Cyclists pleased, but some want a long-term approach to creating infrastructure.

Former city councillor Fred Bass admitted he was “shocked” when he saw how smoothly traffic was moving at 5 p.m. on July 13, the first day of the Burrard Bridge lane-reallocation trial.

“It’s not a problem,” Bass, a two-term Coalition of Progressive Electors councillor and avid cyclist, exclaimed in a phone interview with the Georgia Straight. “In fact, you can quote me and say the Burrard Bridge is quite boring, for the first time. It’s only before the act, you know? If sex was like the Burrard Bridge, there would be no population in the world, because it would be all foreplay and nothing much later.”

However, Bass maintains that Vancouver still has a long way to go before it matches the kind of infrastructure cities like Copenhagen are providing for their cyclists.

“Copenhagen is behaving like a world city, and we’re not,” Bass said, having recently attended a presentation in Vancouver by Niels Tí¸rslí¸v, that city’s traffic director. “One of the major problems that we have is that we do things on a project-by-project basis. So we fight a series of wars, a series of skirmishes that amount to building up a war, rather than taking an overall view and having a well-planned, long-term, well-funded, and well-laid-out plan, instead of expectations.”

In 2004, 36 percent of Copenhagen residents were cycling to work or school, and another 20 percent were walking. (The City of Vancouver’s cycling goal is 10 percent by 2010.) Copenhagen has charted and calmed trouble spots where accidents are frequent, Bass claimed. As a result, the city reduced the number of serious cyclist injuries to 230 from 569 over a seven-year period from 1998 to 2005.

“So number one, they count,” Bass said. “They’ve made a serious investment in measurement. Their measurement leads to their investment. Here, we talk about measuring after we get around to deciding what the project is.”¦We are talk and little action. But we finally did something on Monday [July 13].”

Dean Frusher and Alison Kilpatrick, both visiting from Calgary and riding northbound on the bridge’s east sidewalk on day two of the trial, said they appreciated the small step Vancouver has taken.

“We actually said it’s very bike friendly here,” Kilpatrick told the Straight. “We’ve been very impressed with it.”

Added Frusher, “We’ve ridden from Jericho Beach this morning, and it’s been very good along the waterway [on the Seaside Route], plus across the bridge it’s been pretty good.”

When asked what he would say to motorists upset about the trial, Frusher said, “Jump on a bike and ride to work.”

At the on-ramp from Pacific Street the same day, driver Greg Lowen said the traffic wasn’t too bad, even though the trial has reduced the number of southbound vehicular lanes from three to two. “It’s my first time over it [since the trial began], but it doesn’t seem too bad so far,” Lowen said.

In an interesting twist, Christopher Richardson, a Vancouver Traffic Authority special constable, was directing cars by A Kettle of Fish restaurant that day. Richardson failed to capture a seat on the park board as an NPA candidate in 2008. In 2005, NPA councillors cancelled a two-lane trial spearheaded by Bass. However, Richardson told the Straight he was happy to be helping out with the trial.