What would it take to get you on a bike?
Although many people still associate cyclists with rude rebels pedalling on the edges of society, some of Canada's most established non-profits, hospitals, governments and universities are working to highlight the benefits of cycling over driving.
The Vancouver Sun
UBC Prof. Kay Teschke, seen here cycling in traffic, heads a study trying to find out what kind of urban bike routes would be safest. Researchers are talking to more than 1,100 cyclists who landed in emergency wards in central Vancouver and Toronto since June 2008. Independent polling has consistently shown the main reason more people don’t cycle is they fear for their safety on the streets.
Although many people still associate cyclists with rude rebels pedalling on the edges of society, some of Canada's most established non-profits, hospitals, governments and universities are working to highlight the benefits of cycling over driving.
The Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation is the latest high-profile organization to join the increasingly mainstream effort to make urban cycling more attractive by making it more safe. The health charity believes cycling is a key way to combat Canadians' increasingly poor fitness levels.
Instead of putting all its effort into treating diseases after they occur, the Heart and Stroke Foundation recently donated roughly half of the $600,000 funding for a comprehensive University of B.C. study focused on preventing sickness by encouraging cycling.
About 20 UBC researchers, headed by Prof. Kay Teschke of the School of Population and Public Health, are using a variety of research techniques to figure out what kind of urban bike routes would be safest for all concerned.
Teschke is saddened by the culture conflicts that occur in Vancouver between cyclists, pedestrians, cars, trucks and buses.
With better-designed bike routes, she is convinced most of the tension would be avoided.
"The lack of proper infrastructure for bikes is what creates the anger," said Teschke, 56.
UBC's sophisticated new research program, called Cycling in Cities, is a multi-pronged effort focused on determining the causes of, and finding the best way to prevent, often-grim cycling accidents.
In addition to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, which Teschke said "deserves a lot of credit," Cycling in Cities is funded by a federal government research body, Transport Canada, TransLink, Metro Vancouver and its municipalities, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and UBC's multi-faculty Bridge Program. It has the cooperation of major urban hospitals.
The large UBC-based research team, which is also coordinated by researcher Meghan Winters, is busily interviewing many of the more than 1,100 cyclists who have had the misfortune to land in emergency wards in central Vancouver and Toronto since June 2008.
The university investigators not only talk to the injured cyclists and attending medical staff in both cities, they visit the streets where the accidents took place, carefully analysing the sites' strengths and weaknesses with regard to bicycle safety.
The UBC-based investigators, as part of their work, have already interviewed many of the roughly two cyclists per month who have been suffering serious head or body injuries while travelling on Vancouver's Burrard Bridge.
Most of the bridge's injured cyclists were knocked off what was until last month a shared bike-pedestrian sidewalk into roaring traffic, which Teschke says habitually exceeds the speed limit.
The Burrard Bridge experiment that began in early July -- in which bikes were given sole access to one former car lane and separated from pedestrians -- is being closely watched by the UBC team.
The bridge trial will help the researchers determine whether separated bike lanes are safer than shared routes, and whether they encourage more cycling.
The monitoring of the Burrard Bridge effort is just one example of how the UBC research program is trying to reach its ultimate goal, which is to move beyond the highly emotional opinions that usually ignite bike-car culture wars in Canada.
Independent polling has consistently shown the major reason more Canadians don't cycle is they fear for their safety on the streets.
The UBC team hopes, in the end, to make fact-based, scientifically supported recommendations about how North American cities can be designed to reduce bike-car-pedestrian accidents and get more people out pedalling.
What do cyclists and would-be cyclists want?
The UBC project's initial survey of more than 1,400 Metro Vancouver residents found three out of five people own bikes, but most rarely use them.
To actually get off their duffs and cycle more often, most residents told the pollsters they would want to cycle on paved off-street paths designated for cyclists only.
Most Metro residents said they would be drawn to traffic-calmed residential streets designated for cycling, as well as to cycle paths separated from major streets by a physical barrier.
Most cyclists and would-be cyclists, according to the UBC poll, said they definitely do not want to ride among the traffic on busy main streets.
In countries such as Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and parts of Germany -- which have been retrofitting many cities with designated bicycle routes since the 1970s oil crisis -- Teschke said 30 to 40 per cent of urban trips now are made by bicycles.
In Vancouver, she said, only three per cent of all trips are by bicycle, although in many neighbourhoods bordering on Broadway, bike ridership goes up to 10 per cent.
Things are better in Metro Victoria, which constructed the well-used Galloping Goose bike trail on an abandoned train track line. Now, almost seven per cent of Metro Victoria trips are made by bicycle.
"If you build the infrastructure, the bicycles will come," Teschke said.
When UBC's Cycling in Cities team recently did a global review of research literature into bicycle accidents, she said they were "shocked."
They discovered that sidewalks and "multi-use paths" were the most dangerous for cyclists -- and pedestrians.
The next most dangerous routes for cyclists were major streets, where the severity of injury is the most pronounced.
A somewhat safer way for cyclists to travel, according to the literature review, is on minor roads such as those on Vancouver's bikeway system, which criss-crosses the city's residential side streets.
The safest way for cyclists to travel, according to the research so far, is on special routes designated for cyclists only.
These include so-called "bicycle tracks," Teschke said, such as those recently installed on the Burrard Bridge, where a physical barrier separates cyclists from auto traffic.
These results from the UBC team's two preliminary surveys fly in the face of the recommendations that have long been promoted by influential U.S. traffic engineer John Forester.
For decades Forester, 79, has advocated there is no need for urban infrastructure improvements, because cyclists should simply seize their "right to ride" on busy roads.
Teschke is among many cycling researchers who believe the controversial views of Forester, author of Effective Cycling, have been among the main reasons North American cities have fallen far behind northern European cities in creating safe, friendly routes for cyclists.
For instance, Teschke notes, since the Burrard Bridge bike lane experiment began on July 13, the City of Vancouver's online data shows that peak bike ridership has increased to roughly 6,500 a day from former peaks of roughly 4,000.
Meanwhile, car traffic on the bridge has decreased on a few days by about 10 per cent, and on many days by nothing at all. Pedestrian crossings have increased slightly.
Although complete accident figures are not yet available since the Burrard Bridge bike lane was opened, Teschke suggests the much-discussed experiment could be an example of the kind of "bolder" choices cities could be making in the future.
Even though the research being done by UBC's Cycling in Cities program won't be completed for many months, Teschke is beginning to develop some tentative ideas about what Metro Vancouver most needs in the way of infrastructure for bikes.
One important measure, she believes, could be to increase traffic-calming measures on the city's bikeways, which already run for several hundred kilometres throughout the region, mostly on quiet side streets.
Teschke also believes opening the abandoned Arbutus rail corridor to bikes would be extremely effective, because the route "actually goes from where people live to where people work."
And, like all train lines, including Victoria's Galloping Goose trail, the Arbutus corridor avoids steep hills.
In addition, Teschke said Metro Vancouver municipalities would be wise to stop putting bike lanes between moving cars and parked cars. Instead, they should create bike lanes between parked cars and sidewalks, as often occurs in northern Europe.
For the sake of avoiding more cycling injuries, reducing pollution and increasing Canadians' poor fitness levels, Teschke believes it is fast becoming necessary to get beyond counterproductive cultural wars between cyclists and drivers.
Instead, Teschke's team is discovering it will probably mean putting more time and money into building safer and more attractive bike routes, including some designed specifically for cyclists.
As Teschke plainly puts it: "Not having a place in cities for cyclists is just weird."
ONLINE CYCLING MAPS
UBC's Cycling in Cities program has developed an effective online map for cyclists seeking the easiest and safest routes through Metro Vancouver.
The website uses Google maps to help riders find their way from A to B while avoiding hills, congestion and even the worst pockets of air pollution. The handy tool was developed in conjunction with TransLink by Prof. Michael Brauer, of UBC's School of Environmental Health.
Try it out at: www.cyclevancouver.ubc.ca
Read Douglas Todd's blog at: www.vancouversun.com/ thesearch