http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-pied-piper-for-sustainable-
transportation-and-his-radical-idea-put-people-first/article17496623/
The Pied Piper for sustainable transportation' and his radical idea: Put
people first
CHRISTINE McLAREN
Published Friday, Mar. 14 2014, 2:03 PM EDT
If you're lucky enough to catch him on a day off, you might find Gil
Penalosa riding his bike through Toronto's Roncesvalles Village - "the best
neighbourhood I've ever lived in," he says.
Which is saying a lot. Because when he's not on a day off, Mr. Penalosa is
likely to be in one of the hundred-plus cities he visits for work. In San
Francisco speaking to Google about innovations in transportation technology,
for example. Or in Bangalore sweet-talking planners into installing better
sidewalks. Or in Copenhagen lunching with the minister of environment before
flying to South Korea to transform an entire neighbourhood into a car-free
zone for 30 days.
"I think of Gil as the Pied Piper for sustainable transportation," says
Janette Sadik-Khan, the former commissioner of the New York City Department
of Transportation. "He travels the world singing that song and pressing that
message and he does it in a really compelling way."
He has also lived his message: Mr. Penalosa, 57, helped to transform Bogota
when he served as the Colombian capital's commissioner of parks and
recreation in the late 1990s. He has since become an evangelist for livable
cities that put people, not cars, at the centre of planning. As the
executive director of Toronto-based non-profit 8-80 Cities, he has worked
with more than 150 cities on every continent, convincing them that rapid
improvements to mass transit, bike lanes and pedestrian walkways are not as
impossible as they may think.
"The biggest challenge is that change is hard," he says. "Anywhere. And the
better the city, the harder it is."
Many politicians are also "timid," he adds. "The minute they're elected,
they're thinking about how to get re-elected, and the way to get re-elected
is to do more of the same. Maybe a little bit better but more of the same.
But unfortunately now we not only have to focus on doing things right, but
also we need to focus on doing the right things."
The name of Mr. Penalosa's non-profit - 8-80 Cities - echoes his central
message. "If you build a city that is great for an eight-year-old and for an
80-year-old, then you build a city that is going to be great for everybody.
They're like an indicator species," he says. "We need to stop building
cities as if everybody in them is 30 years old and athletic."
By cities, Mr. Penalosa doesn't just mean massive centres: One is just as
likely to find him on the ground rethinking the town centre of Timmins,
Ont., as in Los Angeles, Paris or New York. 8-80 Cities recently partnered
with the Ontario government to bring Open Streets - events that close roads
to cars and open them to cyclists, joggers, pedestrians and the like for
recreation - to Kingston, Toronto, Thunder Bay and Windsor.
"It's not about walking or cycling or parks or sidewalks," he says. "Those
are the means. The end goal is how to create a vibrant city with healthy
communities, where the citizens are going to be happier."
Mr. Penalosa - who uses the word fantastic (emphasis on the "ta") in every
other sentence and seldom wastes time taking a breath when he speaks - got
his introduction to urban issues early.
His father was a Colombian government official who later served as
secretary-general of the pioneering 1976 United Nations Habitat Conference
on Human Settlement in Vancouver, the world's first international meeting on
housing and homelessness. Mr. Penalosa and his brother Enrique tagged along,
meeting the likes of Pierre Trudeau and other leaders from around of the
world.
In Bogota, Gil Penalosa served first under former mayor Antanas Mockus,
developing more than 200 parks - a Herculean feat in a city previously
bereft of quality public spaces. He also developed Ciclovia: 120 kilometres
of road closed to cars every Sunday and on holidays for more than one
million cyclists, rollerbladers, runners and strollers. Ciclovia has since
been emulated in hundreds of cities around the world.
When his brother Enrique (currently the presidential candidate for the
Colombian green party) took over as mayor in the next election, Mr. Penalosa
continued to work on the car-clogged city, turning it into a poster child
for urban change and sustainable transportation.
He eventually left Colombia, including a brief stint as the country's trade
commissioner in Canada - which led him to a job with the City of
Mississauga. He founded 8-80 Cities in 2005, and later moved to
Roncesvalles.
His three children have grown up and moved on, so today he and his wife
Claudia, who works for a bank, live on their own next to "a great park." He
loves the farmer's market, the restaurants and shops of their neighbourhood,
and getting around by bike, which is his main form of transportation as he
doesn't own a car.
"The kind of work that I do, I could live anywhere," says Mr. Penalosa. "But
I love [Toronto]. It's so multicultural that I feel at home. I never really
have felt like that in any other city."
There are, of course, a few things he'd fix. The city could use a new mayor,
for instance. "[Rob] Ford has been more damaging than anyone could have
imagined," he says. "Great mayors need two elements: to have a clear vision
of what needs to be done and the political and managerial capacity to do it,
and he has none."
The city is lacking something else: a ciclovia. But that, says Mr. Penalosa,
is soon to come. It would be unwise to bet against it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/what-makes-a-city-work-former-new…
What makes a city work: Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks he knows
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Mar. 14 2014, 3:05 PM EDT
Last updated Saturday, Mar. 15 2014, 3:17 PM EDT
If you leave Manhattan for Brooklyn on the No. 3 train, you’ll end up at New Lots Avenue. Here, just under the elevated platform, is where Eddie Di Benedetto has had his pizzeria, Caterina’s, since 1971. “The area was always being plagued with crime,” Mr. Di Benedetto says. The plaza out front of his restaurant didn’t help: it was poorly lit, noisy, and buses roared past every few minutes. “When people got off the train, they rushed to just get home.”
Then he and some neighbouring merchants asked the city, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to fix it. “We heard Mayor Bloomberg was very big on plazas and open space,” he says. Across the city, the transportation department was installing pedestrian plazas, making the streets more inviting. “There was a cry for improvement – we heard the cry and we just followed.”
Someone heard them, too: The buses took a different route. The city installed a temporary plaza, with seating and umbrellas, for the warmer months. People now linger. Crime is down.
“I asked, and we got what we wanted,” Mr. Di Benedetto says. “Even in East New York, my friend. I hear bad things about Mayor Bloomberg, but what we got is an extension of his idealism, right?”
This is not how most people think of Mr. Bloomberg, who recently stepped down after 12 years as mayor and who is the city’s richest resident. Under his leadership, New York became a land of wealth and plenty, at least for some – in Midtown Manhattan, glassy new high-rises contain the third homes of Russian billionaires; downtown, tourists order $38 steak frites at Balthazar and walk the High Line, an innovative park built with donations from the rich.
Yet the plaza at New Lots Avenue reflects the scope of Mr. Bloomberg’s impact. His administration – freed by his wealth and his lack of political debts – turned New York into a laboratory for urban innovation of all kinds, from small neighbourhood improvements to rezoning vast swaths of land, shaking up its demographics and its economy. The city cut carbon emissions, and got rid of smoking in public. (Tobacco, that is.)
Mr. Bloomberg’s administration shared some of its lessons with other civic leaders; Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, has consulted publicly with Mr. Bloomberg. And now the Bloombergians are preparing to share their lessons with the world. Several top lieutenants have moved on to work for Bloomberg Associates, a consultancy that will advise cities free of charge on how to “improve the quality of life of their citizens.” He also sponsors a Mayor’s Challenge, which asks cities (this year in Europe) to innovate in pursuit of €9-million in prizes.
Mr. Bloomberg provides an important example for mayors everywhere, at a time when mayors matter: More than half the world’s population lives in cities, and that number is projected to reach 70 per cent by 2050. (According to Statistics Canada, more than 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities and suburbs.) This demands new infrastructure, changes to the physical form of cities and new ways of doing things.
What happened in New York may not be the singular recipe for 21st-century urbanism – the city became greener, cleaner and more hospital to the world, but also more expensive and less hospitable to the poor. But the change in New York from 2001 to 2013, driven by faith in hard data, as well as the magic of place, is still the single example that can’t be avoided.
After 9/11
Mr. Bloomberg became mayor of New York in 2001 with just 50.7 per cent of the vote, after spending nearly $74-million (U.S.) to get himself elected. Well-known as the force behind his data and media company, he was a political novice, and his challenges were tremendous: New York was reeling from the 9/11 attacks, in fiscal trouble, uncertain about the future. The financial sector seemed ready to disperse to office parks in Connecticut and New Jersey, threatening the city’s economy. The idea of the skyscraper, New York’s central building block, was under threat.
“Had things worked a little differently, we would have been looking back on the decline of New York from that moment,” says Justin Davidson, architecture critic for New York magazine. “I don’t think he gets all the credit, but he did a lot of things right.”
The city has added hundreds of thousands of new residents, seen real-estate prices skyrocket (and recover, after being hit hard by the recession in 2009), and become much safer and cleaner than it was.
How did it happen? Mr. Bloomberg – an entrepreneur who made his $33-billion (U.S.) fortune serving the needs of Wall Street – worked hard to keep Big Finance in the city through tax breaks and personal lobbying; and he made the city’s police department into a globally active anti-terror organization, while overseeing a drop in crime.
He also reformed the city’s thorny public education system, with modest improvements in test scores; pushed for an expansion of higher education, including a new grad-school campus of Cornell University; and encouraged a knowledge-economy by courting investments in Manhattan’s “Silicon Alley” and bio-tech.
Mr. Bloomberg has a passionate interest in public health, too. Beginning in his first term he pushed a smoking ban in restaurants and bars, making New York the largest American city to do so, and then in parks. The bans were unpopular with restaurateurs and many vocal New Yorkers (“We’re moving towards a totalitarian society,” one city councillor argued when the parks regulation was passed).
The scientific evidence was clear, though – and Mr. Bloomberg was committed to making policy through information. One of his favourite aphorisms is “In God we trust. All others bring data.” This attitude came to govern much of the city’s management. He established an Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, whose task was to use public data to improve services – from garbage collection to cutting air pollution.
Mr. Bloomberg also aimed for big targets in sustainability, a goal with long-term consequence and very little political payoff. A vision set out in 2007, PlaNYC established a wide range of goals: from new playgrounds, to congestion pricing to deter cars (which never passed), to curbing carbon emissions from buildings (which did).
The latter was policy with a real impact – the Empire State Building got a refit that cut its energy use by 38 per cent – but very little reward. “He deserves credit ... this is the unsexy stuff that makes a huge difference,” says Rosalie Genevro, the executive director of the Architectural League of New York, a local non-profit.
The city’s real estate landscape saw dramatic shifts as well. A wave of new development transformed swaths of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, creating new homes for some of the 300,000 people who moved to New York in the Bloomberg era.
At the same time, rents rose significantly across the city; many New Yorkers now fear being left behind by the city’s economic growth. They see Mr. Bloomberg's agenda as having reshaped the city as a playground for the wealthy and visitors from overseas. Mr. Bloomberg’s successor, Bill de Blasio, ran for office on the slogan “A Tale of Two Cities.”
New York in 2001 was among the most expensive cities in North America, and it’s grown more so. The social cost of gentrification has been real. The city now has 50,000 people, a record, in its homeless shelters. Yet the situation is complex: its rental market is highly regulated, and its affordable and public housing programs are by far the largest on the continent. Mr. Bloomberg added 165,000 affordable units, largely in new private-sector market-rate buildings – which often made the surrounding areas more expensive.
There is no question that Mr. Bloomberg successfully encouraged economic growth for the city as whole, and partly through some soft tactics: his team was sensitive to urban design and the intangible qualities that make a city great.
The Place-Makers
In 2009, New York got a new park like no other. The High Line recast an old elevated rail line as a promenade between the industrial buildings in the West Chelsea area of Manhattan. It was initially opposed by the city but won the support of many neighbours, architects and urbanists – including the planner Amanda Burden, whom Mr. Bloomberg appointed as his planning director. Built with help from donors such as Edward Norton, the High Line became an enormous success, overrun by tourists. It also radically gentrified the area: The city rezoned the district for luxury development, and soon star architects like Frank Gehry were designing office and residential buildings.
The High Line is now being expanded into a third phase, which will connect directly into Hudson Yards – a $15-billion (U.S.) office and residential development built above a rail yard. That project, co-developed by Canada’s Oxford Properties, was Mr. Bloomberg’s baby. It will house offices for Time Warner, L’Oreal and luxury brand Coach.
Presumably, Coach designers will enjoy walking the High Line as much as the wealthy Chinese tourists who are buying their handbags. One central insight of the Bloomberg administration was that visitors, entrepreneurs and knowledge workers would be drawn by the same magnet: a culturally rich and beautiful city with attractive public space.
If that seems obvious, Mr. Bloomberg’s people were, in the early days after 2001, going against the grain. It was a moment when many kinds of professional work seemed likely to disperse into the suburbs and beyond.
“They were arguing the importance of being in a dense urban place to creative and economic endeavours that don’t look like they need it,” Mr. Davidson argues. “The Internet had decentralized investment. There was this sense that everyone could move out of the city without paying a price in terms of being plugged in and connected.”
But New York had to become the place that everybody wanted to be. It did, through some surprising means. Under Mr. Bloomberg, the streets of New York didn’t just take on a different atmosphere. The streets changed, physically.
I was working in Midtown Manhattan in 2003 and remember making the mildly unpleasant walk down Broadway, from 34th to 23rd Street; the avenue still lined with wholesalers, the narrow sidewalks often blocked, car and truck traffic belching and racing downtown. People on bikes survived, barely. Now that stretch has been branded as “NoMad,” and the Ace Hotel – which is the physical embodiment of the word “hipster” – is in the middle of it; there are also a bike lane and two public plazas. On one of the plazas, opposite the famous Flatiron Building, you can sit at a cafe table (under a blue umbrella), have a coffee, and check in on free WiFi.
Thousands of locals and tourists use that Flatiron Plaza every day, despite the fact that there’s a very nice park right across the street. It provides room for people to gather and be among other people. It also means a bit less room for car traffic. This is all part of the plan for these plazas, implemented by Mr. Bloomberg’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan – who is another hire at Bloomberg Associates. The plazas began quietly, as temporary installations in places where car traffic was confusing. When the experiments worked, they were rolled out more broadly and made permanent.
For Mr. Bloomberg’s people, there is a clear link between the private gain and the public good. Many North American politicians haven't understood that public space affects real-estate value, but the Bloomberg administration set out to capitalize on it. Just as Central Park created great wealth in the 19th century, they hoped to do so with new parks in the 21st – about 300 hectares-worth. “Good design is good economic development,” Ms. Burden told the New York Times in 2012.
Tourism was another high priority for Mr. Bloomberg’s administration, which saw it as both business and cultural diplomacy. He installed an advertising executive, George Fertitta, to head the local tourism authority, and the city hit a series of new records for visitors: the number rose from 43.8 million in 2006 to an estimated 54 million in 2013, with international visitors increasing by 50 per cent. Those foreigners spend much more money than domestic visitors, and their presence pays untold returns in goodwill and investment.
The global super-rich have also been buying real estate, as a forest of luxury buildings pops up in Midtown Manhattan. Mr. Bloomberg has welcomed this: “If we could get every billionaire in the world to move here, that would be a godsend,” he said last fall in response to questions about rising inequality.
Those remarks hit a cultural nerve that's been exposed for a decade now. The inner-Brooklyn neighbourhoods that welcomed artists in 2000 are now filling with Wall Streeters; many people argue that the city's pursuit of the affluent is destroying the city's creative energy. The legendary musician David Byrne, who moved to New York in the ’70s when the city was at its lowest, is worried that New York “will be a city closer to Hong Kong or Abu Dhabi than to the rich fertile place it has historically been,” he wrote last fall. “Those places might have museums, but they don't have culture.”
Mr. Bloomberg’s strong support for high culture, including his own private donations, can't fix that. The question, in the long term, is whether the city’s considerable draws – and more remote neighbourhoods – will be big enough for a new generation of creators.
The Bloomberg Mission
Many of the Bloomberg administration's ideas aren't original; rather they reflect some best practices in urbanism around the world. (Ms. Sadik-Khan borrowed some notions about streetscapes from European cities.) And that may mean they will travel well to other cities through the work of Bloomberg Associates.
The details are still unclear, but Mr. Bloomberg’s philanthropic efforts – and there are many – suggest some of the routes the consultancy might take. His Bloomberg Philanthropies works on five major themes: the arts, education, the environment, government innovation, and public health. There is the Mayor’s Challenge, which asks cities to “define a serious problem and craft a bold solution.” Each of 20 finalists, to be announced next month, will send a team of four to an “Ideas Camp” to refine them, then resubmit them, and – in October – four winners will take prizes of €1-million, and one will take €5-million.
If that process sounds complex, it is; there is a presumption that city governments are not good at innovating. One of the criteria is to say “We are the first city to…” Another asks: “Are you using talent, partners and resources outside of city government in a meaningful way?”
What do the results look like? Last year’s finalists, drawn from American cities, included a “well-being metric” to shape policy in Santa Monica, Calif; a revision to recycling programs in Houston that allow citizens to use one bin for everything; and a program called “Providence Talks,” which gives low-income children in Rhode Island language and reading support.
That diversity suggests the scope of Bloomberg Associates. “I think it’s great that they’re going to be a voice out in the world,” says Brent Toderian, a leading planning consultant and Vancouver’s former chief planner. “But it’ll be interesting to see how the conversation goes. It’s not necessarily so that every city wants to be like New York. The best conversations are looking at examples from around the world.”
And some of the specific planning and urban design policies that worked in New York, Mr. Toderian points out, won’t fly without the dense, diverse cityscape that New York offers.
On the other hand, the scale of Mr. Bloomberg’s success has helped create a new climate where cities see each other as peers and share ideas freely. And, as Mr. Davidson says, correctly: “Bloomberg gets a lot of credit for that. The idea that a mayor can do something that has an impact – and large cities have a lot more in common across national borders? That’s powerful.”
All over map on Portage and Main Councillors support reopening, but plans
vary
By: Aldo Santin
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/all-over-map-on-portage-and-main-250…
Hopes for reopening Portage and Main to pedestrians are still alive at city
hall but councillors are all over the map on the issue.
Three of four councillors on the public works committee -- Jenny Gerbasi,
Devi Sharma and Dan Vandal -- voted Thursday to keep the concept alive but
later they each had their own version of the wording.
It may not have mattered so much to chairman Justin Swandel -- he was the
lone voter against the motion.
Gerbasi was the most vocal supporter of reopening the intersection, saying
city council has to champion the concept if it's ever to become a reality.
"I think there is some real momentum on this," Gerbasi (Fort Rouge-East
Fort Garry) said. "It's a question of political will."
Gerbasi wanted the committee to vote on a motion that would forward the
issue to the standing downtown committee, which would take the lead in
pushing it ahead.
The intersection was closed off to pedestrians when the property owners on
the corner built the underground complex. The deal expires in 2019 but
Swandel said any one of the property owners can trigger a 40-year extension.
Swandel (St. Norbert) said the city has to first convince the property
owners to reopen the intersection or all their efforts will be wasted.
Vandal (St. Boniface) repeatedly asked for the wording of the motion before
voting; Gerbasi kept changing the wording and said it should include
everything everyone was talking about, as long as the priority was
reopening the intersection to pedestrians.
It was left to the committee clerk to piece together everything that was
said and to formally write out a motion to be included in the meeting
minutes.
Stephanie Voyce of the Downtown BIZ appeared as a delegation in support of
the reopening.
Voyce said the BIZ favours a one-year pilot opening, where the various
options considered in an administrative report could be tried and the
impact on businesses on the street and in the underground can be seen.
Swandel said Gerbasi was focused on reopening the intersection, whereas he
believed the issue should be to develop ways to make the famous corner more
pedestrian-friendly, including reopening it to pedestrians if possible.
Swandel said all hopes for reviving the intersection die if Gerbasi's
narrow goal of reopening the intersection fails.
Gerbasi countered there have been numerous studies examining the
intersection and they all conclude reopening the intersection is the key to
luring more pedestrians, adding other initiatives will only complement the
reopening.
An administrative report examined options for reopening the intersection to
pedestrians but staff comments showed they weren't supportive of the idea.
The report ruled out a "scramble" crossing -- where traffic lights in all
directions are red for a period of time to allow people to cross as they
like -- but said other crossing methods should be studied further before
any decision is made to commit to reopening the intersection.
A public works official said more than 200,000 people drive through the
intersection every day in vehicles, while the department estimated only
about 1,000 people would cross the intersection on a daily basis if it were
reopened.
"That puts everything into context," said Luis Escobar, the city's traffic
czar.
aldo.santin(a)freepress.mb.ca
Different wordings
The public works committee voted to support the reopening of Portage and
Main to pedestrians. The Free Press asked each of the councillors what they
thought was the wording of the motion they were voting on:
*Jenny Gerbasi:* "It's not word for word but I can tell you the essence was
to take the steps, to bring forward potential steps needed to open the
barriers and allow pedestrians at Portage and Main, and then it goes
through the different steps that can be taken; it leaves some flexibility
on how that happens." Voted in favour.
*Justin Swandel: *"From the perspective of opening the intersection, move
forward to the standing policy committee on downtown development, heritage
and riverbank, with the specific pieces that were in the old report --
consulting with the owners, working with the traffic study; there were two
other pieces in there, and then also including the overall design, that was
the last piece of the motion." Voted against.
*Devi Sharma: *"There were many things that were incorporated into that
motion but the important thing is we're moving this forward and to have
further discussion, analysis and consultation and that's what it's all
about." Voted in favour.
*Dan Vandal: *"The spirit of the motion was, with the goal of bringing back
pedestrian traffic to Portage and Main, to begin engaging the private
property owners and CentreVenture, and... we should also take into
consideration making design improvements for pedestrian-oriented design
improvements, and when the time is appropriate, public works will do the
necessary traffic study so we have some buy-in." Voted in favour.
* * * * *
Following the meeting, the committee clerk prepared the following motion to
be recorded in the minutes:
The standing policy committee on infrastructure renewal and public works
further directed the Winnipeg public service to commence with the following
aiming to potentially open Portage Avenue and Main Street to pedestrian
access:
1. Initiate discussions with the relevant property owners adjacent to the
intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street regarding implementation and
process with the goal of allowing pedestrians at grade at this intersection.
2. Engage with stakeholders to include consultations and research as
applicable.
3. Prepare terms of reference for a comprehensive traffic study at the
appropriate time.
-- Santin
*Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 14, 2014 B2*
http://globalnews.ca/news/1207586/calgary-organization-enlists-dutch-student
s-to-make-city-safer-for-cyclists/
Calgary organization enlists Dutch students to make city safer for cyclists
By Phil Heidenreich Global News
Safer Calgary is asking some Dutch land use students for input on how to
improve safety for cyclists in the city.
CALGARY- For the second straight year, the umbrella organization Safer
Calgary is getting input from some European students on how to improve
cycling safety in Calgary.
Safer Calgary is a coalition made up of a number of groups looking to
improve safety within Calgary in a variety of ways.
Last year, Safer Calgary launched an initiative in which students from the
NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands provided input
for a series of presentations and symposiums to debate how to improve
cycling safety.
This year, Safer Calgary enlisted the help of 70 final year students in NHTV
University's land use and transportation planning department to study the
Calgary communities of Acadia, Bowness, Martindale, Ogden, and Sunalta.
"The Dutch are quite famous for their ability to integrate lots of modes of
transportation," says Safer Calgary's Greg Hart. "It's just a natural
connection."
The visiting students will also spend some time in High River to examine
possible ways of reshaping the town as it rebuilds from the June floods.
Thanks
Dave
o
_ ( \ _
(X)\ /(X)
*Rivers West is hosting two active transportation initiatives in March:*
*How to Develop an Active Transportation Map of your Community *(poster
attached)
*DATE: *Thursday, March 27th
*TIME: *9:00 am ‐ 11:30 am
*LOCATION: *Carol Shields Auditorium, Millennium Library, 251 Donald
Street
*RSVP: *Sylvie info(a)riverswest.ca (204) 925‐2320 ext. 108
*COST: *Free
*Presented by: *City of Winnipeg, Green Action Centre, Winnipeg Trails
Association & Rivers West
*Presenters: *Jackie Avent, Janice Lukes, Anders Swanson, City of
Winnipeg representative
*Bike Week in Suburbia - Brainstorming Session*
*DATE:* Wednesday March 19th
*TIME:* 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
*LOCATION:* The Forks Centre Court
*RSVP:* Sylvie info(a)riverswest.ca (204) 925‐2320 ext. 108
June 14th to June 20th is Bike Week in Winnipeg, formerly known as Bike to
Work Day. The Bike Week Volunteer Organizing Committee have expanded the
one day event to a week full of events and activities. There are many
exciting downtown events being planned.
To reach out to an even broader audience and to recognize that many
Winnipeggers live, work and play in suburbia, the Winnipeg Trails
Association is hosting a ‘brainstorming meeting’ to discuss ways to promote
and build awareness of Bike Week in suburban communities. I.e.: ‘Bike to
School / Bike to Soccer Practice / Bike to the Bank / Bike to the Grocery
Store’ etc. The more folks we can get on bikes in their communities – the
better!
Meeting will be hosted by Janice Lukes.
--
*Sylvie Fouasse*
Rivers West
info(a)riverswest.ca
(204) 925-2320 ext 108
Green Action Centre and Bike Winnipeg invite you to join us for a local
viewing of the following APBP webinar at the EcoCentre (3rd floor, 303
Portage Ave). This will be followed by group discussion of local
applications. Description provided below.
RSVPs are appreciated but not necessary. Hope to see you then!
cheers,
Beth
(204) 925-3772
** * * * **
*All In: The Value of Investing in Complete and Green Streets*
*Wednesday, March 19, 2014 | 2:00-3:00 pm Central*
Changing the way streets are designed and operated requires more than great
policy -- a commitment across departments and stakeholder groups is needed
to create and implement guidelines that bring policy to life. This webinar
explores an excellent example of a comprehensive initiative: Boston
Complete Streets. Boston's fully committed, "all in" approach to complete
streets helps the city realize the full range of economic and social
benefits that arise from investing in streets that are multimodal, green
and smart.
This presentation offers insights into the collaboration within the city to
develop and implement the Boston Complete Street Guidelines. The Guidelines
represent a fundamental change in Boston's approach to street design and
operations, and showcase Boston's vision for becoming a more walkable,
bikable, transit-friendly, and livable city.
Presenters from the City of Boston and Toole Design Group will discuss the
Guidelines' connection to place-making and Complete Streets policy; the
overarching principles of environmental, economic and social
sustainability; and the next steps for the Guidelines' development.
Download for free or purchase the 1st edition of the Boston Complete Street
Guidelines online at
bostoncompletestreets.org<http://bostoncompletestreets.org/about/>
.
[image: Inline image 1]
** Please share widely **
>From Matt Carreau...
The Winnipeg Urbanist Meetup is a monthly gathering along the lines of Green
Drinks <http://www.greendrinks.org/> [organized in Winnipeg by the Manitoba
Eco-Network <http://mbeconetwork.org/resources/events> on the first Friday
of each month] or Secret Handshake <http://secrethandshake.ca/> but
designed for folks with an interest in cities and urbanism.
The idea is to create a regular space for civic-minded individuals to come
together for networking, idea sharing and collaborating on new initiatives
that inspire positive urban change.
*The first **meetup** has been scheduled for March 28th from 5-8pm at
Cousin's on Sherbrook*. Subsequent meetups will be organized monthly. More
information can be found at winnipegurbanist.tumblr.com.
[Note the poll results (please vote if it's still open). I'm not sure if
the strong response from those who want to keep peds underground at Portage
& Main is a comment on Winnipeggers or on the WFP readership.]
Councillor fears iconic corner could be closed another 40 years At a
crossroads
By: Carol Sanders
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/at-a-crossroads-249234051.html
The iconic corner of Portage and Main is nearing a turning point, and some
city councillors are speaking in favour of taking down the barricades that
block pedestrians from crossing above ground. Coun. Jenny Gerbasi is
nervous about whether it will happen.
"There is a real risk that we could be stuck with this corner closed for
another 40 years," said Gerbasi (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry).
"To have the most iconic intersection and to have it closed to pedestrians
-- it doesn't make sense to anybody. Find me another place in the world
that does this."
The city's deal with property owners on the corners of Portage and Main,
which keeps the famous intersection closed to pedestrians, expires in 2019.
It drives pedestrians underground to businesses in a concourse below street
level. Each of the property owners can renew its agreement for a further
term of 40 years in 2019.
On Thursday, an analysis of the Portage and Main crossing will be presented
to Gerbasi and other councillors at a meeting of the city's standing policy
committee on infrastructure renewal and public works.
"We asked them to look at new options," said Gerbasi.
One option is a scramble corner, in which all traffic stops and pedestrians
can cross any which way through the intersection once signalled.
"A scramble corner would slow down traffic massively; that's what the
engineers are saying," Gerbasi said.
A more viable option would be to reduce the number of vehicles turning
where pedestrians are crossing, the report says.
The analysis says more study is needed if the city wants to go ahead with
reopening the corner to pedestrian traffic.
"I think it would be nothing but positive," said Coun. Dan Vandal (St.
Boniface). "People on the street is what is needed, especially downtown,"
to make it more vibrant and safe with "more eyes and ears on the street."
Removing the pedestrian barricades would be a good thing, he said.
"The barriers look like barriers -- they're not the most attractive look
for downtown," said Vandal.
Making the area more accessible and attractive should be good for
businesses above and below ground, said Gerbasi.
"The expectation is that if you bring a whole bunch more people to that
part of the city, more are going to go down to the businesses
(underground)."
The city is in the process of studying how opening Portage and Main to
pedestrians would affect business owners in the underground concourse.
The last time the matter was considered nearly a decade ago, all but one of
the owners was on board with opening the corner to pedestrians. The owner
opposed no longer owns the property, said Gerbasi.
"I don't think businesses are barriers," said Gerbasi. "What's been a
barrier is the political will to sort this out and make it happen," she
said.
"It's a barrier that's dividing our downtown into sections that people
don't go near and avoid on purpose -- from The Forks to the Exchange,
they're blocked."
Shovelling melting snow away from the statues and benches in front of the
Richardson Building every day has made Chris Hay a believer in reopening
the corner to foot traffic.
The 24-year-old said people approach him with the same question all the
time -- how to cross the road.
"Every day it happens," he smiled.
He directs them to the stairs down to the underground concourse, where the
escalator wasn't working on Sunday.
"There's issues with the underground system as well," Gerbasi said.
"Some people find it very confusing -- especially the visually impaired or
blind trying to navigate it," Gerbasi said of the underground system.
carol.sanders(a)freepress.mb.ca