The Cyclist's Guide

Helmcken Street

Cyclists

This shared on-street bike route [Comox/Helmcken] would become part of the east-west Greenway/Bikeway across the peninsula joining Stanley Park with the Yaletown and False Creek North neighbourhoods. Helmcken Street is particularly narrow for cyclists and motorists to share the road space. Some parking spaces would likely be removed as part of the redesign of the street into a Greenway.

[DTP p. 99]

An Ipsos-Reid survey indicated support for this proposal. 62% of businesses and residents supported redesigning Helmcken St. to give room to pedestrians and bikes [DTP Ipsos-Reid survey, Feb. 2002, p. 4].

17. Redesign Helmcken Street as a pedestrian and cyclist friendly greenway

Redesign Helmcken as a highly pedestrianized "woonerf street" along the lines of streets seen on Granville Island. This would include multiple curb bulges, open spaces, traffic calming, landscaping and other pedestrian features. Additional landscaping could be provided if some of the street parking is removed.

[DTP p. 145]

Road Network

Where data is available, Helmcken has very light traffic, with under 5 000 vehicles per day [DTP p. 44]. Helmcken is designated as a local street [DTP p. 49].

Intersection	Date recorded	Time	Direction	Left-turning vehicles	Through vehicles	Right-turning vehicles	Cyclists
Burrard	2002.07.18	am	westbound	68	0	53	15
		pm	westbound	119	0	58	16
Hornby	2003.07.10	am	eastbound	78	93	0	11
			westbound	0	110	189	17
		pm	eastbound	102	167	0	4
			westbound	0	153	146	23
Howe	2002.06.05	am	eastbound	0	71	57	4
			westbound	30	203	0	11
		pm	eastbound	0	138	134	15
			westbound	0	218	27	23
Granville	2003.07.09	am	eastbound	12	61	15	9
			westbound	19	113	7	17
		pm	eastbound	25	169	31	22
			westbound	58	114	14	24
Seymour	2002.06.10	am	eastbound	59	33	0	2
			westbound	0	83	51	18
		pm	eastbound	111	102	0	16
			westbound	0	129	46	20
Richards	2002.08.09	am	eastbound	0	43	17	7
			westbound	18	26	0	20
		pm	eastbound	0	107	36	23
			westbound	31	54	0	14
Homer	2000.05.30	am	eastbound	70	29	0	7
			westbound	0	15	20	11
		pm	eastbound	143	51	0	11
			westbound	0	27	55	5

Transit

No impact.

Pedestrians

Helmcken is designated as a greenway, and is the centrepiece of the new pedestrian network [DTP p. 79].

Together these streets [Helmcken and Comox] serve to link into the regional Parkway Greenway. This route will connect Burnaby's Central Park to Vancouver's Stanley Park. This greenway will proceed along quiet, well-treed residential streets in the West End, past the historic Mole Hill block adjacent to Nelson Park, and finally through Yaletown connecting to the Seaside Greenway and the False Creek ferry system. The development of a custom greenway design that introduces landscaping treatments (trees, shrubs, and flowerbeds), public art, street furniture, improved visibility of pedestrians through pedestrian bulges, pedestrian oriented lighting and improved signage is recommended. Local vehicle access will be maintained along the Greenway and special attention will be given to securing sufficient parking for local businesses. Some improvements may include:

• Incorporating designs that provide significant landscaping treatments (trees, plants, shrubs, etc), environmental benefits (such as reduced rainwater run-off), noise mitigation from traffic, improved street definition, increased protection from rain and sun, and increased separation of pedestrians from traffic;
• Providing traffic diversions at select locations to reduce traffic volumes along this greenway. A special landscaped traffic diversion island (right in / right out) is suggested where Comox meets Thurlow (See spot improvement #19 in section 5.1);
• Installing pedestrian activated signals for crossing Denman at Comox Street; Thurlow at Comox Street;
• Providing pedestrian bulges to reduce pedestrian crossing distances across Granville at Helmcken; Thurlow at Comox; Helmcken at Homer; Helmcken at Richards Street; Pacific Boulevard at Cambie Street (See spot improvement #17 in Section 5.1);
• Using special surface materials that may include interlocking pavers for sidewalks and coloured pavement for cyclists;
• Providing special design attention to be given to the cycling and pedestrian crossing between Helmcken and Comox Street at Burrard (See spot improvement #8 in section 5.1);
• Removing bollards at eastern street-end of Helmcken at the lane (just east of Mainland St.) to provide unimpeded access for pedestrians;
• Incorporating roadway treatment that signals to drivers that this is a pedestrian priority area; and
• Redesigning the southern end of Cambie Street between Pacific Boulevard and Nelson Street by reducing roadway width and reallocating the centre median to provide increased width on the western sidewalk thereby enhancing the entrance into the Parkway Greenway.

[DTP pp. 86-87]

Goods Movement

No impact.

Parking

No impact.

Spot Improvements

16. Improve pedestrian and cyclist access through Helmcken Park between Mainland and Pacific

Between Mainland and Pacific the Helmcken Greenway passes through a surface parking lot, crosses a lane and passes through Helmcken Park. Along the property lines that separate the lane from the park and parking lot are a series of bollards and chains that define the lane but make if awkward for pedestrians and cyclists to negotiate. Repositioning the bollards and chains in cooperation with the owner of the parking lot could improve conditions for all users.

[DTP p. 145]

In this location, signage in the laneway is most important, since drivers in the lane do not expect cyclist traffic. A bike lane on the west side of the parking lot would be ideal. Some curb redesign at Pacific and Davie may also be necessary to give cyclists access to this route.

18. Create a cyclist connection between Helmcken and Comox across Burrard

This offset intersection poses additional complexities for routing cyclists across Burrard along the proposed bikeway/greenway. A combination of bike lanes and off-street bike facility on Burrard Street in front of the St. Paul's hospital could provide a way to facilitate this movement.

[DTP p. 146]

The bike route here seems quite awkward, at an initial glance. I would guess that the motivation for this design is to avoid installing separate signals at Helmcken and Comox. There are two main difficulties with this design:

• sidewalk width: the sidewalk in front of St. Paul's Hospital is quite narrow, and it would be difficult to support two bike lanes and two pedestrian lanes on this stretch. It appears that the sidewalk will be widened by removing parking, but the new on-street bike lane on Burrard must also be accomodated. Existing trees in the sidewalk would almost certainly have to be removed.
• pedestrian/cyclist conflicts: the design above has three points where cyclists and pedestrians cross each others' paths. If pedestrian traffic was positioned on either side of the cyclist traffic, this could be alleviated, but the design would be quite strange and convoluted.
• redundant lane: this design will require two separate southbound lanes along Burrard for a short distance. This redundancy initially seems confusing, but could also make signage easier, since the two southbound lanes serve very different purposes.

The only reasonable alternative design would be to reuse the southbound Burrard lane for eastbound Comox/Helmcken traffic, and to build a short northbound Burrard lane for westbound Helmcken/Comox traffic. This would also require installing an appropriate combined signalling system for Helmcken and Comox, which is difficult to conceive.

Another reasonable alternative design is shown in the figure to the right [adapted from Alta Planning, San Francisco Bicycle Program Supplemental Design Guidelines, p. 20]. In this design, the signal region at Helmcken is enlarged to include Comox, making a single large intersection. This design is much clearer than the alternative, but the distance between Comox and Helmcken may be too large to make this practical.

Comments

The Comox / Helmcken greenway is a very promising and attractive route. The Comox section is essentially a neighbourhood route, similar to other routes found outside the downtown. However, as a Greenway, we should be able to expect better design elements and more pedestrian- and cyclist-oriented crossings at major streets.

Stop signs need some redesign east of Richards. A signal at Homer would be useful, and cyclist traffic on Helmcken should have priority over drivers on minor streets like Hamilton or Mainland.