Vancouver considers spending $250K on two mass bike rides

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Imagine 10,000 bicycles flowing through the streets of Downtown Vancouver. Twice.

City Council is considering sponsoring a pair of mass participation bike rides to be held in August and September of this year.

The plan would take $250,000 from the already-approved Engineering Services Operating Budget, mostly for supporting services like traffic management and police presence.

Councillor Adriane Carr says one of the rides would happen during the day, rolling through Gastown, Stanley Park and the West End. The other would be at night, and it would go over the Burrard Street Bridge.

The city has hosted mass bike rides before often under the “Critical Mass” banner, which Carr admits weren’t “necessarily supported by the public at large, because they seemed to be random, and they were at rush hour on a Friday. That really bogged things down. I think better to have events that are well planned, planned in advance so people know where the routes are,” she adds.

The goal is to draw out 10,000 participants for each ride, which Carr says should be doable given Vancouver’s strong cycling culture. “They get them in Europe, they get them in eastern Canada and the eastern United States… I think that’s probably a decent and logical target.”

Council will debate the proposed plan today.

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