Dunsmuir Viaduct protected bike lane opens one day after Councillor Geoff Meggs hit by a car while cycling along South Vancouver bikeway
Vancouver City Councillor Geoff Meggs, a prominent member of the majority Vision Vancouver party, and an avid bike commuter and cycling advocate, is in hospital after being involved in a collision with a car on Tuesday, March 9, while cycling in a bike lane on Angus Drive, near 51st and Granville.
City Councillor Geoff Meggs has
been a strong advocate for the
new Dunsmuir Viaduct bike lane.
(Image courtesy GeoffMeggs.ca)
News of the incident was released the next day, just as Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson announced the grand opening of the new protected bike lane on the Dunsmuir Viaduct, which links the Adanac Bikeway from East Vancouver to Dunsmuir and Beatty streets downtown.
While it looks like Meggs won’t have to undergo spinal surgery, the incident puts into perspective just how important separated bike infrastructure is for ensuring cyclists’ safety—and in promoting wider adoption of cycling for transportation.
“We know from the Burrard Bridge that when we separate bike lanes from cars with protective barriers, more people cycle and it reduces the risk of injury or accidents,” said the mayor, himself a bike commuter.
The new two-way bike lane was created from a lane that had already been removed from traffic several years ago for the construction of the nearby Costco and had remained unused ever since. And few drivers seemed to notice.
Cement pylons were added to separate car traffic from the bike lane to the tune of $300,000—an investment hoped to increase cycling traffic through the downtown core.
“We saw during the Winter Games that if we provide convenient alternatives to vehicle travel, people will use them,” said the mayor. During the Olympics Vancouver proved him right: Cyclist volumes across the Cambie and Burrard bridges met summertime levels with an average of 5,000 cyclists riding to and from downtown every day.
Evidence of whether the new bike lane is effective in encouraging more city residents to get out of their cars and onto two wheels will be available when the city releases statistics on the Dunsmuir Viaduct at the end of the six-month trial period.