SURREY (NEWS1130) – There’s been an awful lot of talk about cycling in Vancouver lately.

City council has green lighted a bike share program and it still has to hear from more than 150 speakers on a proposed bike lane for Point Grey Road in Kitsilano.

But it’s not the only city in the Lower Mainland that’s spending time and money making life a little easier for people who prefer two wheels to four.

In BC’s fastest growing city, Surrey planners are looking to increase the cycling network by 50 per cent over the next 20 years.

“We want to go from about 450 kilometres of bike lanes today to 700 kilometres,” Surrey Transportation Manager Jaime Boan tells us. “We intend to have a lot of bicycle parking available, we’re starting to look into separated cycle tracks and essentially create an environment where no matter where you live in the city, you’re going to have the opportunity to choose different types of cycling infrastructure.”

One of the areas Boan is focusing on is the City Centre, which is what planners now call Whalley.

He says cycling infrastructure will be needed as businesses and apartment buildings continue to sprout up along King George Boulevard.

“We see separated cycle tracks as an attractive option,” Boan says.

“King George Boulevard has three travel lanes in each direction and there are no bicycle lanes. What we are working on now is an option to narrow the lanes, eliminate two of the lanes and bring in two segregated bicycle lanes, separated from the traffic.”

Boan admits plans for bike lanes tend to get a mixed reaction from residents, especially from those who live in suburban areas of the city.

He says, however, most people tend to come around on the idea when the concept is explained to them.

Metro Vancouver has set a regional target of 15 per cent of all trips that are less than eight kilometres to made by bike by the year 2040.