Vancouver could boost pedestrian safety by copying Milan's approach in marking cycling lanes

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      Anyone who's walked across the cyling lanes at Vancouver's Olympic Village or along English Bay knows how dangerous this can be for seniors or the visually impaired.

      If you're not paying attention, it's easy to stroll right into an oncoming cyclist travelling at a high speed.

      It's also getting perilous on the Cambie Bridge as cyclists and pedestrians share an increasingly crowded sidewalk.

      Milan has figured out a way to reduce the likelihood of pedestrian-cyclist collisions. It's accomplished this by using colours to differentiate cycling lanes from pedestrian walkways.

      The photo above shows how it's done. (It was tweeted by Toronto's chief planner, Jennifer Keesmat.)

      Vancouver's general manager of planning and development, Brian Jackson, might want to introduce something similar here before he retires at the end of the year.

      After all, if you can create a rainbow sidewalk at Davie and Bute streets, it can't be too difficult to add a colour to cycling lanes that run alongside pedestrian paths.

      Comments

      3 Comments

      FN

      Jul 27, 2015 at 7:33pm

      Many European cities have brick-coloured bike lanes to help separate the bikes from the pedestrians. It works so well that I automatically avoid walking on the brick sections of our sidewalks here at home.

      Seperated Lanes

      Jul 28, 2015 at 10:28am

      The best solution is to physically separate bikes from pedestrians and cars. I hope they will do that for the Cambie bridge.

      out at night

      Jul 28, 2015 at 10:45am

      RE: Cambie Bridge multi-use deck

      Riding this stretch is always an exercise in timing, cunning and luck. If they'd even just put up some signs asking pedestrians to try and stay to their right it might help. I often encounter large gaggles of walkers strung across the whole breadth of it with cyclists approaching from both directions. Once again one is left wondering, "Do these people know there are others living in their world?"