Vehicle? Pedestrian?

Vehicle? Pedestrian?                             Diebold                                        January 30, 2020

 The Bike lanes in Victoria have a more negative effect on Victoria's roads than positive. To continue the positive impacts of Victoria Bike Lanes, such as lowering emissions, promoting an active lifestyle and creating accessible transportation, bylaws need to be updated and regulated in order to abolish the debate of cyclists being a vehicle or a pedestrian or both. By settling the debate, The Bike lanes can only then create safe transportation for cyclists, vehicles and pedestrians alike. 

Section 184, according to bclaws.ca, state cyclists may not ride on the sidewalk or cycle on a crosswalk unless it is stated otherwise on the location of doing so. So many cyclists in Victoria take it upon themselves to decide whether they are a vehicle or pedestrian. They often take on both roles, depending on their needs. For this reason, there is resistance towards the expansion of the bike lanes, by vehicles owners as they not only have to obey new bike lane-controlled intersections, but they also have to look out for the cyclists that ride wherever is convenient regardless of bicycle-only lanes. "Cyclists, like pedestrians, are venerable to significant injuries or death in crashes with cars" states ICBC on their opening page for Cycling Safety. Most cyclist injuries are due to Drivers not yielding to cyclists. By creating well structures laws for cyclists, the bike lanes will not only favour cyclists themselves, but the vehicles on the road will be able to interact, keeping the cyclists safe appropriately. 

Until the bylaws are updated and reinforced to cyclists and vehicle owners, the bike lane construction should not continue. Without a common law to abide to, there is more negative recourse on Victoria’s roads and the non-enforced and non-specific bylaw. The Bike Lanes are a public safety risk until new bylaws are put into place, and therefore the bike lanes are holding Victoria back from all of the positive potential the bike lanes promotes in the future.