Complete Streets of Victoria - The Cook Street North Project
It has been a couple of years since I have done an article on complete streets. The last one, I think, was from 2024 on Fort Street. In that last article, I was looking at a completed project and how it did (or didn’t) align with the idea of a ‘complete street’. It was a bit of a mix, which is similar to what I am writing about today. I suppose before I go into today’s example and in-case you have not read one of the previous articles on complete streets, I should let you know what they are. The City of Victoria actually has an excellent definition of a complete streets, their website includes this:
‘Transportation facilities that are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users – pedestrians, cyclists, public transit passengers and vehicles, commercial vehicles and automobiles.’
Some more involved versions of complete streets, focus on ensuring that during the design process for any street upgrades that the entirety of the street is considered within that. So, if you are digging up a street for a water main, you consider what needs to be done for cars, bikes, accessibility, and pedestrians at the same time to maximize the time the road is being worked on. Victoria does not include that ethos in their definition or road planning process (though they should).
The Cook Street project, unlike the Fort Street one from my previous article, is still in progress, so take my observations with a grain of salt, as things may change before it is complete, though it is getting closer each day. Cook St. is one of the main arterial north / south roads in the city. It runs from Cloverdale Ave. and Quadra St. in Saanich south all the way to Dallas Road at the waterfront. It is not quite as busy as Quadra Street, but is still important in that it connects off Quadra to the eastern parts of the city and Fairfield to the south. During the initial addition of AAA bike lanes in Victoria, Cook St. was identified early on as one of the key routes that would connect the waterfront, Cook Street Village and downtown. Significant pushback stalled that plan and the City decided to place the AAA route along Vancouver St. instead. Since then, there have been various calls to reconsider a plan to put bike lanes on the southern portion of Cook. At the northern end, Saanich has already added separated bike lanes from Quadra St. to Maplewood near the border with Victoria (along with new sidewalks and even some benches). In the last few years, Victoria has added a bike route along Haultain with a connector to the southerly Vancouver route and has needed a connection with the AAA lanes along Cook in Saanich.
The Cook Street North project, as the City of Victoria refers to it as, includes transportation improvements from Bay Street to the border with Saanich (and the already completed Saanich bike lanes). There are roadway, intersection and crosswalk changes and improvements along the length of it. I was quite surprised to hear that the project was happening at first as it does include quite a few challenging hills. I guess it shows how broad the adoption of e-bikes has been because when I have ride north from the city. I almost always will chose the Shelbourne Valley, Blanshard or the Galloping Goose as they are much more flat. I don’t think I have ever actually ridden a bike up Cook Street in all the years I have lived here. Still, since there are a number of other transportation issues along this stretch of road I was hopeful that we would see some improvements to them as the bike lanes go in. In that regard, it is a bit of a mix, some really needed improvements are happening, while other important ones are not.
The location of the new crosswalk from Vista Heights to Higgins Street.
The Good
One of the biggest challenges with Cook Street, and many of the arterials in the City, is that as they move out of the downtown core, they can go long stretches without a safe place to cross the road. Due to this, vehicle speeds increase making crossing the road as a pedestrian even more dangerous. This project, in addition to enhancing the intersections, will also add or improve four crosswalks along the length. Frequent crosswalks, slow down traffic and also give more options for pedestrians to take different and more convenient routes through the city.
One of the “new” crosswalks is across Cook at Kings. Kings is a dead-end street that does not connect directly with Cook on the east side and a limited street that just connects to a loop back to Cook on the west side if you are in a car. When I first moved to Victoria there was a crosswalk here as it is one of the best ways to get from the southern portion of Oaklands down to Quadra Village on foot. However, the challenge is that this spot is just over the crest of a hill and southbound traffic can’t see if anyone is in the crosswalk until they come over that crest, which makes it very challenging and potentially dangerous. I will be curious to see how they implement a solution to this, perhaps lights at the top of the hill that flash when the the crosswalk button is activated? I had asked a number of years ago about this crosswalk and was told at the time that it was extremely difficult to come up with a solution. I suppose that they must have. On the north side of Hillside there is another new crosswalk going in that will connect Vista Heights with Higgins Street. While not obvious when you are in a car, this crosswalk will allow someone living at Kings and Capital Heights to walk to Summit Park easily without going through the Hillside / Cook Intersection, which is both big and out of the way. Again sometimes crosswalks may not seem so pivotal until you try and walk around an area. Living in this neighbourhood, I am pretty excited thinking about all the opportunities these crosswalks create.
New separated bike lane along Cook Street with the unchanged sidewalk next to it.
The Bad
While the crosswalks will enable new opportunities for pedestrians that haven’ existed before, I found out from the city that one of the worst sidewalks in the city is not being upgraded as a part of the project. The sidewalk along the east side of Cook in-between Bay and Haultain, is one of the most uncomfortable sidewalks along a busy street in the city. There are also, like on Fort Street, telephone poles right in the middle of the sidewalk with very little space on either side. I really can’t believe that there are not numerous accessibility complaints about it every year. This piece of sidewalk is not unique either, none of the sidewalks along the length of the new bike lanes are getting widened. This goes back to my whole premise about the article, that despite having a statement on complete streets in the guiding documents for the city, Victoria does not actually do it and the reason seems to be even more annoying.
When a street or bike lane needs to get fixed or changed or added to, the city goes ahead and does it. With sidewalks, the City takes a different path despite almost a third of all daily trips in Victoria being done by foot. With rare exceptions, sidewalks are left alone until a development happens and then the developer is put on the hook for upgrading the pedestrian infrastructure in front of their building. This has resulted in many of the ridiculous ‘S’ sidewalks we have in the city where there is some idea that we will move to the new sidewalk layout in some insane timescale of decades rather than trying to put in sidewalks now along a full given stretch. This is very strange given that walking is the largest travel mode share outside of motor vehicles in the city. We want travel mode shift and yet are not willing to put even a basic amount of effort into doing it.
We have already seen the repaving of Cook Street in some places and the obvious addition of protected lanes just to the south of Hillside. I expect that the project will be fully complete in a few months. Have you traveled up Cook Street during the construction? If this is your preferred bike route for a trip north, let me know as I am curious about that. If you have any other thoughts or comments as well, let us know in the comments!
