Petition calls for safer bike path in Stanley Park causeway
Cycling advocates in Vancouver have started a petition calling for a safer bike path connecting the city with the North Shore, after the recent death of a cyclist along the Stanley Park causeway.
The petition has caught the attention of Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Constance Barnes, who says she will put forward a motion at the next board meeting. Barnes says she will ask to meet with all levels of government involved to make the path safer.
The province's Ministry of Transportation has jurisdiction over the causeway and the Lions Gate Bridge.
In May, a 61-year-old woman fell off the raised pathway and into the path of a West Vancouver bus. Police say she may have been avoiding pedestrians on the shared sidewalk.
Erin O'Melinn, executive director of the cycling advocacy group HUB, says the accident could have been prevented.
"[The path] is very narrow. When you're going southbound, you can pick up quite a lot of speed and it's very loud, so it's hard to communicate with other sidewalk users that you're coming, that you're passing them," she said.
According to numbers from ICBC, there has been only one crash involving a cyclist along the Causeway between 2008 and 2012.
Motion for pedestrian and cycling improvements at the Stanley Park causeway:
with files from CBC's Jesara Sinclair