>From Smart Growth
America<http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/2013/04/08/announcing-the-best-complete-s…>
...
Communities across the country are making roads safer and more accessible
for everyone who uses them, and more communities are using these strategies
now than ever before.
The Best Complete Streets Policies of 2012, released today, examines all
the Complete Streets policies passed in the last year and highlights some
of the best. The analysis also revealed that the Complete Streets movement
grew in 2012, continuing a national trend since 2005.
*The Best Complete Streets Policies of 2012*
Download the full report, including the list of top 10 Complete Streets
policies from 2012 as well as a full explanation of our policy evaluation.
Click here to download the full report
(PDF)<http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/cs-2012-policy-analysis.pdf>
*The Best Complete Streets Policies of 2012: Executive Summary*
Download the list of top 10 Complete Streets policies from 2012 as well as
an an overview of our policy evaluation.
Click here to download the Executive Summary
(PDF)<http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/cs-2012-policy-analysis-exec-su…>
Hi,
I just wanted to alert people to an impending decision at the City of
Winnipeg's Standing Policy Committee on Property and Development --
April 9, 2013to declare two parcels of land near Shaftesbury and St.
Paul High Schools surplus. You can view the agenda item here
<http://winnipeg.ca/CLKDMIS/ViewDoc.asp?DocId=12605&SectionId=&InitUrl=>. You
can view the areas under consideration below.
As I have previously pointed out in Bike to the Future's submission
<http://biketothefuture.org/attachments/0000/1824/2012-10-26_bttf_charleswoo…>before
the Charleswood Transportation Study, these properties hold the
potential to create a direct, high quality AT link from the existing
trails into Assiniboine Park and Forest along Bower road right of Way
into the South Tuxedo neighbourhood (see below).
I plan on attending the committee meeting Tuesday to ask that an
easement for AT be left intact to allow for any future connection
through to Bard Pl. to the south, I will also contact the city and
Councillor Havixbeck to ensure that they are aware of the potential AT
connection and need to retain an easement.
Mark
Hi,
I just wanted to alert people to an impending decision at the City of
Winnipeg's Standing Policy Committee on Property and Development --
April 9, 2013to declare two parcels of land near Shaftesbury and St.
Paul High Schools surplus. You can view the agenda item here
<http://winnipeg.ca/CLKDMIS/ViewDoc.asp?DocId=12605&SectionId=&InitUrl=>. You
can view the areas under consideration below.
As I have previously pointed out in Bike to the Future's submission
<http://biketothefuture.org/attachments/0000/1824/2012-10-26_bttf_charleswoo…>before
the Charleswood Transportation Study, these properties hold the
potential to create a direct, high quality AT link from the existing
trails into Assiniboine Park and Forest along Bower road right of Way
into the South Tuxedo neighbourhood (see below).
I plan on attending the committee meeting Tuesday to ask that an
easement for AT be left intact to allow for any future connection
through to Byng to the south, I will also contact the city and
Councillor Havixbeck to ensure that they are aware of the potential AT
connection and need to retain an easement.
Mark
** Please share widely - thanks! **
*Peg City Car Co-op is hiring! *
*Marketing and Membership Recruitment Internship
*
Know any grads under 30 who are underemployed? An energetic self-starter
who cares about the environment?
This spring, Peg City Car Co-op is expanding into more neighbourhoods in
central Winnipeg. To help do this successfully, we need a people person who
gets what carsharing is and how it works. Someone who understands the
individual, environmental and community benefits. And better yet, can
explain these benefits to others in a way that encourages them to join the
co-op.
Find the full job posting
here<http://pegcitycarcoop.ca/2013/04/were-hiring-marketing-and-membership-recru…>
.
*Bike. Walk. Bus. And Sometimes, Drive.*
Green Action Centre and Stantec Consulting invite you to join us for a
local viewing of the fourth and final webinar in the APBP series on bicycle
parking. It takes place at the EcoCentre (3rd floor, 303 Portage Ave) and
will be followed by group discussion of local applications.
*
Institutional and Campus Bicycle Parking Programs**
Wed, April 10, 2013 | 2:00-3:00 pm CDT*
Please note that RSVPs are appreciated this time. Thanks & hope to see you
then!
cheers,
Beth
(204) 925-3772
*
* * * * *
*
Institutional and Campus Bicycle Parking Programs
This webinar looks at how major employment centers and institutions such as
hospitals, college campuses and office/industrial centers can meet employee
transportation needs both independently and in conjunction with public and
transit parking programs. Techniques such as bike rooms and sheds will be
examined, as will the impact of proposed bike share facilities on existing
bicycle parking capacity. The session includes examples from the University
of Washington and Microsoft.
Who should attend? Municipal staff, transit agency staff, managers of
educational, corporate and healthcare campuses, and members of Bicycle and
Pedestrian Advisory Committees, as well as elected officials and staff of
bicycle advocacy organizations. Both the experienced agency manager and
those new to developing bicycle parking solutions will benefit.
*For information on the entire Bicycle Parking Webinar series, please see: *
http://greenactioncentre.ca/event/apbp-bicycle-parking-webinar-series/
*The Big Move: Pay-per-kilometre system could be the way of the future*
A GPS-based driving fee of about $0.03 per kilometre could yield $1.9
billion for less-crowded roads. But would the public buy it?
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/transportation/2013/04/03/the_big_move_payp…
[photo missing]
Bern Grush, an expert on road-use metering, takes in the view of an
uncharacteristically uncrowded Don Valley Parkway from the Gerrard St.
bridge.
*By:* Tim Alamenciak <
http://www.thestar.com/authors.alamenciak_tim.html> News reporter,
Published on Wed Apr 03 2013
*Explore This Story
*
1 Photo
154 Comments
Officials in Oregon saw the problem coming years ago: Fuel-efficient cars
and electric vehicles would spell disaster for a state reliant on gas taxes
to pay for road repairs.
So they asked some drivers to pony up at the pump in a different way. In
2007, they launched a pilot project involving 300 motorists, who had GPS
devices installed in their vehicles to record miles driven. Whenever they
filled up, the drivers would pay an additional fee of about one cent per
mile travelled, based on the device’s information.
A system like this appeared on the short-list of ideas released Tuesday to
help fund Metrolinx’s plan for beefed-up transit and reduced congestion.
The transportation agency is considering a charge of 3 cents per kilometre,
which could generate up to $1.9 billion in revenue per year, according to
a report prepared for the agency by AECOM and KPMG <
http://www.bigmove.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/RPT-2013-03-12-Revenue-Too…>
.
Some experts say charging by kilometre travelled is a good idea because it
asks people who use the roads most to pay the most — and encourages transit
use, too. But its combination of increased monitoring with a new fee is
politically unpalatable.
“In the long term — we’re talking about (decades) from now — this would
absolutely be the right tool for charging users for what they’re getting,”
said Benjamin Dachis, an analyst with the C.D. Howe Institute, a policy
think-tank. The challenge, “first and foremost, is public acceptance of
it.”
How exactly the system would work is unclear, as the agency is still in
the early process of figuring it out, said John Howe, vice-president of
investment strategy and project evaluation at Metrolinx.
“We assume a variable rate system based on factors such as time of day,
level of real-time congestion, route selected and type of vehicle. This
would require a GPS-based vehicle tracking and charging system,” he said.
It’s an idea Bern Grush has long advocated <
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2010/09/04/payasyoudrive_meter_poised…>
. Grush is the mind behind Skymeter, a company once devoted to metering
road usage, but now in receivership. You might chalk that up to the
politics of the concept.
“I’ve been at this for 10 years and there have been so many reports,” said
Grush. “There’s been a huge inability of almost any government anywhere to
actually make progress in this area.”
The technology worked, but proposing to put it into practice was a
political hornets’ nest. Now he focuses on using the technology to help
administer parking costs <http://paybysky.com/> — something he says is
less politically volatile.
Grush, who said he holds patents for these GPS devices, noted there is a
potential for them to violate privacy, but that can be prevented by design.
“The device itself doesn’t report anything to anyone unless it’s been set
up to do that,” he said. It’s possible to design a GPS device that would
calculate distance and location, then submit only a dollar figure to the
billing authority.
In the Oregon pilot, more people accepted the system if they were given
options for metering, said James Whitty, a state manager involved in both
pilots.
The original program made drivers install a government-issued GPS device.
The second pilot featured a tiered system with three payment options:
Drivers pay a single per-kilometre rate and have their odometer checked
periodically.
Drivers install a GPS device and pay a variable rate depending on where
they were driving.
Drivers pay a single flat-rate fee, designed to lighten the load for heavy
users.
The pilot showed the tiered system was preferred, but Whitty is still
cautious when asked about the potential for implementing the idea more
broadly. It’s still being piloted in Oregon and hasn’t been put into
legislation.
“The momentum is increasing, is what I see,” he said. “Once people
understand that the public has to be comfortable with this and they have to
provide mechanisms that the public accepts, then you’ve got a better chance
of passing legislation.”
Some countries charge fees to heavy vehicles per kilometre travelled, but
nowhere has a blanket provision been applied to passenger vehicles, Whitty
said.
A per-kilometre fee is just one in Metrolinx’s short-list of 11 “revenue
tools” that could help generate $2 billion a year in funding for the Big
Move transportation plan. It got little attention from civic leaders, most
of whom reacted positively to the short-list in general but focused on the
unsuitability of another proposal: higher property taxes.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford responded to Tuesday’s announcement with a retching
noise and suggested casinos are the answer to the need for transit funding.
Metrolinx’s final investment strategy is slated to be released June 1.
==
*More from TheStar.com:
*
A peek at Metrolinx’s short list of ‘revenue tools’ for expanded transit
<
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/04/02/the_big_move_a_sneak_peek_at_met…>
Supporters must speak up for Metrolinx plan: James <
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/04/02/supporters_must_speak_up_f…>
---
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--
Mike Tutthill
Planning & Evaluation Facilitator
HEALTH in COMMON
200 - 141 Bannatyne Avenue
Winnipeg, MB R3B 0R3
tel: 204.946.1888
1.800.731.1792
fax: 204.284.2404
email: mtutthill(a)healthincommon.ca
web: www.healthincommon.ca
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
*Health in Common on Facebook*<
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Health-in-Common/120069149875>
ü Please consider the environment before printing this email.
TRUCKING REGULATIONS
Scrapped Canadian study found early promise for safer truck design
RENATA D’ALIESIO
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Apr. 01 2013, 6:00 AM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/scrapped-canadian-study-found-…
Infographic:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/incoming/how-side-skirts-on-a-truck-can-save…
It was a study with life-saving potential. For the first time, federal
government engineers were examining whether side skirts, attached to trucks
to reduce fuel costs, could also prevent cyclists from getting crushed
under the big rigs.
With funding secured and researchers in place, the innovative
study<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/transport-canada-to-look-at-bi…>was
about to shift into its second phase when Transport Canada suddenly
scrapped further testing last fall. The transportation regulator contended
there was no point in moving forward because it had found no research to
show truck skirts could make streets safer.
But that’s not what the engineers found. A copy of the study’s first phase,
obtained by The Globe and Mail through access-to-information legislation,
reveals the National Research Council (NRC) reported promising findings
from its initial analysis of side skirts. All three models tested prevented
bicycles from sliding underneath a transport truck in a collision – a
dangerous scenario that has wounded or killed scores of cyclists in Canada
over the past decade.
Transport Canada is standing by its decision to halt additional testing,
but the study’s sudden cancellation has irked some safety advocates.
Without more testing, it’s impossible to determine whether lightweight
skirts can serve the same safety purpose as sturdier side guards. Both
cover the side gap between a truck’s front and back wheels, but skirts are
designed to make trucks more aerodynamic while guards, generally a drain on
fuel, bolster the safety of cyclists and pedestrians by preventing them
from tumbling beneath a truck during a crash.
“It’s disappointing that Transport Canada hasn’t moved forward with this
[study],” said Ontario’s interim chief coroner Dan Cass.
The NRC, a government research agency, declined to make its lead engineer
on side skirts available for an interview. In an e-mailed statement, NRC
engineer Jeff Patten said he believes these were the first tests of their
kind in the world.
“Although these tests were a critical step in understanding the behaviour
of side skirts when impacted by a bicycle, they are but one step in what
must be a rigorous multistep process,” Mr. Patten noted.
Transport Canada spokeswoman Karine Martel said the decision to cancel the
study was made at the scientific and technological level and not by
Transport Minister Denis Lebel.
“The intention of the proposed investigation was to study whether side
skirts might provide ancillary safety benefits for pedestrians and
cyclists,” Ms. Martel said in an e-mail. “A decision was made not to
proceed with the study because the department was unable to find any
research indicating that a similar technology, specifically side guards,
was effective at improving pedestrian and cyclist safety.”
Side guards have long been mandatory on most trucks in Europe and Japan.
According to an earlier NRC study, completed for Transport Canada in 2010,
cyclist deaths and serious injuries involving the side of trucks dropped
substantially in Britain – deaths by 61 per cent and serious injuries by 13
per cent – after side guards were introduced. Transport Canada said there
could have been other factors that contributed to the decrease in injuries
and fatalities.
Dr. Cass has a different view. “I don’t know what more evidence is needed
before one just moves forward to do something which is known to save lives.”
The Ontario chief coroner’s office called for national side-guard
regulation last year after reviewing 224 cyclist and pedestrian fatalities.
Twenty-nine of the deaths involved heavy trucks, with nearly half of the
victims dragged, pinned or run over after striking a truck’s side.
The NDP and Liberals have both tried to push the side-guard issue onto the
legislative agenda with separate private member’s bills, but their bids to
have truck guards regulated have not been successful.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance has opposed mandatory side guards,
suggesting bike lanes and road-sharing campaigns are more effective at
improving safety. The industry group, however, has encouraged its members
to install side skirts because they reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, noted
Stephen Laskowski, the organization’s senior vice-president. Skirts are
more common on tractor-trailers in North America, but they can also aid
large straight trucks.
Which is why Transport Canada’s study of the safety potential of side
skirts was so intriguing: Could truck skirts save fuel and save lives?
The first round of testing, which cost about $100,000, involved mounting a
block of steel to a bicycle’s saddle to mimic the weight and centre of
gravity of an adult rider. The mountain bike was then rammed into the side
of a stationary semi-trailer at a speed of about 22 kilometres an hour.
“Under these conditions, the testing demonstrated that all three side
skirts prevented the loaded bicycles from entering under the trailer.
Furthermore, the bicycles did not become wedged underneath the skirts,”
states the NRC side-skirt report, completed in April, 2012 for Transport
Canada.
The report stresses a lot more research and testing are needed to determine
whether skirts can indeed protect cyclists in real life. A second phase of
study was scheduled to begin last fall. NRC engineers were going to look at
how the skirts performed in cold weather. Would they still prevent bikes
from sliding under the big trucks or would the skirts, which are usually
made of plastic or aluminum, break apart?
Transport Canada had set aside $200,000 for this round of testing, tapping
the regulator’s Ecotechnology for Vehicles Program, a five-year,
$38-million initiative to test technologies that have the potential to
improve safety and the environment. According to NRC research, side skirts
increase driver stability and reduce a semi-trailer’s annual fuel
consumption by 4 per cent to 7.5 per cent. The skirts cost between $750 and
$3,600, an investment recoverable in four months to two years.
While the safety benefits of truck skirts remain unclear, proponents of
side guards point to the European experience as evidence truck guards work.
“Side guards are proving to save lives,” said Jeannette Holman-Price in a
phone interview from England. Her 21-year-old daughter, Jessica, died when
a dump truck ran over her in the winter of 2005. The truck had clipped
Jessica’s brother as the siblings stood on a snow bank in Montreal. Jessica
managed to push him to safety, but in doing so, she slid beneath the truck,
through the side gap, and was crushed.
Their mother has been advocating for a side-guard regulation ever since.
“When you look at the event that destroyed my life and my family’s life it
was all because of the lack of a single piece of machinery that exists on
every [truck] over here.”
With one click you can support two local groups towards winning the Velo
City Cycling Visionary Awards <http://velo-city2013.com/>.
As many of you know, Anders is leading a project creating an App with the
Active and Safe Routes to School program called TapTraffic. *The premise is
simple: embrace the power of the smartphone and harness the power of
regular people to count bikes and pedestrians everywhere. From the smallest
residential street and backlane to the most important artery, we all want
cycling infrastructure changes everywhere. This is a simple way of taking
the first step wherever you are, tracking things as they progress and
proving it works. This project is in for the science, research, and
development category of the awards. *
*Please vote for us here:*
http://velo-city2013.com/?page_id=2337&preview=true&project_id=27<http://velo-city2013.com/?page_id=2337&preview=true&project_id=271>
1 <http://velo-city2013.com/?page_id=2337&preview=true&project_id=271>
Also local group the UWSA Ice-riders also have a project in the running for
the advocacy and social projects category of this award. *The University of
Winnipeg Students' Association's Ice Riders and their Bike Lab are gaining
momentum in the creation of an active cycling culture year-round. The UWSA
Bike Lab and Ice Riders are aptly positioned in location and in their
capacity for education and advocacy in Winnipeg's core. They provide
resources, events and education to help cyclists find their traction
Winnipeg winters.*
*
*
*Please vote for them here:
http://velo-city2013.com/?page_id=2337&project_id=81 *
--
*Shoni Litinsky* | Active and Safe Routes to School
Green Action Centre <http://greenactioncentre.ca/>
3rd floor, 303 Portage Avenue* | *(204) 925-3773
Green Action Centre is your non-profit hub for greener living.
Support our work by becoming a
member<http://greenactioncentre.ca/support/memberships/>
Find us here<http://greenactioncentre.ca/content/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-options/>