The Burrard Street Bridge cycling experiment that gets underway two weeks from today is raising hopes for a bike-friendlier future in Metro Vancouver. The expectation is that allocating more space for bikes on the busy crossing will encourage more commuters to swap their car keys for a two-wheeler.

But far from a breakthrough, this bold initiative is more likely to be a bust. Here’s why.

By taking over space previously reserved for automobiles and pedestrians, the summer trial runs the risk of alienating two traditional allies of the cycling community: Bus riders and walkers.

It’s true that transit vehicles will have “priority access,” but that doesn’t mean they will be any less impacted by congestion on the bridge deck. And you can bet that some pedestrians will be bothered about being kicked off their sidewalk on the crossing’s east side.

Some drivers will also be annoyed — but that’s already a given. As a cyclist who will be using the new lane en route to the office, I look forward to their middle finger salutes.

But I fear the wider fallout — and potential backlash — from a general public that is peeved about special treatment for cyclists.

I’ve been two-wheeling over this bridge for years, and I can say it’s the least dangerous part of my commute. The real threat is the road rage and driver stupidity that takes place off of it.

Many riders would agree, even if the vocal cycling lobby does not.

Earlier this year, a Burrard bike lanes advocate asked me if I would allow my children to cycle on the bridge, given the cited safety concerns. My response: No chance — but I wouldn’t let them ride in the majority of downtown bike routes either.

Another argument being put forth is that the bridge status quo represents a liability issue for the city. Which begs the question: Is every other designated bike route with safety concerns also a litigation fiasco in waiting?

The sad truth is city hall missed its chance to provide cyclists with a far superior means to get across False Creek: A cyclist- and pedestrian-only passerelle.

But given the state of the city’s finances in 2009, this much pricier option is almost certainly a non-starter.

What we’re stuck with instead is, at best, a transportation non-event, and, at worst, a public relations black eye for the cycling community at large.

Just because Ihab Shaker is disenchanted with the state of passenger ferries in Metro Vancouver doesn’t mean he’s planning on sailing away from the region anytime soon.

The owner of Coastal Link Ferries — which serves walk-on commuters between Bowen Island and downtown Vancouver — fumes over the uneven playing field for his privately run service, and the layers of bureaucracy he is constantly up against.

But far from giving up in the face of adversity, the sea captain is gamely expanding his business.

Since the winter, he has tripled the number of sailings between Bowen’s Snug Cove and Vancouver’s Coal Harbour. An upswing in customers has naturally followed.

More recently, according to Shaker, he has reached an agreement with the Port of Vancouver to construct a new, albeit modest, terminal for his ferry between the SeaBus station and the Helijet landing pad on the south shore of Burrard Inlet.

Before the dock deal, Coastal Link had wanted to park its vessel at a previously unused dock at the SeaBus site. But TransLink rebuffed the company’s advances. Instead, that ferry dock is now being used by a whale-watching tour boat. Shaker says that his new facility likely won’t be completed until summer’s end, meaning he will continue to load passengers, less conveniently, at Harbour Green Park.

In the meantime, he asks bitterly, “Why won’t TransLink let me in?”

His frustration goes beyond a dock, mind you. According to Shaker, Metro Vancouver lags behind other cities when it comes to passenger-only ferry service — the SeaBus operation notwithstanding.

“More than Sydney, more than New York, more than Boston, if you look at a map of B.C. you will see that we are the most suitable harbour to have a viable ferry system,” he says.

One of the problems, argues Shaker, is that small operators like him face stiff competition from B.C. Ferries, which is government-subsidized.

While Shaker is pursuing a new service between downtown and the Sunshine Coast, he maintains that other proposals announced recently — such as a walk-on ferry connecting Vancouver to Nanaimo — stand little chance of survival.

“I’m the only one who has been able to survive, and that’s because of the design and fuel efficiency of my boat,” says Shaker, who relishes his underdog status on the Bowen-to-Vancouver route.

“I challenge TransLink or B.C. Ferries to show a more efficient and environmentally friendly way to transport people between these two destinations.”

Later this week, the Vancouver Canadians baseball team will play its much-anticipated season opener at Nat Bailey Stadium.

Expect the scene to be an upbeat one — from the singing of Take Me Out To The Ball Game to Little Leaguers cheerfully chasing foul balls in the bleachers.

But not far away, in the Downtown Eastside, a far less happy baseball story is being played out.

At Oppenheimer Park, in Vancouver’s old Japantown neighbourhood, the historic playing field of the Asahi baseball team is being demolished. The City of Vancouver is removing the ball diamond as part of its renovation of the park.

The Asahi team, formed in 1914 and comprised of Japanese-Canadian players, was a premier baseball team in the Pacific Northwest, having won numerous championships. In contrast to the home-run heroes of the modern era, their winning style was marked by stolen bases, bunts and deft fielding — all of it steroid-free.

Tragically, with the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War — and players forced to scatter across the province and the country — the team disbanded.

Forever, it turned out.

But the Asahi baseball legend lived on. The team, after all, was the touchstone for a community that had been ravaged by racism and, ultimately, forced relocation.

All of this made their home turf on Powell Street less a field of dreams, and more a field of memories — memories steeped in glory and melancholy.

Which is why the demolition of the diamond has some folks, including Downtown Eastside activists and citizen journalists Hendrik Beune and April Smith, fuming.

They note that in recent years, the Japantown community had resumed a baseball tournament on the grounds to honour the team.

But Beune tells me his pleas to save the diamond have been met with silence or even resistance. Which is a shame, since there is no turning back now.

The news isn’t all bad. According to the Vancouver Park Board, the team will be remembered at Oppenheimer, and a reference to the team will be interwoven in the mesh of a commemorative backstop.

But the diamond, the bleachers and the original backstop will all be gone.

In the city’s defence, it is dealing with numerous stakeholders at a site that has been under siege for decades. This is the Downtown Eastside we are talking about.

But that doesn’t make the demise of the historic Asahi grounds any less tragic.

Last week, while cycling home from the office, I was almost flattened by a car charging through a red light. This came moments after I was nearly run off the road by another careless motorist who mistook my bike lane for a turning lane of his own.

Welcome to Bike Month in Metro Vancouver.

This being June, the annual push is on to get locals onto this more sustainable mode of transport.

But don’t be fooled by the cheery speeches or beefed-up Critical Mass rides: Bike mode share — the number of cyclists on the road compared to motorists, transit riders or pedestrians — is disappointingly small in this region.

This shouldn’t be.

But a major sticking point for many would-be cyclists is safety. Some folks don’t feel comfortable riding with traffic.

And why should they, when bikes lanes have become the domain of parked airporter buses and delivery trucks, not to mention wayward cars.

So it’s encouraging to see local leaders going beyond the usual paying of lip service on this issue, and making some real headway.

As Coun. Geoff Meggs noted on his blog last week, Vancouver city council has recently committed to double its spending on cycling.

The investment will go toward improving existing bike routes, creating new cyclist-activated signal crossings and other infrastructure, plus car-free trials in four neighbourhoods. There’s also a long-term, much-needed plan focused on bike lanes that are separated from traffic.

All of this represents real progress — and a template that other jurisdictions in Metro Vancouver would be wise to emulate.

*****
TransLink didn’t waste any time responding to my column last week, detailing my frustration waiting for the No. 44 bus — a service that never arrived — on a recent morning. According to spokesperson Drew Snider, the bus was rerouted because of unannounced roadwork by the City of Vancouver.

Getting information out about such a last-minute rerouting, says Snider, involves process and time — in this case, 45 minutes until it was announced on TransLink’s website.

Still, during my wait, no notice was posted to the bus stop. And for nearly an hour, TransLink’s customer information agents were themselves left in the dark.

But I’m sympathetic to Snider’s assertion that “stuff happens.”

Of course it does — and most folks would agree. The key is that when it does, the best information is relayed to transit customers as soon as humanly possible.

TransLink is on a roll these days.

Sparkling mega-projects like the Canada Line and the Golden Ears Bridge are nearing completion. For cyclists, the Central Valley Greenway will be completed at the end of this month. Needed upgrades are happening across the transit system.

So it’s a shame that when TransLink screws up, it has to do so in royal form.

A case in point is the No. 44 bus service. At the best of times, it is a frustrating, unpredictable affair — complete with pass-ups, overcrowding, and third-rate scheduling.

But at the worst of times, it simply doesn’t show up.

Last Thursday, I arrived at a bus stop on West Hastings Street at 10:10 a.m., hoping to catch the service to Point Grey.

I faithfully turned on my iPhone to check out TransLink’s schedule application — indicating a bus would arrive in one minute.

Perfect.

But after 10 minutes, I was still waiting. At 10:25, still no bus.

The good news? Another bus was to swing by at 10:31. But, of course, it too would be a no-show.

At roughly 10:35, I called TransLink. An operator was kind enough to look into the matter, but eventually indicated there was no problem. Hold tight, he said, a bus would be on its way.

Before long, I was waiting for three No. 44 buses: The 10:11, the 10:31, and the 10:51. And I had been on the phone with TransLink for more than 30 minutes.

Finally, my tireless agent had an update. The service had been rerouted. For whatever reason, customers weren’t informed.

So nearly an hour after this ordeal began, I abandoned the bus stop.

But this episode begs some serious questions.

First, in the event of a service change, why wouldn’t TransLink post information immediately at every affected bus stop? Or at the very least, to its much-hyped mobile phone app?

Second, how was it that information agents were ironically — and faultlessly — in the dark until nearly an hour after my fiasco began?

Third, short of a major weather event, is it ever acceptable to abandon fare-paying customers at a bus stop?

At 11:15, by the way, I had made my way to Burrard Street, where I finally caught a bus out of downtown.

And at 11:30 a.m., an advisory was posted to TransLink’s website: The No. 44 was being rerouted.

This Wednesday, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson will travel to Portland to speak at the Cascadia Rail Partnership Conference — a gathering of transport pundits, policy wonks and politicians focused on bringing high-speed rail to the corridor stretching between Vancouver and Eugene, Ore.

The group should be especially energized, thanks to last month’s funding announcement by U.S.
President Barack Obama — pledging $8 billion for high-speed rail along major population corridors, including the Pacific Northwest.

But frustrated Vancouverites stuck in airport queues or traffic jams en route to the U.S. West Coast would be wise not to envision themselves rocketing down the I-5 corridor in a Shinkansen bullet train just yet.

Here’s why.

While $8 billion seems like a considerable sum of money, it is merely a drop in the bucket — especially when our own government has committed nothing. High-speed rail is prohibitively expensive — and both Canada and the U.S. are, lamentably, several decades behind the key investments that have been made in Asia and Europe.

Recently, I spoke with a consultant to JR Railways Group, the firm that operates Japan’s famous high-speed rail lines. He argued that Obama’s money, divided over 10 projects, won’t go far at all for any kind of new high-speed rail developments. What it will do is improve upon existing rail routes.

So the prospect of a bullet train screaming into Pacific Central Station is still a pipe dream.

Of course, money is only part of this story. The other, perhaps more pivotal aspect, is that of government will and vision. Sadly, our federal leadership has none of either.

To date, judging by its silence on the matter, it seems Ottawa would rather have nothing to do with this undertaking. Even when federal politicians do mention high-speed rail — like Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has done of late — they tend to dwell on Ontario and Quebec.

British Columbia — surprise, surprise — is an afterthought.

Of course, the feds are still taking heat here — and rightfully so — for the embarrassing plight of the second Amtrak train connecting Vancouver to Seattle. The Canadian Border Services Agency is holding up the expansion of the slow-speed service by demanding $1,500 per day from the U.S. railway operator.

If government bureaucrats are willing to quibble over such a piddly amount, they will never be on board for the vision or the cost required for anything remotely more ambitious.

The annual cycling event aims to get more working stiffs out of their carbon-emitting cars and SUVs, and onto eco-friendlier 12-speeds and cruisers instead.

I’ll admit it.

I’ve drunk the cycling lobby’s Kool-Aid.

This spring, I’m captaining a Bike to Work team at my office.

And why not? I could use the exercise and the fresh air. Besides, cycling as a viable form of commuting has come a long way in the Lower Mainland.

Yes, cyclists still have to contend with rampant bike theft, and many routes could be a whole lot safer.

But beyond these points, cycling is an enjoyable, economical and environmentally sensible mode of transport in Metro Vancouver.

One of the chief reasons for this is how well it integrates with our bike-friendly public transit system.

TransLink already allows riders to take their bikes onto SkyTrain, SeaBus, West Coast Express, as well as buses.

What’s more, there will also be room for bikes on the soon-to-be completed Canada Line.

The beauty of combining pedalling with mass transit is that it opens up the biking experience to folks from across the region, and not just the inner city.

The arrangement isn’t perfect, mind you — especially during busy travel times when space becomes an issue on SkyTrain cars or the SeaBus ferries.

And on some popular bus routes, the bike racks are often full — making it difficult for cyclists to schedule their transit journey when they’re unable to board a vehicle.

But for the most part, the system works well —and holds up as a model of integration for other cities in North America.

One of TransLink’s impressive regional projects — one that will again benefit cyclists who combine riding with transit — is the planning of the Central Valley Greenway.

Slated to open at the end of June, the 25-kilometre cycling path will link downtown Vancouver to dense urban neighbourhoods in Burnaby and New Westminster, and will link up to 11 SkyTrain stations and more than 23 bus routes.

Our transit authority’s work is far from finished, mind you.

It is currently working on a Regional Cycling Strategy that will influence where and how cycling investment is directed in the coming decade.

Given that so-called mode share for bicycles compared to other forms of commuting is surprisingly mediocre across Metro Vancouver, their decisions should not be made lightly.

That’s how long I’ve been waiting for my patch of communal garden in Metro Vancouver.

A half-decade ago, before the popularity of high-minded movements like organic eating, food security or the 100 Mile Diet, I had registered for a shot at green-thumb glory at the North Shore’s Lower Lonsdale Community Garden.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone in my enthusiasm for urban agriculture. To my chagrin, it turned out there were no plots available.

So I was told by an organizer that I would be put on a waiting list. And from that queue, annually, a few lucky folks would be selected for garden membership by lottery.

Year after year, I’ve been waiting for some good news about my new patch of green. But it has yet to arrive. Two weeks ago, I found out that, once again, I was a loser in the annual garden plot sweepstakes. I wouldn’t be growing carrots or cucumbers this summer.

It’s not just this one patch, mind you. There are waiting lists for community gardens across Vancouver. The supply of plots just can’t meet the growing demand.

And it’s the same story overseas. An article in the U.K.-based Economist recently noted that in London, “a new enthusiasm for homegrown produce had swelled the waiting lists for plots” — with 100,000 would-be gardeners there awaiting their turn.

Never mind the beach or ballpark, this spring and summer it seems the community garden is the hippest place to be.

Let’s face it: Small-scale city farming is an idea whose time has come. Find a parcel of discarded urban space, reclaim it for the community and divvy it up for the locals so they can grow vegetables, fruits and flowers. It is utopian and utilitarian all at once.

Last Monday, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and members of his Greenest City Action Team recommended the creation of an organic garden at City Hall.

And south of the border, U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama — with the help of area children — have planted a vegetable garden on the White House lawn.

In the spirit of President Obama, I’m not giving up hope. On the recommendation of a helpful city bureaucrat, I’ve since placed my name on the wait list for another urban garden opening later this month.
With any luck, I’ll soon be enjoying some, ahem, salad days of my own.

After all, it was former NDP premier Glen Clark who brought Vancouver the Millennium Line, which has enjoyed steady increases in ridership since its completion in 2002.

Another former New Democrat premier, Mike Harcourt, is one of the most vocal advocates of building light-metro for our growing region. In his 2007 book, City Making in Paradise, Harcourt cites SkyTrain as one of the legacies from Expo 86 that saved Vancouver’s livability.

Even current party leader Carole James has called for more SkyTrain cars to help undo the current transit crunch.

So I was surprised earlier this month to hear NDP candidate Mel Lehan — running in the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey in the upcoming provincial election — sounding the alarm over the plan to extend SkyTrain west to UBC.

He recently organized a town hall meeting in Kitsilano to raise concerns in the community. And his effort has paid off.

Since then, a coalition of activists has been trashing the light-metro system, citing everything from cost to construction to crime.

They instead advocate for alternatives such as a European-style tram. How quaint.

But while there is a place for slower, surface-level light rail in our city, it shouldn’t be along one of the most heavily trafficked urban corridors in Western Canada.

It makes one wonder: Do any of these critics actually use public transit? Have they witnessed the brutal lineups for the 99 B-Line service at Broadway Station — or the crush of riders on the buses themselves?

One anti-SkyTrain theory goes so far as to blame it for encouraging commuters to live further distances from where they work — as opposed to just around the block.

How laughable. This implies that the average worker could afford the sky-high price tag for a condo in Kits or a bungalow in Point Grey.

Ironically, the folks who stand to lose the most from a derailed SkyTrain expansion are students, seniors and working stiffs. The same people who, presumably, are being courted by the provincial NDP.

SkyTrain is expensive, yes. But given its speed, durability and role in encouraging urban density, it is the economically and environmentally responsible choice for Metro Vancouver.

It’s no coincidence General Motors and Chrysler are facing potential financial Armageddon at the same time consumer tastes in cars have changed radically.

Let’s face it: Last year’s sky-high gas prices have ushered in an era of unprecedented demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Buyers aren’t just focused on their wallets, mind you.

They’re also focused on carbon emissions and environmental impact. That’s why SUVs and other gas guzzlers are falling out of favour, while Smart Cars and foreign-made hybrids are a growing force on our city streets.

Hope is not necessarily lost for the Big Three, however. Earlier this month, General Motors announced that it was teaming up with the scooter company Segway to develop a battery powered, two-wheel vehicle.

GM should go one step further though, and embrace an old Japanese term: Kei Jidosha, or kei for short, meaning “light automobile.”

Japan’s automakers have been making these pint-sized cars, vans and trucks for the past half-century, which isn’t a surprise, given longstanding environmental challenges in that country.

Thanks to their style, utility and fuel efficiency — not to mention government incentives — these green-friendly automobiles have been a huge hit with Japanese consumers. I have no doubt North American car buyers would embrace them with the same zeal.

More and more of these cute vehicles are popping on the streets of Metro Vancouver. Last spring, I had my own Kei Jidosha moment, and purchased a Suzuki Every microvan.

Ironically, and unbeknownst to most, GM already manufactures and markets its own microvan in China, the Wuling Sunshine, through a joint venture. Not surprisingly, the vehicle is hugely popular with Chinese drivers, and has helped bolster GM’s otherwise battered bottom line.

Which begs the question: Why not here?

It’s about time North Americans are afforded the same choice in vehicles that drivers in Asia already have.