The City of Vancouver is in the process of considering a new westward extension of Dunsmuir Street’s protected bike lane route within downtown.
Currently, Dunsmuir Street’s protected east-west bike lane — continuing from the Dunsmuir Viaduct — has its westernmost end situated at the intersection with Hornby Street.
This proposed project would extend the protected two-way bike lane west of Hornby Street, across the intersection with Burrard Street, and onto Melville Street (with Dunsmuir Street transitioning into Melville Street), before running north-south along Jervis Street for its transition onto a one city block east-west stretch of West Hastings Street between Jervis Street and Broughton Street.
At the northernmost foot of Broughton Street, the route would briefly run north-south again to reach the Coal Harbour seawall.
Overall, the project would have a length of approximately one km, and use “quick-build” materials. This replaces an existing painted bike lane running along much of the project route west of Hornby Street.
Three vehicle lanes, including turning lanes, would be retained on the arterial road segment between Hornby Street and Thurlow Street, with significant vehicle traffic volumes turning left from Dumsuir Street onto Thurlow Street.
For the remaining span of Melville Street west of Thurlow Street, the existing configuration of two eastbound-only vehicle travel lanes would be reduced to one eastbound-only vehicle travel lane, while preserving curbside vehicle parking spaces on both sides of the street.
For the segment along West Hastings Street, the existing centre median would be removed to accommodate the protected bike lane while also retaining vehicle travel lanes in both directions and curbside vehicle parking.
At Broughton Street, the protected bike lane would terminate immediately adjacent to the City’s new Coal Harbour mixed-use building with an elementary school, childcare facility, and social housing, which will reach completion and open in 2025.
Existing condition:
Future condition:
The protected bike lane extension onto Melville Street also provides a connection to the future continuous north-south Bute Street Greenway, stretching between the Coal Harbour and English Bay waterfronts.
To accommodate the street design changes, the City has indicated that over 30 curbside vehicle parking stalls would be removed, along with changes to traffic signals, loading zones, TransLink bus stops, and Mobi bike share stations, including new additional Mobi stations.
As well, the short one city block segment of Melville Street immediately south of SkyTrain’s Burrard Station (next to Hyatt Regency Hotel) could be converted into an eastbound-only street to reduce conflicts with vehicles.
If approved, construction on the new protected bike lane could begin in 2026.