The Cyclist's Guide

Chilco Street

Cyclists

The Chilco cycling route is intended to be shared with other users. No further details are provided regarding its intended design or use.

Road Network

Traffic volumes on Chilco are very light, 0 to 5 000 per day [DTP p. 44]. Chilco is considered a local street.

Transit

No impact.

Pedestrians

Chilco does not play any special role in the pedestrian network.

Goods Movement

Chilco is outside the downtown truck area. No buses run along Chilco.

Parking

No impact.

Spot Improvements

No impact.

Comments

A connection from the north end of Chilco to the westbound Georgia St. bike lane has been implemented. The Chilco Underpass under Georgia was completed in late 2003. A rough view of the intended cyclist route is shown in red on the map below; the intended routing through Stanley Park has not yet been finalized. In this map, north is to the right, and the Lion's Gate Bridge is up. The engineering staff seems to have done quite a good job of considering cyclists' needs in this area. The only major complaint is in signage: it would be useful to have directions to the causeway to Lions Gate Bridge coming from Chilco.

[Original image from city website, Stanley Park "S" Curve Improvements; red route added]

In VACC discussions regarding Chilco St., we heard a suggestion from a member of the West End Residents Association: he wanted to see the Chilco bikeway moved a block east to Gilford St. This route serves the same purposes as Chilco, and could act as a sort of "off-Denman" route, and would be a bit further from the Stanley Park lagoon routes. Engineering staff considered this option, but concluded that Gilford has poorer grades and has more difficult connections through miniparks. The VACC has yet to make a repeat visit to this location to evaluate these arguments.

VACC members attending the City's Bicycle Advisory Committee saw plans for Chilco St. in November 2004. The issues apparent at this stage are:

• the T junction at south end: how should Chilco connect to the seaside routes?
• connections through miniparks. The minipark between Comox and Nelson is the tightest in the West End, so it'll be the trickiest. Curb bulges could be useful for improving cyclist visibility at the intersections when they're leaving the miniparks, and 3-way stops could also prove useful. Better curb cuts will be installed in all miniparks, along with signage to encourage sharing between pedestrians, minipark users and bicycles.
• north of Robson, the street is broken by a cul-de-sac. It currently has a series of railings on the east side designed to prevent motorcycles (!) from trying to cut through the cul-de-sac. Residents would like to see bicycles routed through the west side of the cul-de-sac, but this is quite dangerous given incoming traffic from Lagoon Dr. The engineers prefer a route through the centre of the cul-de-sac, which we agree with; we'd also like to see a 3-way stop at this intersection, given the sharp angle of the entry of Lagoon Dr.
• unfortunately, the Chilco bikeway cannot connect through to Georgia St. due to an interfering wedding chapel in the final block. The city has installed a thin northbound lane past the wedding chapel, but it's often blocked by users of the building, and it doesn't serve the needs of southbound users. The only viable improvement seems to be an addition of railings to discourage wedding attendees from overflowing onto the bicycle path. Fortunately, weddings rarely happen during commuting hours.

As this prepares to go to council, an administrative report with many of the details on the route is now available. The VACC has also written a letter [PDF | HTML] summarizing our support for this route.