Vancouver cyclists say that VPD 'targeted' them at an Olympic Village intersection
Last week, a local road safety advocacy group posted on social media, warning people that police were ticketing Vancouver cyclists at an intersection near Olympic Village.
Vision Zero Vancouver told Daily Hive that it heard of three reports of cyclists getting ticketed at 1st Avenue and Wiley Street on Friday, Aug. 21.
Mihai Cirstea, a volunteer with Vision Zero Vancouver, said he has never heard of something like this happening before, and “definitely not at this site.”
“It’s basically a T-intersection, and as you’re riding westbound, there’s nothing on your right except for a parking lot. That’s why pretty much no one stops there, because there’s no real intersection there as a cyclist, except the parking lot [that’s] used by the VPD,” Cirstea said.
Daily Hive also spoke to a cyclist, Mike (who asked not to have his last name published), who was ticketed at that intersection.
He said he was under the impression that the VPD had decided to specifically target cyclists.
“And the reason [the officer] said that he was there, and the reason that he was stopping cyclists for going through that stop sign, is because last week a cyclist had been hit by a police car coming out of that car park. And their response to that was to punish and arrest the cyclists rather than change the infrastructure, which was something that I told him I was quite surprised by,” Mike said.
However, the VPD told Daily Hive that there have been “no reported collisions involving a cyclist and a Vancouver Police Department vehicle during the month of August in the city of Vancouver.”
“We are aware of a reported collision involving a cyclist and a private vehicle at the intersection of West 1st and Wylie Street on Aug. 20, shortly before 6 p.m.,” a spokesperson for the VPD wrote in an email.
“Given the accident at the intersection and our desire to enhance safety awareness, a VPD Traffic member subsequently conducted traffic enforcement at the intersection and issued violation tickets to vehicles and cyclists at that location.”
Mike said he was ticketed when he was biking home from work, heading west on 1st Avenue. When he crossed the intersection at Wiley Street, he said he kept a lookout, slowed down, and cycled through without stopping.
He said that a VPD officer walked onto the road and stopped him for going through the stop sign without stopping, and Mike received a $167 ticket.
Mike told Daily Hive that while he was there, cars drove through the stop sign without stopping. He said he pointed this out to the officer, who said he was only there to “apprehend cyclists.”
“I got the impression that it was quite targeted. Because of the fact that there’s a police park in that parking lot, and it’s obviously something that’s been bothering specifically the police.”
Mike added that he doesn’t see a reason for a stop sign at this intersection, since it’s a regular parking lot. He pointed out that there aren’t stop signs when you pass people’s driveways. He said that if the VPD need to use the parking lot to pull out quickly in an emergency, they should add traffic lights.