2020-Summary

Well 2020 was certainly a year to remember. Covid impacted everyone in so many ways, cycling included.

Covid placed restrictions on many of our normal activities, but fortunately getting out on a bike was one of the few that was not. In fact Dr Bonnie Henry repeatedly encouraged people to get out a cycle. The uptake was easily seen in the long waits for bike repairs, limited or sold our stock at bike shops and most importantly lots more people out cycling. Politicians and Municipal staff took note. We saw several quickly launched experiments for "slow streets" and other efforts to enable/encourage people to get out on their bikes.

In addition to this we saw some real progress on the creation of a "Comfortable for Most" cycling network on the North Shore.

Back in 2019 HUB North Shore made Delegations ( presentations) to the 3 North Shore Councils recommending multi-year Investment in a prioritized build out of a safe and appealing network of bikeways, starting with HUB North Shores 3 priority bikeways:

In 2020 we saw both the City of North Van & District of North Van proposing prioritized, multi-year cycling infrastructure programs. West Van implemented a "Slow street" experiment and is now looking into enhancing it and making it permanent and expanding it to cover more slow streets.

In 2020 we saw the completion of a fair number of new infrastructure projects. Some were major and key portions of our 3 priority bikeways, while others were short stretches, often disconnected, but these are often "opportunistic" and take advantage of redevelopment or other projects to building the cycling infrastructure cheaply.

Full list of 2020 Cycling Infrastructure improvements.

Overall, from the perspective of cycling on the North Shore, I think that 2020 was pretty good, with some great new infrastructure. Also with increased funding for Active Transportation from the Federal and Provincial governments and the higher priority Municipal Councils are showing I have high hopes for the next few years.