Re: Letter: Mt Seymour Parkway upgrades pushed through without public consent
Re: Mount Seymour Parkway bike lane draws mixed reviews
Dear Editor:
This letter is in response to a recent Letter to the Editor, titled "Mt Seymour Parkway upgrades pushed through without public consent."
The letter uses a lot of language without backing any of it up with factual information, so I will attempt to provide some here.
Firstly, the parkway was the only street in the District of North Vancouver with a speed limit of 60 kilometres per hour. Everywhere else, people contend with a 50 km/h speed limit.
According to statistics from the City of Edmonton, a pedestrian’s chances of survival are only 45 per cent if hit by a vehicle going 50 kilometres per hour. The probability of the pedestrian being killed increases to 85 per cent if the vehicle is travelling at 60 km/h. As the district notes, observed speeds were regularly up to 77 km/h.
The author also claims the changes to the Parkway are purely political.
Despite having a Bicycle Master Plan since 2012, little has been done district-wide. Other than changes to Lynn Valley Road and some of 29th, council has done almost nothing to make cycling safer in years prior. Cycling infrastructure in the district is starkly absent compared to the City of North Vancouver or the City of Vancouver.
As for “inefficiency”, as the author notes, let’s do some simple math.
From Riverside Dr. to Parkgate Village, the distance is 3.5 km. A drop in the speed limit from 60km/h to 50km/h results in an addition of 42 seconds to one’s trip to Seymour.
I will leave it to readers to determine if, as the author states, this constitutes “an assault” on the “working class” and “the entire community,” including seniors.
The lanes have only been narrowed minimally.
According to the district, the parkway vehicle lanes are now the same as Lynn Valley Road and Marine Drive. If you are at risk of swerving into a concrete curb or barrier, then you were by definition at risk of hitting, injuring or killing someone in the bike lane prior to the implementation of concrete separation.
If the author is having trouble empathizing with the kind of discomfort many cyclists feel riding in an unprotected bike lane, I would ask them to try this: ride, run, walk, stand or sit – whatever they are capable of – in an unprotected bike lane while a car or truck speeds past them within inches, regularly, at speeds of up to 80 km/h. And stay there for longer than 42 seconds.
The recent changes are important because they provide real safety measures for people riding bikes (roughly 400 per day). But they are also important because they have a tangible effect on the comfort that riders feel as they make their way back and forth from the Seymour area.
If we as a community feel it is important to reduce vehicle trips and traffic, and foster a healthy active community, then changes like what we see on the parkway are an important step in the right direction and long overdue.
Jordan Manley
North Vancouver
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