Vancouver’s first-ever traffic garden will open in June.
According to the City of Vancouver, The Heights Bike Garden will, “Provide a fun, community-serving space at the site of the former Tower Mall.” The location — a large development site bordered by Mill Plan and MacArthur boulevards — is about two miles north of Portland’s Marine Drive (as the crow flies over the Columbia River) and about a six mile bike ride from the Kenton neighborhood in north Portland.
The Bike Garden will be a space off the street where kids (and I assume, people of all ages) can learn basic rules of the road and get experience with cycling and traffic rules without the dangers posed by car users. Often referred to as “traffic gardens” these spaces have been common in Europe since the 1950s. BikePortland first reported on one in Utrecht in 2009. Since then, gardens have sprouted throughout Portland and Washington County. In 2020 we shared how the onset of Covid boosted interest in the concept and at that time there were nearly two dozen traffic gardens on the map.
Vancouver’s Heights Bike Garden is taking advantage of an empty parking that will someday be the Heights District, a mixed-use neighborhood currently in development. The design was created by First Forty Feet (with help from Discover Traffic Gardens) the firm behind the Heights development. According to the City of Vancouver, this is the largest traffic garden the firm has ever worked on.
If you’d like to help paint the design and make the vision a reality, the City of Vancouver is looking for volunteers for two events on the weekend of June 1st and 2nd. Fill out this form if you’re interested.
The City will host a grand opening celebration on June 8th from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm at 5411 Mill Plain Blvd. Vancouver Anne McEnerny-Ogle and other members of city council will be in attendance and local nonprofit Bike Clark County will provide bike safety lessons.
This is giving me flashbacks from the ’90’s, when the Tower Mall DMV had a section of that parking lot painted out for motorcycle license training and testing. All that’s missing is motors and instructors with clipboards, but that’s okay.
Whoo hoo!…now for those of you in North Portland (since Vancouver’s downtown is your closest city center…) you can pedal on over. Now if that Mill Plain or Blandford hill is too steep fort the kids just jump on the Mill Plain BRT (the Red Vine). Or the CTRAN 105 Express bus from Portland.
https://www.c-tran.com/routes/the-vine-on-mill-plain
And look around…as this neighborhood in the early 1960s was slated for the path of the “future’ I-205…which was supposed to follow the Blandford trench from Portland (33rd Ave?). This coulda been a Chkalov / SE 112th Av / Mill Plain mess.
I guess this is fine, but it sort of seems like wasted money. The problem isn’t with cyclists not knowing how to use infrastructure. The problem is with cars not having enough infra to make them safer and laws for cars not being enforced enough. Really wonder how much use this will actually get.
alex,
It’s really for kids. And I think the problem is that many kids don’t have confidence and don’t understand how to use the infrastructure so this is really perfect. Also, the concept is like 75 years old and proven many many times in many places. Can the bike culture in Vancouver support it? That to me is a question, but I know there’s a growing interest in biking over there and Bike Clark County does great work so this could turn into something really wonderful! Who knows, maybe demand for this will be greater than expected because so many folks in that area don’t have anywhere they feel kids can safely ride.
Ripley:
How many four way stop intersections is this for you, Kid?
Little Kid:
Thirty eight… simulated.
Vasquez:
How many *road* intersections?
Little Kid:
Uh, two. Including this one.
Drake:
Shoot.
Hudson:
Oh, man…
Seriously though, I hope it’s a hit. My kid would have loved doing this.