Final open house for Vancouver Street bike corridor

The City of Victoria is currently running open houses to get input from residents on the proposed Vancouver bike corridor.

“People have expressed anticipation in getting a significant north/south corridor built to provide options for people to move around on their bikes,” said Brad Dellebuur, assistant director of Transportation for City of Victoria, at Wednesday’s open house. “Whether they are cycling, walking or driving a car, we want to make sure it works for all users.”

The Vancouver Street bike lanes would run from Bay Street down to Park Boulevard in Fairfield. The corridor will be broken into three sections, with the sections in the Fairfield neighbourhood and North Park neighbourhood traffic-calmed to reduce traffic volumes, and the downtown section between Fort Street and Pandora Avenue getting protected facilities similar to what has been built recently on Pandora Avenue and Fort Street.

RELATED: Victoria’s next set of bike lanes slated to run along Beacon Hill Park

This would close the loop between the current Pandora Avenue and Fort Street bike lanes, and the upcoming Wharf and Humboldt streets bike lanes.

“In the Fairfield section, we want to push vehicle traffic onto Cook Street and Quadra Street that are better designed for higher volumes, and leave Vancouver Street for the local traffic and cyclists,” said Dellebuur.

RELATED: City shifts gears on Cook Street bike lanes, Vancouver St. recommended instead

Discussions will continue until the end of the year, with the preferred design option presented to council in the spring and construction set to start in later 2019.

A final open house will be held Thursday at City Hall, 1 Centennial Square, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

An online survey is available for residents, commuters, students, and business owners about the corridor to collect feedback to help inform the designs.

For more information, or to take the online survey you can visit victoria.ca/cycling