Well as promised by the Mayor, here comes the Burrard Bridge bike lane! It’s great seeing the year over year improvement in terms of greening our city and encouraging awareness of alternative transportation.

We’ll see how this bike lane experiment pans out, but this coupled with BCAA’s fairly recent announcement ^[1] of providing Roadside Assistance to cyclists are two definite strides in the right direction for cyclists I think.

These two things will hopefully encourage more riders and less drivers. Especially in the downtown core.

How BCAA “Bike Assist” works as quoted from their site:

• The cyclist must have experienced a mechanical breakdown, which includes any issue that makes the bike inoperable during a rider’s commute, such as a broken chain or flat tire. No assistance will be provided to cyclists looking to avoid challenging terrain or inclement weather.
• Service technicians will do their best to get the cyclist on the go, but if the repair cannot be made at the site of the breakdown, the technician will transport the cyclist and their bicycle to their destination, home or nearest bike shop. The kilometer allotment will be consistent with the member’s current level of membership (e.g. a basic member is entitled to a five kilometre tow).
• Only two cyclists can be accommodated at a time.
• BCAA cannot break bike locks, as bike ownership cannot be easily identified.

The Vancouver Sun currently has a more thorough view/opinion piece ^[2] on the Burrard Bridge bike lane trial.