REGIONAL GREENWAYS – VISION TO REALITY Developing the Central Valley Greenway

The Central Valley Greenway (CVG) provides pedestrians and cyclists with a relatively flat, primarily traffic separated 25 km route connecting Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster. The CVG was developed in partnership with the federal and provincial governments, the regional governments at TransLink and Metro Vancouver, and the neighbouring municipalities of Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster. The goals of the CVG are to provide facilities that encourage people to cycle and walk, to attract new cyclists and provide experienced cyclists with improved connections. In Vancouver the 7.5 kilometers long route was constructed in three phases and links East Vancouver with the downtown and False Creek. The Greenway generally follows the rail line from the rail yards near False Creek, east to Burnaby. Along the way it climbs one hill to cross the rail tracks at Clark Drive and crosses ten busy streets. The CVG provided an opportunity to test several technical innovations including: • sharrows or shared use lane markings are symbols placed on the pavement to demarcate areas of the street intended for bicycle travel; • cross-bikes or multi-use path crossing markings at roadway intersections, are used to demarcate where the multi-use trail crosses the roadway at an intersection and where cyclists and pedestrians are to cross; and • bike-streets are typical residential streets that have been retrofitted to create separated bike paths that look and feel like a street. The CVG is a good example of many levels of government working together to develop an important regional resource.