Vancouver presents 6 options for making walking, biking easier on Granville Bridge

The City of Vancouver has announced six options for how it plans to improve the Granville Bridge to make crossing it easier for pedestrians and cyclists.

The redesign is the city's largest transportation capital project and the most important for meeting its climate target to have at least two-thirds of all trips in Vancouver be made by transit or "active transportation" by 2030.

Active transportationincludes walking, cycling, skateboarding, using a wheelchair, public transit or any combination of these and other modes of human-powered transportation.

"Something needs to be done. Nobody likes how walking andcycling work across that bridge," said Paul Storer, Vancouver's manager of transportation design.

City staff sayone of their goals is to reduce the speed of traffic on the eight-lane bridge. According to their data, Granville Bridge carries slightly more traffic than Burrard Bridge, but has twice as many vehicle lanes, leaving more than enough space for widening cyclist and pedestrian access.

All six options for the bridge connector propose repurposing up to two vehicle lanes in order to widen pedestrian and cycling lanes. Two of them look at replacing vehicle lanes on the west side of the bridge while two others suggest doing the same on the east side.

Another design being considered is building two raised lanes in the centre of the bridge for foot and bike traffic, approximately one metre above the current lanes.

The final option would see the Granville Bridge upgraded to resemble the Burrard Bridge, with slightly widened one-way bike lanes on either side of the bridge.

"Removing two lanes, as long as we deal with the intersections at either end well, should have no impacts to the capacity of the bridge for carrying motor vehicles," said Storer in response to concerns that the upgrades would slow down car commuters.

City staff estimate around 1,600 pedestrians and a couple of hundred cyclists cross the Granville Bridge on a busy day. The Burrard Bridge, on the other hand, sees as many as 3,000 pedestrians and 7,000 cyclists a day.

The estimated cost for each of the designs ranges from $20million to $55 million. Storer says $25 million has already been earmarked for the project, but if council moves ahead with one of the more expensive options funding would have to be reallocated.

The city has now launched the public consultation phase of the project and will host open houses and workshops throughout September.

Construction on the bridge isn't expected to begin before 2021.