Having had the "joy" of driving in Vancouver over the last few days, I have to say...the city fathers of that city are in a tight fight with Pierre L'Enfant for creating the worst vehicular travel experience in North America. Granted, I can't speak to New York...but at least in the case of New York, the subway system is sufficiently omnipresent in the urban core as to render all other modes mostly unnecessary. DC also at least has, in its favor, a mostly-workable metro system and a clear plan to add several streetcar lines to fill in the remaining gaps. In short, downtown DC is quite workable. Vancouver, on the other hand, is just a pain in the arse to figure out.
There are a whole bunch of things I could kvetch about (the amazing number of no-left-turn streets probably at the top of the list, followed only by the fact that all of the other left turns are unprotected), but the attitude of the cyclists there leaves a great deal to be desired...and that's putting it mildly. The cycle lanes basically get in the way of getting on/off a street, and when combined with trying to deal with opposite-direction traffic (trying to get on the "right" side of a street tends to be an exercise in non-Euclidean trip planning due to turn restrictions, and at peak travel hours is an exercise only for the brave and the bold) means you're going to cut somebody off (and deal with someone yelling at you in some fashion)...
...sort of like the crosswalk signals. It does seem that nobody in this fine city ever considered the fact that someone might actually need to make a turn: There are virtually no protected turn lanes, and whenever your signal is green to go forward (or, by connection, make a turn) that also means that the crosswalk signal also says go, meaning that the odds of more than one car getting through at a time is vanishingly small...and when combined with the lack of a protected left anywhere, often means that turners are going to simply block the entire street.
This would not be as bad as it is if there were more capacity on the "belt" roads around Vancouver (or easier access to rental car facilities somewhere not downtown and not at the airport).
There are a whole bunch of things I could kvetch about (the amazing number of no-left-turn streets probably at the top of the list, followed only by the fact that all of the other left turns are unprotected), but the attitude of the cyclists there leaves a great deal to be desired...and that's putting it mildly. The cycle lanes basically get in the way of getting on/off a street, and when combined with trying to deal with opposite-direction traffic (trying to get on the "right" side of a street tends to be an exercise in non-Euclidean trip planning due to turn restrictions, and at peak travel hours is an exercise only for the brave and the bold) means you're going to cut somebody off (and deal with someone yelling at you in some fashion)...
...sort of like the crosswalk signals. It does seem that nobody in this fine city ever considered the fact that someone might actually need to make a turn: There are virtually no protected turn lanes, and whenever your signal is green to go forward (or, by connection, make a turn) that also means that the crosswalk signal also says go, meaning that the odds of more than one car getting through at a time is vanishingly small...and when combined with the lack of a protected left anywhere, often means that turners are going to simply block the entire street.
This would not be as bad as it is if there were more capacity on the "belt" roads around Vancouver (or easier access to rental car facilities somewhere not downtown and not at the airport).
