40 km/hr speed limit change coming to Cornwall Avenue in Kitsilano

Cornwall Avenue looking west from the intersection with Yew Street, next to Jericho Beach Park. (Google Maps)

Some form of speed limit reductions to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety will be coming to much of Cornwall Avenue in Kitsilano, starting no later than July 2023.

This follows Vancouver City Council’s unanimous decision on Wednesday to approve a member motion by OneCity Councillor Christine Boyle and Green Councillor Pete Fry, but not before some major amendments, which were mostly opposed by the trio of OneCity and Green councillors.

While the original motion proposed a new standalone pilot project to reduce the speed limit from 50 km/hr to 30 km/hr for the entirety of Cornwall Avenue’s 1.4-km-long length, spanning eight blocks between Burrard and Trafalgar streets, the amendments approved by the ABC councillors changed the lowered speed limit to 40 km/hr.

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Instead, ABC Councillor Mike Klassen’s amendment expands the existing school zone pilot project that began last month, which reduced the school zone speed limit on arterial roads to 40 km/hr and collector roads to 30 km/hr at a number of school locations across the city. The existing school zone pilot project on one block of Cornwall Avenue — between Cypress and Maple streets — next to Henry Hudson Elementary School would instead be expanded westward to cover more areas of Cornwall Avenue, including Kitsilano Beach Park.

Klassen said City staff suggested a low speed limit of 30 km/hr could be challenging for enforcement, given that Cornwall Avenue is classified by the City as an arterial road.

Map showing the entire 1.7-km-long, eight-block length of Cornwall Avenue between Trafalgar and Burrard streets in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighborhood. (Google Maps)

Perspective of Cornwall Avenue looking eastward near Maple Street and Henry Hudson Secondary School. (Google Maps)

Under the approved amendments, City staff will report back to City Council in Spring 2024 for any further changes to improve street safety, based on the results of the 40 km/hr speed limit through an expansion of an existing pilot project.

As well, by the end of this year, City staff will identify the feasibility of building a bike lane on Cornwall Avenue between Cypress and Trafalgar streets — essentially almost the entire length of the street, which currently has four vehicle lanes, including curbside parking outside of the weekday morning and afternoon peak hours in the peak direction. This would be in addition to the Vancouver Park Board’s approved plans for a new bike lane through Kitsilano Beach Park to establish a new purpose-built segment of the Seaside Greenway.

The motion also directs City staff to work with TransLink on exploring bus-priority measures for Cornwall Avenue, such as bus lanes or bus bulbs.

“What we’re proposing is we’re extending the 40 km/hr for the pilot period, hear back in the spring on how it’s working, and make adjustments. These are recommendations from our City staff engineering team. We’re looking to them to give us some sense of what we can do better. This motion does look at further improvements,” said ABC Councillor Lisa Dominato.

Boyle expressed some concerns that a 40 km/hr speed limit, instead of 30 km/hr, would be less effective in preventing accidents and injuries, and that an extension of the existing school zone pilot would not cover other periods of the week when the elementary school is not in session.

“I don’t understand how we can say it’s easier to enforce 30 km/hr than 40 km/hr. The impact to a human life from being hit at 30 km/hr vs. 40 km/hr is significant. So if we’re doing this work, let’s do it that makes the most difference for every single individual who could be involved in an accident,” said Boyle.

Fry suggested Cornwall Avenue is not a major route, and brought up the existing 30 km/hr speed limit on Hastings Street within the Downtown Eastside, which was implemented more than a decade ago to help reduce injuries in the area due to jaywalking.

Fry said Cornwall Avenue is “a road to nowhere. It’s not a truck route, and not a significant arterial. If you want to go farther and faster, go to 4th Avenue. This is a road of convenience for cars, but it needs to be a safe road for everyone.”

Both Boyle and Fry also suggested the Park Board’s recent decision to allow legal liquor consumption year-round on a permanent basis at Kitsilano Beach Park is an added variable to pedestrian safety considerations on Cornwall Avenue.

Based on a previous 2013 analysis by City staff to explore the feasibility of protected bike lanes on Cornwall Avenue, the arterial road naturally sees significant vehicle traffic flows, given its more direct and quicker route between UBC/Westside neighbourhoods and the downtown Vancouver peninsula and the North Shore, compared to the other closest route options of West 4th Avenue and West Broadway.

Cornwall Avenue near Burrard Street sees about 27,000 vehicles per day in up to four vehicle traffic lanes, depending on the time of day due to variable curbside parking restrictions.

If Cornwall Avenue were to be reduced to one vehicle lane in each direction to accommodate protected bike lanes, it would result in the vehicle lanes running at capacity — over 10,000 vehicles per lane per day — and require that about 6,000 vehicles per day be transplanted to other streets, according to City staff.

cornwall avenue bike lane traffic impacts 2013 study 1

2013 analysis: Potential concept of reducing Cornwall Avenue’s four vehicle lanes to two vehicle lanes to accommodate protected bike lanes on each side of the street. City of Vancouver staff did not recommend this. (City of Vancouver)

cornwall avenue bike lane traffic impacts 2013 study 4

2013 analysis: Potential vehicle traffic volume adjustments from reducing Cornwall Avenue’s four vehicle lanes to two vehicle lanes to accommodate protected bike lanes on each side of the street. City of Vancouver staff did not recommend this. (City of Vancouver)

While the analysis shows most of the rerouted vehicle traffic from Cornwall Avenue would be expected to go to West 4th Avenue and West Broadway, with some traffic going through neighbourhood streets, this redistribution “would likely over-stress the intersection of West 4th Avenue and Burrard Street, and the busy retail section of West 4th Avenue west of Burrard Street.”

Furthermore, City staff stated “bus operations on both Cornwall Avenue and West 4th Avenue would be adversely affected by busier traffic lanes many hours of the day and more frequent congestion.”

For these various reasons, at the time, City staff did not recommend reducing vehicle lanes on Cornwall Avenue for new protected bike lanes.

TransLink’s No. 2 Downtown/Macdonald bus runs along Cornwall Avenue, and it was the 16th busiest bus route in Metro Vancouver in pre-pandemic 2019, with average boardings of about 16,000 per weekday, 11,000 per Saturday, and over 8,000 per Sunday/holiday.

The roads the No. 2 operates along were previously identified by TransLink as one of the 20 most problematic corridors in the region for congestion. In 2020, as a measure to help speed up buses and reduce operating costs, the public transit authority selected the No. 2 for its first “bus stop balancing” initiative, which recalibrates bus routes through the practice of removing closely spaced bus stops.

On Wednesday, City Council also approved City staff’s recommendation to implement a $2 flat rate for curbside street parking within Chinatown to help support struggling businesses, as well as member motions directing City staff to explore creating six-way pedestrian scramble crossings at select locations and reactivating water features/fountains on City-owned property.

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