The City of Vancouver has given cyclists another safe route into downtown by adding a bike lane to the Dunsmuir Viaduct, which reopened yesterday after being closed for the Olympics.
“It’s something that made sense,” said Coun. Heather Deal. “We already had the lane blocked off (to accommodate a construction project), and we … desperately needed a safe blocked-off bike lane downtown from the east.”
The route links the Adanac bike route from East Vancouver to Dunsmuir and Beatty streets downtown.
The project hasn’t been as controversial as the one put up on the Burrard Street Bridge in July, and Deal said that’s probably because people now realize how easy it is to adjust to one fewer lane.
“I think the Olympics showed us that you don’t need as much space on roads for cars as people (thought) we did,” she said.
“We had summertime (cycling) rates on the bridges (during the Games). This is a great legacy of the Olympics.”
Deal said the next project is to create a better cycling route linking the Burrard Street and Dunsmuir Viaduct bike lanes.
“Right now that’s the missing piece,” she said. “Otherwise you’re (riding) between a bus and a car.”
