Momentum grows for on-street bike corrals in Vancouver

A local coffee guru says he’d be “quite happy” to see the city-installed high-capacity bike stall outside his Commercial Drive café replicated at his other Vancouver locations.

According to North Vancouver resident John Neate, founder and owner of J J Bean Coffee Roasters, the stall has not affected sales and it has been a huge hit with staff and customers since city crews erected it on a trial basis in August. Before that, according to Neate, staff and patrons shared a three-bike rack outside the store, meaning employees had gear “strapped everywhere” in the workplace.

“So for us, it [the new stall] was good,” Neate told the Georgia Straight in his Drive café. “We didn’t even dream about complaining about it, because it was actually a godsend that they did it. Almost every one of our [nine Vancouver] stores are corner locations, so I would be quite happy to have these in all our locations.”

In an April 30 report to city council, Vancouver’s director of transportation, Jerry Dobrovolny, described the stall as an end-of-trip “bike corral” that accommodates 10 to 20 bicycles in the space covered by one on-street car-parking spot.

“What it does for us is, we want to be as socially conscious a company as possible, so we would encourage it regardless [of any effect on sales],” Neate said. “That’s why I say if the city wants to put them in front of all our stores, I’m totally fine with that.”

Whether or not bike corrals are introduced in other parts of the city depends on the outcome of the trial, according to Scott Edwards, the city’s greenways and neighbourhood-transportation engineer. In May, council unanimously approved the trial, which Edwards said was part of a larger set of cycling initiatives for this year and into 2011. Capital funding set aside for the project on Commercial Drive totals $2,400, according to Edwards.

“Really, what we’re looking at is we’re putting these in places where the existing bike racks don’t meet demand,” Edwards told the Straight by phone. “So the first thing we’ve been doing is working with the BIAs—the business improvement associations around the city—to increase the number of racks.”

By next year, feedback such as that from Neate will roll in, Edwards said, and staff will see what kind of demand there is.

“If there are areas where there is still existing demand and the stalls fit”¦then we’ll be reporting back to council with our updates on bike parking, and I think we would be seeking approval to look for other opportunities to put these around the city,” he said.

Charles Gauthier, executive director of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, told the Straight he is “not opposed to the idea” of expanded on-street bike parking.

“If it frees up more space on the sidewalks for pedestrians, that’s a good thing,” Gauthier said.

West Vancouver councillor Trish Panz, who owns an electric-assist bicycle, told the Straight it’s still “early days” in making her municipality more bike-friendly. However, she said she “wouldn’t mind” seeing bike corrals pop up in West Van.

“I think that’s an interesting piece to explore,” she said. “I think that one of the interesting things that we’re doing right now is making sure that we have places for people to lock up their bikes. That’s step one, right? We’re certainly doing that in the Ambleside area.”

Rob Wynen, vice chair of Vancouver’s bicycle advisory committee and former president of the West End Residents Association, told the Straight he thought this could be a way to beautify the landscape in a “nonpolitical way”. He noted that “nobody batted an eye” when the bike corrals went in, in contrast to the loud opposition from some downtown businesses and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business to the separated bike lane on Hornby Street approved by council last week.

“When the next cycle of road resurfacing and sidewalk resurfacing goes in, then you go from the temporary to the more permanent measures,” Wynen said. “You can move the newspaper boxes out there, the garbage boxes out there, and all at once you’re creating a much more open space on the sidewalks. I think the in for businesses is saying to them, ”˜Listen, once we created a bit of space in front of here, then you can put your patio here.’ ”