Western Canada - BC Parkway question

Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.
sd_mike
07-13-09, 03:14 PM
I will be in Vancouver, BC early next month. Once there, I'll be heading for Bellingham, WA. What sort of trail is the BC Parkway? Is it more of a pedestrian path, or closer to a bike path? Basically, I'm looking for alternates for Kingsway from downtown Vancouver to New Westminster. The goal of the trip is to follow old Hwy 99 (BC and US) so hence going along that corridor.
wunderkind
07-13-09, 03:24 PM
What's a BC Parkway? You plan to ride on Kingsway to New West? Hope you bought life insurance.
You may want to consider the Central Valley Greenway which starts at Science World and leads you to New West Quay.
Capt_Sensible
07-13-09, 05:05 PM
BC parkway roughly parallels the expo skytrain line and is mostly MUP. From downtown you can pick it up around Ontario St and 5th Ave and follow it through Vancouver, and Burnaby to New West'. The Central Valley Greenway is a new more northerly route through the same municipalities, but since you're heading south, BC parkway would probably be your best bet. Depending on the time of day, the parkway MUP can get unpleasantly busy with ped' traffic around Metrotown in Burnaby, so you may want to detour around that section by heading south on Patterson Ave (the "sea to river" bike route) and then east on Victory St ("victory" bike route).
If you take the parkway to the 22nd St skytrain station in New West', you can then head south across the Queensborough, Annacis island and Alex Fraser bridges into Delta. I've done little riding south of there so can't really recommend a route from there to the border. You could try searching or posting to the touring forum for further route recommendations.
sd_mike
07-13-09, 11:53 PM
Thank you. It sounds like I'll be taking that path to New Westminster. After that, I already have a route planned.