Victoria does not need a debate that divides people who drive from people who cycle. We need a transportation system that works for everyone: pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, people with disabilities, delivery vehicles, emergency services and drivers.
I support safe cycling infrastructure. Victoria has more than 40 kilometres of All Ages and Abilities cycling routes, and well-designed facilities can reduce collisions and give residents a practical alternative to driving. But supporting cycling does not mean every bike lane design is automatically good transportation policy.
My position is straightforward: build bike lanes where they improve safety and mobility, but do not remove critical road capacity without showing what will happen to congestion, transit, emergency response, neighbourhood traffic and businesses. Transportation decisions should be based on evidence, engineering analysis and measured results, not ideology.
Cook Street illustrates the issue. The City is upgrading the corridor between Bay Street and Maplewood Road with protected bicycle lanes, accessibility improvements, pedestrian crossings, wider sidewalks and other changes. Portions of the existing street have four vehicle lanes. Where a redesign changes two general purpose through lanes in each direction to one, the number of through lanes is reduced by 50 percent.
That does not mean the road will automatically carry 50 percent fewer vehicles. Actual throughput depends on intersections, turning movements, signal timing, traffic demand and driver behaviour. However, removing half the through lanes can create a bottleneck unless analysis demonstrates that the remaining capacity is adequate. The distinction matters: lane capacity may be reduced by 50 percent, but the effect on actual traffic flow must be modelled and measured.
Safety improvements are warranted. The City describes Cook and Blanshard as among Victoria’s busiest corridors and identifies significant collision concerns. Because Cook Street also performs
an important transit and vehicle carrying function, all uses deserve careful analysis before changes become permanent.
Victoria must also plan for growth. ICBC reported that actively insured vehicles across British Columbia increased from approximately 3.6 million in 2023 to 3.7 million in 2024 and noted that population growth contributes to congestion. Victoria should use local vehicle-registration data, regional population forecasts and commuting trends when designing major street projects. Our physical road network is largely fixed, so existing infrastructure must move people and goods more efficiently.
The answer is not to stop building bike lanes. It is to build them intelligently. Arterial roads, collector streets and local streets perform different functions. Cycling must be considered alongside transit, goods movement, accessibility, emergency response, pedestrians and general traffic.
Before permanently removing a general purpose lane from a major corridor, the City should publicly assess current and projected traffic volumes, intersection capacity, transit reliability, emergency access, neighbourhood diversion, commercial loading, parking, cycling demand, collision history and feasible alternative routes. Residents should be able to see the analysis and understand the trade-offs.
Projects should also be measured before and after construction. Did collisions decline? Did cycling increase? Did buses become faster or slower? Did traffic move onto residential streets? Were emergency response, accessibility, parking, deliveries or nearby businesses affected? How many people use the new infrastructure?
If a project improves safety, increases cycling and maintains acceptable transportation performance, it is successful. If it creates serious congestion, shifts substantial traffic into neighbourhoods or slows transit without comparable benefits, the City should be prepared to modify the design. That is results based planning.
High capacity transit also deserves priority. Route 95 Blink RapidBus between downtown and the West Shore carries more than 11,000 passenger boardings per day. On constrained corridors, we should consider how many people, not only how many vehicles, can be moved efficiently.
On the busiest corridors, safety should come first, followed by transit priority where it moves large numbers of people, protected cycling where it can be accommodated effectively, and sufficient capacity for remaining vehicles, deliveries and emergency services. This hierarchy recognizes that street space must serve multiple purposes and that no single mode can be planned in isolation.
My approach is practical: complete a connected cycling network, require transparent analysis for major corridors and publish before-and-after results. Where suitable, use parallel lower volume streets for high quality cycling routes that provide comparable connectivity without unnecessarily constraining an arterial. Integrate cycling with transit improvements, intersection redesign and scheduled road maintenance.
Success should not be measured primarily by kilometres of bike lanes constructed. It should be measured by whether people, goods and services can move through Victoria safely, reliably and efficiently. That is not anti-bike or pro-car. It is pro-mobility.