Short Bicycle Films from Victoria
Whenever over in Victoria, I usually try and take a few photos of some of the bike projects I’ve had a chance to work on with the City. This time, I experimented with some film clips to try and capture the experience a little better. If you’ve never biked from the ferry down to Victoria, or around Victoria itself, below are some photos as I’d normally take and a couple of short films…
Lift bridges never get old, unless you’re in a hurry that is… But luckily I wasn’t on this occasion, so it was fun to watch the bridge lift and lower, along with the flurry of people crossing it after it reopens. But before we get into Victoria, you have to get to Victoria, and my preferred way of doing that is to ride from the ferry along the Lochside Regional Trail. This first short film is intended to capture some of that experience and the types of infrastructure you will encounter…
Once in the city, I took a little loop of some of our (ISL Engineering) projects with the City, starting at the E&N Regional Trail connection that added a new bike crossing and protected bike lane or pathway along Kimta Road to extend the facility into Downtown…
I forgot to take photos on Kimta Road itself, but there are a few shots in the next video… Kimta feeds you into the Johnson Street Bridge and Downtown beyond it. at the bridge, you can also head the other way up Harbour Road towards the Galloping Goose Regional Trail… Harbour Road is always one of the busiest bike routes in my experience with both the Galloping Goose and Lochside Regional Trail feeding people on bicycles into it heading to Downtown, or of course leaving Downtown…
The shipyards along Harbour Road always provide an interesting backdrop…
Third person perspective…
While uni-directional protected bike lanes are often preferred, this is one location where bi-directional absolutely makes sense, connecting to the Galloping Goose on its east side at it’s north end and the Johnson Street bridge on its east side at the south end it avoids the need to cross the road…
From Harbour Road, you can head across the Selkirk Trestle… Not fun on those small Brompton wheels… And head up to Gorge Road, one of the city’s most recent bike protected lanes. There’s some interesting elements along that corridor, including continuous sidewalks, but I really like that we have locations with separate right-turn lanes, separate right turn signal phases, and no-right-turn-on-red, allowing people on bikes to go through this intersection with less chance of conflict.
You can turn right off Gorge Road and onto Government Street which brings you back into Downtown and to Chinatown…
A quick scoot around Downtown and along Fort Street brings you to the ISL Victoria office at the intersection of Fort and Vancouver…
Further along Fort Street there’s a neat plaza that manages the transition from two bi-directional protected bike lanes to uni-directional protected bike lanes. It’s always hard to capture the full extents of what’s going on here without a drone…
Another angle…
Back to Vancouver Street for the bikeway plaza that removed a through route for vehicle traffic, reduced traffic volumes on the bike route and provided a community space…
Likewise on Richardson Street… Interesting bike if you can look beyond the cherry blossoms…
So that was the photos as I often take when i’m riding around town, but below is the second short film focused on Victoria… Maybe something that gives you a better feel for what i’m taking photos off and what it’s like to ride around there… I enjoyed pulling them together. I hope you enjoy watching them…