Relief in the works to help with Stanley Park’s weekend traffic jams

For Vancouver residents frustrated by long traffic delays trying to get out of Stanley Park on recent weekends, the city’s parks board is working on creating a second exit to relieve some of the pressure.

In 2020, traffic on Stanley Park Drive was reconfigured to accommodate a separated bike lane that eliminated an exit to Beach Avenue. That left the North Lagoon Drive exit to Georgia Street as the only way out of the park to downtown.

Now that the parks board has removed most of that bike lane, following a decision last February, it isn’t a simple matter of restoring the exit, according to city staff.

It is complicated by the dedicated bike lane that the City of Vancouver hived off of Beach Avenue. “We don’t have any jurisdiction over that,” said parks board commissioner Laura Christensen.

The Beach Avenue bike lane connected with the Stanley Park dedicated lane, and Christensen said staff flagged managing car and bike traffic in the section between the Second Beach parking lot and the park entrance at Park Lane as an issue that would require additional attention.