Sustainable Transportation

Our City is committed to clean, green and healthy transportation. We aim to be leaders in providing communities and individuals with opportunities to adopt a sustainable transportation lifestyle that results in long term behaviour changes.

In Vancouver you’ll see compact and complete neighbourhoods that are supported by improvements such as new pedestrian and bicycle infrastructures, with good transit accessibility. Our approach is working: Walking, cycling and transit use are all on the rise while vehicle travel is declining.

Clean, green and healthy transportation

Pedestrian Network

Walking is the City's number one transportation priority, ahead of cycling, transit and passenger vehicles. In fact, Vancouver was recognized as the best walking city in Canada in 2008! Factors contributing to Vancouver's win included the city's natural beauty, extensive parks and the City's on-going commitment to improve public realm for pedestrian experiences. Check out Active Communities' Step Out Walks and Vancouver's Greenways.

Cycling Network

Since 1990, Vancouver has built an extensive network of bikeways and bike lanes, with even more planned. The City has been installing cyclist's buttons along bike routes. Many of these streets now have traffic calming features, such as speed humps built into roads.

Greenways are paths designed for pedestrians and cyclists that enhance the walking and riding experience and provide different ways to move through the city.

Bicycle Parking

Since 1995, the City Parking Bylaw has required secure bike racks and publicly accessible bike racks be provided for all new developments.

In 2008, the City passed new bylaws that will support bicycle and e-bike ownership. The new bylaws address much needed security for bikes and include a provision for charging electric bikes in storage rooms in condos and other retail/commercial off-street bike storage locations. A 2008 electric bicycle survey indicated that there are now more than 10,000 electric bikes in the Greater Vancouver area.

Since 2006, the City has supported bike valet services that provide temporary secure bicycle parking at special events.

Transit

The transit service area in Metro Vancouver covers 1800 square kilometres. Service is provided seven days a week, 18-20 hours per day, on most routes. Find out more: TransLink: Vancouver Area Transit Plan Report and Planning Process or the Translink website.

The Olympic Line – Vancouver’s 2010 Streetcar introduced modern streetcar technology into the City’s existing transportation network for a pilot project during the 2010 Winter Games. These streetcars provide an exciting new way to visit significant tourist destinations and will provide an important link with other transit modes - SeaBus, SkyTrain, West Coast Express and bus services. Read the streetcar fact sheet.

Electric Vehicles

The City has recently started requiring all new single-family homes to have electric-car plug-ins and is considering the costs of supplying outlets for new and existing multifamily residential buildings. Off-street bicycle storage rooms also now must have dedicated outlets to charge electric bicycles.

Vancouver City Council has approved a By-law to allow electric vehicles, which are regulated by Transport Canada not be driven faster than 40 kilometres an hour, to be used on any street where the speed limit is 50 kilometres an hour or lower. That means, for all practical purposes, they can be driven on every street in Vancouver. This makes us the first major Canadian city to allow Neighbourhood Zero Emission Vehicles on its streets.

The City has added a Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) to its fleet. The public will be able to see and learn more about this vehicle at select community events.

Parking Regulation

The City can influence how people plan their trips through road infrastructure and parking supply. When it’s appropriate we choose not to increase road capacity and reduce parking supply on and off streets. The off-street parking supply is controlled by our progressive Parking Bylaw which supports active transportation and mixed land-use developments.

The City encourages car-sharing by providing on and off-street parking stalls for Car Co-ops. Vancouver has two car-sharing companies Cooperative Auto Network (CAN) and ZIPCar.

As of June 2008, the City of Vancouver has a contract with the CAN subsidiary, The Company Car, to locate additional low-emission CAN vehicles at City Hall to serve the work-related travel needs of employees, replacing a number of City-owned fleet vehicles. During work hours the car share vehicles are used by City employees. On evenings and weekends, the vehicles are available for car sharing by CAN members. By increasing the number of vehicles in CAN's network, the City is helping to facilitate the more rapid growth of car sharing in Vancouver.

Doing your part

You can do your part by taking active (like walking or biking) or public transportation as well as discovering low-carbon driving options (like no idling or proper tire inflation). For more information visit One Day - On the Move.

Vancouver Transportation Plan

In 1997, City Council adopted the Vancouver Transportation Plan as a guide to transportation policies and initiatives in the city. The Transportation Plan fits within the broad regional transportation framework provided by the GVRD's Livable Region Strategic Plan, and TransLink's Strategic Transportation Plan.

Transportation Plan Update: A Decade of Progress