Full story:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/winners-of-1m-prize-for…
Ten months after cities around the world were offered the chance
<https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2022/oct/10/cities-around-the-world-offe…>
to
bid for up to $1m (£800,000) to build or expand new cycling and walking
schemes, the money has been awarded to designs in Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Mozambique, New Zealand and Albania, among others.
The money was put up by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the philanthropic arm of
the media conglomerate set up by Michael Bloomberg
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/michaelbloomberg>, during whose terms
as mayor of New York the city sprouted a rapidly expanding network of cycle
lanes.
Bids were assessed in conjunction with Global Designing Cities Initiative
(GDCI), an urban design NGO founded by Janette Sadik-Khan, who was New
York’s traffic commissioner
<https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2022/oct/10/cities-around-the-world-offe…>
under
Bloomberg.
As well as the money – $1m for the winner and $400,000 apiece for the other
nine cities – GDCI will help the cities with things such as design and
local engagement.
The top prize went to a plan to build more than 110 miles of protected
cycle routes in Fortaleza, a city in Brazil’s tropical north-east, with a
focus on helping children and older people use bikes, and promoting cargo
bike delivery.
Friendly reminder Pedal Poll - the cross-Canada bicycle count organized by
Velo Canada Bikes - is happening again next week.
Go here to sign up <https://signup.com/Group/117695512080/> if you can
spare a couple hours on a Tuesday morning or Saturday.
For 3 years now, thousands of volunteers across the country have been doing
a coordinated count.
Here is more general info. <https://velocanadabikes.org/pedalpoll/>
There are dozens of participating cities and spaces are filling up!
You can help make sure Winnipeg gets counted. We could use a few more folks
here.
There are 45 counting slots in Winnipeg, so far 10 are filled.
Check it out. <https://signup.com/Group/117695512080/>
Thank you!
Anders
Volunteer Chair, Vélo Canada Bikes
Province commits to share cost to study Route 90 design
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2023/06/01/province-commits-…
MANITOBA taxpayers will foot half of the $1.4-million bill to conduct a
design study for an expanded Route 90.
Premier Heather Stefanson announced Thursday that the Manitoba government
will contribute $700,000 to the City of Winnipeg to move the proposed
project into its next phase.
“Infrastructure corridors like Route 90 support new housing and business
development in Winnipeg and promotes industry and trade, allowing for
quicker access to business areas, such as CentrePort and the Winnipeg
airport,” Stefanson told reporters gathered in a field just west of
Kenaston Boulevard.
The funding covers 50 per cent of the city’s identified costs for the
project’s next phase, the province said.
Widening Route 90 between Taylor and Ness Avenues was identified as a
strategic infrastructure priority by the city council in 2011. An estimated
40,000 vehicles use the stretch of road each day.
City hall has proposed widening the street to offer three lanes in each
direction, add active transportation pathways on both sides and update
aging infrastructure, including sewers and the St. James Bridge.
A preliminary estimate predicts the project will cost about $550 million,
with the majority of that budget dedicated to bridge and road renewal and
sewer upgrades to prevent spills into the Assiniboine River.
However, final design and analysis work could change the price tag.
On Thursday, Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham shot back at critics of the
project, saying the infrastructure upgrades are critical to improving
active transportation and Winnipeg Transit networks to meet growing traffic
demand, and to the development of Naawi-Oodena at the former Kapyong
barracks site.
“There has been a lot of misinformation about this project shared online
and in editorial pages over the past few weeks,” said Gillingham, who
campaigned on a pledge to expand the roadway so long as a business case
exists.
However, the proposal has received pushback from sustainable transportation
advocates who argue the development will increase the use of personal
vehicles and undermine efforts to combat climate change.
“Some of the information that I’m hearing out there… it’s incorrect,” he
said.
The federal government has also acknowledged the importance of the project,
he said.
An updated business case analysis and cost estimates are expected to be
completed this calendar year, he said.
“With the help of the Province of Manitoba, we will do the work necessary
to improve the project ahead and to move this project forward,” he said.
Stefanson said she supports the project moving forward but appropriate
analysis must be conducted before any additional provincial dollars can be
committed to the expansion.
danielle.dasilva(a)freepress.mb.ca
The evidence says we need fewer cars
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2023/06/02/the-evidence-…
RAY Kohanik puts forward in the May 29 edition ( It’s time to make better
transportation decisions) that our city missed out by not building freeways
in the 1970s, and that we should do it now. He supports this idea with
arguments that might instinctively “feel” right, but that are entirely
refuted by the city’s own data.
I understand why Kohanik, or anyone else for that matter, might hold these
views. It has been the predominant narrative around transportation in North
America since the Second World War that the continual prioritization of car
travel, at the expense of nearly everything else, is the key to economic
prosperity and a higher quality of life for all. I used to hold these
views. After all, it’s all we’ve ever been told since before many of our
parents (or grandparents!) were even born. But despite this continent-wide,
decades-long experiment in car-oriented transportation, we now have the
benefit of hindsight and data. Loads and loads of data. So rather than make
major infrastructure decisions based on what “feels” right, most
Winnipeggers would agree that we should make evidenced-based decisions
instead.
On the economic side, it’s important to understand that while cars can be
extremely useful, a transportation system built around everyone using one
every time for every trip is prohibitively expensive. Simply maintaining
the 8,300 lane-km of roads that city reports tell us we already own would
require an extra $600 million per year. Every year.
To get it, we’d need to eliminate the entire police department, the entire
fire and paramedic department, and the entire Community Services department
(the one in charge of pools, libraries and rec centres). Or we could double
our property taxes.
And no matter if Justin, Heather or Scott is collecting it, that money is
all ultimately coming from the same pockets. Ours.
It’s not just more than the city can afford. It’s more than we can afford.
And that’s the problem. Many of us may say we prefer to drive for every
trip, but that’s only because we’re choosing from a menu with no prices.
And prices affect preferences. It’s why we don’t all live in 1,000-room
mansions and fly a helicopter to work every day. We may prefer it, but when
we are confronted with the reality of prices, our choices reflect that
reality.
So here’s some reality. Many of us worry about the cost of transit to the
taxpayer, but the $38.7 million per year we’re planning to spend to
“improve” driving on what amounts to 0.19 per cent of our road
network could fund 27 per cent of our entire transit operations. And the
numbers are even starker with active transportation: all the bike
infrastructure in the city combined has a replacement value of less than
$47 million.
Many other cities are figuring that out already. Cities that we are losing
young people to every year, like Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton, are
following the data and building more efficient, economical transportation
systems. Vancouver, the poster child for transit and active transportation
in Canada, doesn’t have any freeways. And they aren’t building any. Calgary
is spending $5 billion today to expand its light rail system. Meanwhile,
Edmonton, a winter city like ours, is spending $100 million over the next
four years to expand their cycling infrastructure. Edmonton’s Mayor Sohi
says they’re doing it because “active transportation is the cheapest way to
move people around.”
Despite all this, there are still some who say we should be bold and expand
Kenaston anyway. After all, Duff Roblin was ridiculed for his grand idea,
and look how well that turned out. But in drawing comparisons to the
floodway, it would be wise to remember that a cost-benefit analysis done at
the time showed an expected positive return of nearly $3 for each dollar
spent on the flood-proofing megaproject, whereas the cost-benefit analysis
we have for the Kenaston widening expects us to lose nearly 90 cents on the
dollar. Maybe Duff Roblin wasn’t a visionary, maybe he was just good at
math.
I agree with Ray Kohanik when he says that an efficient transportation
system based in reality is needed. But the reality is that while we may
wish prioritizing car travel on ever wider roads was financially
sustainable, the numbers consistently show it simply is not.
Any way you slice it, the future is in getting more people to walk, bike or
take transit on more trips, more times. It’s the only way to pay for all of
this.
In the end, Kohanik laments that “the city is broke, broke, broke” but that
“that’s another story.” We now know that it’s the same story.
Cities that don’t figure that out soon will go bankrupt, bankrupt, bankrupt.
*Michel Durand-Wood lives in Elmwood and has been writing about municipal
issues since 2018.*
Better options, fewer cars
I read Ray Kohanik’s opinion piece *It’s time to make better transportation
decisions*
<https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2023/05/29/its-time-to-m…>
(May
29) with interest.
His analysis is correct that widening Kenaston Boulevard is a project out
of our budget, whether or not cost-sharing comes through this time from
other levels of government. (For those keeping score at home, Kenaston has
been twice rejected. Third time’s the charm?)
As it stands, by the city’s own analysis, traffic will have returned to
Kenaston, and our commute times will be longer than they are now, before we
have paid off the bill. The reality is we already have far more roads than
we can properly afford to maintain given our tax base. Unless we want to
double our property taxes and cut basically all of our services, we need to
find a way to use our transportation infrastructure more efficiently if we
want to give future generations a fighting chance for financial
sustainability.
I note that Kohanik points to Norway’s investment in EVs as a solution.
While he highlights Norway’s similar climate and sprawl, he missed what is
being done in cities. For example, Oslo has committed to radically reducing
vehicle trips through investment in transit and its walk/bike
infrastructure. They might have been inspired by Finland, where Oulu sees
thousands of children biking to school through their cold and snowy winters
(and a note that Oulu is quite a sprawling city, much like Winnipeg).
As for being “unable to imagine” how people could possibly drive less, I’d
encourage Kohanik to reach out to one of the 3,000-plus members of Peg City
Car Co-op, which is seeing demand to expand further and faster. It seems
like having the choice to drive less is something many Winnipeggers are
already doing, or want to do.
I sold my vehicle over seven years ago and am happier, healthier and saving
a profound amount of money by walking, biking, busing and, when I need to,
driving a shared Peg City vehicle. But I could only do this by living in a
neighbourhood with services within walking distance, good bike routes,
decent transit and access to the car-sharing co-op.
We don’t need more lanes, we need better neighbourhood design and more
transportation choice so more Winnipeggers can drive less if they want to.
Mel Marginet
Winnipeg
Ray Kohanik’s question: “Finally, can someone please explain to me how
someone with a bike picks up their kids from daycare and gets them to
sports/activities and then home again on a bike?”
Answer: on bikes. Our family did just this until middle school, when kids
could bike alone. It was faster than driving.
Heidi Klaschka
Winnipeg