Driving west along Point Grey Road from Macdonald to Alma the other morning, I swear I could hear the sound of property values going up. If nothing else is certain about the impact of councils decision earlier this week to shut that stretch of road to through traffic by automobiles, it is that.
It is also most likely that cyclists who now pedal precariously between moving and parked cars as they make their way down that road will have more space to operate and will be less likely to take to the sidewalks.
After all, we were told repeatedly during the hearing by council into this matter that this dramatic change was all about safety even though ICBC statistics these past few years indicate there has not been one accident, let alone a fatality, on those seven blocks of roadway involving a cyclist and a car.
More than safety, this whole $6 million project that includes changes from the south end of the Burrard Bridge to Jericho Beach is about what in polite company is referred to as mode shift. More bluntly put, it is about getting even. As Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer declared in the closing moments of the debate on the issue, after first pointing out that except for one occasion last year she is among the 44 per cent of the citys population who do not drive: Cars have roads. Pedestrians have sidewalks. And bikes have nothing. Really? Talk to the folks on Hornby or Dunsmuir, among others.
But she is right when she says that this issue about what to do on Point Grey Road isnt new. It has been a stress point dividing neighbours for the past 40 years. And while successive councils have backed away from dealing with the matter, traffic has only worsened.
What has also changed is the cultural acceptance of mode shift, in other words the desirability of moving people out of cars and into active transportation, which is to say, walking, cycling and using public transit. It is at the heart of the citys 2040 Transportation plan.
It is what Vision campaigned for while their opponents ridiculed them.
Now its what they are doing. And they are doing it with more care and attention to public concerns in this particular instance than the clumsy bit of bait and switch they attempted to impose on, among others, the poor folks of Grandview-Woodland in their community plan.
It will likely take years before this full plan is in effect. Changing traffic patterns at the foot of the Burrard Bridge to push more cars south and make it easier for cyclists to make their way up to York and the cycle route planned for that street will be the first challenge. Im betting cyclists will continue to use Cornwall, making it more difficult for both cars and public transit on that route, to say nothing of pedestrians when the occasional idiot on a bike chooses to use the sidewalk.
By the way, when I recently asked Tanya Paz, the chair of the citys Active Transportation Policy Council, why her group wasnt going after sidewalk cyclists, she chose instead to complain about cars.
There will be enough to complain about on that score once Point Grey is closed and thousands of commuters are directed south on Macdonald.
But as complex as this project is and regardless of the care taken, making more space for cyclists and even pedestrians is nothing more than a rounding error in the scheme of things.
The major mode shift incentive for most people in the city still means improving public transit. And the possibility of any significant change there is well beyond the control of city council.
It depends, as it has always, on the will of senior levels of government and the province in particular, which is insisting on the ludicrous notion that transit funding should be approved by public referendum.
As for the controversial decision on Cornwall and Point Grey Road, I suspect the cause for the protests will be forgotten soon enough. People opposed now may even come to think of it as good idea. Others may simply believe it was that way all along.
