists will use the east sidewalk. Pedestrians will have sole use of the west sidewalk.

“I felt awkward, and I think the committee felt awkward,” Hewett said by phone. “In trying to review the options in front of us, the only one we’d seen was A1, which we all had thought was a very good one, because A2 and A3 we didn’t see any schematics on, really. We didn’t have a chance to discuss it with staff.”

Hewett said that a motion moved by Cadman at a transportation and traffic committee meeting on October 18, 2005, specified that “the Bicycle Advisory Committee be consulted on any new development on existing or proposed bicycle routes”.

Speaking via cellphone from the U.S. Capitol, Cadman called the implications of Hewett’s claim “problematic”.

“Council is supposed to take it to the committee,” Cadman told the Straight. “Then the committee has to mobilize itself and come and speak on something, and if you don’t have that input, then what’s the point of having an advisory committee? And if you have flawed advice, based on one-third [of] the motion, then what’s the basis of taking the consultation to them?”

Hewett said that the one-lane trial is also a poor deal for pedestrians, who have no civic advisory committee that speaks for them.

Coun. Geoff Meggs, council’s liaison to the bicycle committee, told the Straight he did not have an explanation for Hewett’s claim.

“I don’t know the answer, really,” Meggs said. “I think there was a staff discussion earlier on with them, that I was present for, that talked about the two-lane option. But subsequently the staff report added in the other two, and I think it was pretty clear from day one that the bicycle advisory committee preferred a two-lane option, for reasons that they make crystal clear.”