AT-Network June 2014

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8 participants
36 discussions

WFP: Public works committee OKs school-zone bylaw (Jun4'14)

by Beth McKechnie

Public works committee OKs school-zone bylaw By: Aldo Santin <http://greenactioncentre.ca/support/become-a-member/> http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Public-works-committee-OKs-school-zo… A proposed bylaw to reduce vehicle speeds around some elementary schools is going to city council with the support of a civic committee. Members of public works voted unanimously Tuesday in support of the new bylaw, which will lower speed limits around some kindergarten-to-Grade 6 schools to 30 kilometres per hour. "This is a good first step," Coun. Jenny Gerbasi said. Committee chairman Coun. Justin Swandel said he didn't think speed is a safety concern around Winnipeg schools but added the bylaw "is probably a good thing." If approved by council later this month, the bylaw would come into effect for the start of the 2014-2015 school year, lowering speeds around specific elementary schools between the hours of 7 a.m.-5:30 p.m., from September to June. The lower speeds would not apply to regional streets adjacent to schools. The bylaw applies to 171 schools, leaving out about 50 schools because of requirements where signs must be placed. Coun. Harvey Smith told the committee he thought the bylaw should be expanded to include parks. However, public works directors Brad Sacher said the bylaw can't be expanded to include other areas without amendments to provincial legislation. Council approved the principles supporting lowered speed limits around elementary schools in July 2012 and set aside $1 million for signage. However, before Winnipeg could implement the change, the city had to wait for the province to amend legislation -- which it did in September 2013 -- giving municipalities the authority to lower the speed limits around schools to 30 km/h. Mayor Sam Katz had promised to have the bylaw in place before the end of 2013 but Sacher said writing the bylaw was a complex procedure that included identifying every school and street that will be affected.

9 years, 10 months

Active Transportation - linking Winnipeg to the Capital Region

by Beth McKechnie

*From:* Janice Lukes [mailto:jlukes@shaw.ca] *Sent:* Wednesday, June 04, 2014 7:51 AM *Subject:* Active Transportation - linking Winnipeg to the Capital Region Good morning! Many local active transportation representatives participated in the Manitoba Capital Region <http://leadingmanitoba.ca/default.asp> Transportation Master Plan consultation process - and provided input on improving connectivity to and from the Capital Region. The Transportation Plan will be ‘launched’: *Tuesday, June 10, 2014*9:00a.m. – 1:00p.m. REGISTRATION DETAILS: click here <http://www.manitobacapitalregion.ca/notices_detail.asp?notice_ID=220> As Manitoba moves forward in becoming a multi modal global transportation hub <http://www.centreportcanada.ca/about-us> – results of this study and how active transportation is dealt with should be very interesting. *Chris Lorenc, president of the heavy construction association, commended the province for its continued role in developing CentrePort. He predicted that Canada's first inland port "will have the impact of magnificently transforming Manitoba's economy into a global trading powerhouse." Free Press <http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/highway-renewal-to-proceed-ashton-13…>* *Yes – the power ALL kinds of transportation!* *Thanks* *Janice Lukes*

9 years, 10 months

New proposal for Parcel 4 at The Forks

by Beth McKechnie

New Proposal for Parcel 4 at the Forks Winnipeg, MB, Canada / 680 CJOB - Winnipeg's News & Information Leader CJOB Team Coverage <cjobnews(a)cjob.com> June 04, 2014 05:25 am http://www.cjob.com/2014/06/04/future-the-forks-parcel-4-decided/ The last piece of undeveloped land at the Forks could be transformed into two parking structures, housing, some retail and plenty of Green space that will also link the site to downtown. It’s an ambitious plan that will transform the surface parking lots known as “Parcel 4″ opposite the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights. That’s the land near Shaw Park that was put forward as a possible sight for the controversial hotel and water park plan that was eventually killed by city council. Some details of this new plan are still being worked out and there will still be another round of public consultations before anything is finalized. The plan also needs approval from the City of Winnipeg. Forks North Portage Partnership President and CEO Jim August says the idea is that the retail will include market style shops and the site would also include a link to Upper Fort Garry under construction south of Broadway on Main. And August says they want to push more pedestrians through the Portage and Main area in anticipation of it eventually reopening to traffic. “We really believe that a pedestrian flow to Portage and Main is important so our engineers have been working on that.” He says they’re also looking at putting a walkway of some kind over the rail lines. Waterfront Drive may eventually be extended through Point Douglas. The plan will take shape over the next five years as the public consultations continue. There are no cost estimates at this point. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Forks. [Note: here's more background if you're keen - http://www.theforks.com/railside]

9 years, 10 months

The first major academic study of protected bike lanes in the U.S. is out

by Dave Elmore

http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/the-first-major-academic-study-of-p rotected-bike-lanes-in-the-u.s.-is-out It's a sign of how new the modern protected bike lane <http://www.peopleforbikes.org/green-lane-project/pages/protected-bike-lanes -101> is to the United States that we have known very little about them, scientifically speaking. Until now. Most academic studies of modern protected lanes have relied on data from countries where culture, land use, street design and social behavior are dramatically different (the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany) or from Canada, which has led the North American protected lane revolution <http://bikelanes.ca/on-urban-bike-infrastructure-canada-is-now-leading-the- way/> . Three widely noticed Canadian studies, led by Harvard's Ann Lusk <http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2011/02/02/ip.2010.028696.ful l.pdf+html> , the University of British Columbia's Kay Teschke <http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/injuries/the-bice-study/> and Ryerson University's Anne Harris <http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/19/5/303.full> , focused mostly on safety. And though all three concluded that protected bike lanes greatly improve bike safety (28 percent fewer injuries per mile compared to comparable streets with no bike infrastructure using Lusk's methodology, 90 percent fewer using Teschke's; in Harris's study, protected lanes reduced intersection risk by about 75 percent), they've drawn some thoughtful criticism <http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/19/5/303.full/reply#injuryprev_el_1 0126> for underexamining the importance of intersections, where most bike-related conflicts arise. Today, Portland State University's National Institute of Transportation and Communities <http://otrec.us/NITC> released its voluminous findings <http://ppms.otrec.us/media/project_files/NITC-RR-583_ProtectedLanes_FinalRe portb.pdf> from a wide-ranging study of protected bike lane intersections in five U.S. cities. It's based on 204 hours of video footage that captured the movement patterns of 16,000 people on bicycles and 20,000 turning cars; on 2,301 surveys with people who live near the projects; and on 1,111 surveys of people using the protected lanes. "This has never been done on this scale - having five cities and a number of different sites being done at the same time," NITC spokesman Justin Carinci said in an interview Monday. "The number of hours of video review is unprecedented. But the perceptions piece is really the most definitive of it: This is a big enough sample that we could say for each of the (projects), people feel safe riding them. People say we should have more of them." The new study was co-funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Summit Foundation <http://summitfdn.org/> and PeopleForBikes. The team was led by PSU's Christopher Monsere, Jennifer Dill, Kelly Clifton and Nathan McNeil. You can download the whole report <http://ppms.otrec.us/media/project_files/NITC-RR-583_ProtectedLanes_FinalRe portb.pdf> immediately, but if you want the Cliff's Notes, we'll be digging into this huge study here on the Green Lane Project blog one angle at a time, all this week: * Tuesday: How protected lanes affect ridership <http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/everywhere-they-appear-protected-b ike-lanes-seem-to-attract-riders> * Wednesday: Protected bike lanes and intersection safety * Thursday: What protected lanes can't do * Friday: Finally, scientific evidence that changes to auto parking make people crazy Stay tuned - for those of us who see the potential for bikes to improve cities, the findings are exciting and the notes of caution are useful. We'll be here all week.

9 years, 10 months

Protected Bike Lanes Aren't Just Safer, They Can Also Increase Cycling

by Dave Elmore

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/06/protected-bike-lanes-arent-just-safer -they-can-also-increase-cycling/371958/ Not all bike lanes are created equal. A line in the pavement dividing cars from cyclists is nice, but it doesn't provide nearly the comfort of a protected bike lane - a track separated from vehicle traffic by a row of parked cars, or a curb, or at least a line of flexible posts. Cyclists who use protected lanes say they feel safer, and some studies show they truly are safer, with their risk of injury cut in half <http://www.citylab.com/commute/2012/10/dedicated-bike-lanes-can-cut-cycling -injuries-half/3654/> . That's great for committed riders and public health more broadly. But what about city residents who don't already ride a bike, perhaps due to safety fears? After all, it stands to reason that cities invest in bike infrastructure not just to secure the existing rider population, but to expand it. So is the assurance of a protected bike lane enough to make a cyclist of those who might otherwise choose another transportation mode? New research suggests that, to a modest extent, the answer is yes. Today a study team <http://otrec.us/project/583> led by Christopher Monsere of Portland State University released a thorough analysis of new protected bike lanes in five major U.S. cities. The researchers videotaped the new lanes, conducted local surveys, and gathered data on cycling trends to get a full picture of life in these new corridors - comparing what they found to rider habits before the protected lanes were installed. They found that ridership increased anywhere from 21 to 171 percent, with about 10 percent of new riders drawn from other modes. The analysis focused on new bike facilities along eight city streets: Barton Springs, Bluebonnet, and Rio Grande in Austin; Dearborn and Milwaukee in Chicago; Multnomah in Portland, Oregon; Oak and Fell (a street couplet) in San Francisco; and L Street in Washington, D.C. Some of the corridors had an unprotected bike lane before the study, others had nothing at all. While the research looked at a range of measures, including safety and lane design, we'll focus on ridership here. Cycling rates rose on the new lanes across the board. The following chart, prepared by the researchers, shows street ridership counts based on an average of city data and video analysis. The biggest gains - with ridership more than doubling - occurred on two streets converted into two-way lanes. That's to be expected, but the fact that even streets with an existing bike lane saw a spike in ridership shows just how attractive protected lanes are: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/2014/06/protected_lane_chart/7 f1810311.jpgVia Monsere et al (2014) Those results are impressive, but on their own they have limited meaning, since cycling in these cities is on the rise everywhere. A better baseline comparison comes by placing ridership in the new corridors against general trends across the city. Here, too, the protected lanes performed well. Ridership in the new lanes beat the city average along all but one street - and on that street (Milwaukee) it matched the average. http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/2014/06/Change_in_Ridership_Av erage_Increase_Protected_Lanes_Citywide_Increase_chartbuilder/6600db3f3.pngC ityLab The key is not just whether the protected lanes attract more riders, but whether they attract new riders. In surveys, the researchers found that across all five cities, 65 percent of riders would have gone by bike along this street anyway, and that another 24 percent, evidently comforted by the protected lane, would have traveled by bike but gone a different route. Critically, 10 percent of the new riders would have taken another (unspecified) mode - a share that reached 21 percent along the Dearborn corridor in Chicago: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/2014/06/Shift_in_Ridership_Fro m_Other_Modes_New_Mode_chartbuilder/e2bb9ade5.pngCityLab (data for Bluebonnet not available) So protected bike lanes do seem to serve the double purpose of improving rider safety while also inspiring people to ride in the first place. There are some key caveats to keep in mind: the big percentage swings reflect relatively small total numbers, often in the tens of riders, and it's unknown how many riders made a true shift from driving (as opposed to from other transit modes). These are also five cities with growing bike cultures: it's unclear how well protected lanes would perform in places where cycling isn't already a rising subculture. But there's fewer of those places <http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/05/rise-bicycling-smaller-and-midsize-u s-cities/9059/> every day, which is precisely the point.

9 years, 10 months

US Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program: 2014 Report: Continued Progress in Developing Walking and Bicycling Networks

by Beth McKechnie

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Terry Zdan <tjzdan50(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:33:11 -0500 Subject: US Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program: 2014 Report: Continued Progress in Developing Walking and Bicycling Networks *http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/ntpp/2014_report/index.cfm <http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/ntpp/2014_report/ind…>* *13. ABSTRACT* *In 2005, the United States Congress directed the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to develop the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP). The program provided over $25 million in contract authority to four pilot communities (Columbia, Missouri; Marin County, California; Minneapolis area, Minnesota; and Sheboygan County, Wisconsin) for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and nonmotorized programs. This report summarizes the progress and results of the NTPP from August 2005 through December 2013, updating and expanding upon the analysis from the Report to the U.S. Congress on the Outcomes of the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, submitted by the Federal Highway Administration in April 2012. This report analyzes the results through December 2013 of the NTPP in terms of program implementation, transportation mode shift toward walking and bicycling and associated improvements pertaining to access and mobility, safety and public health, and the environment and energy. From 2007 to 2013, the pilot communities observed an estimated 22.8 percent increase in the number of walking trips and an estimated 48.3 percent increase in the number of bicycling trips. This report examines how the NTPP pilot communities provide examples to other communities interested in implementing and evaluating nonmotorized investments.* -- Terry Zdan 126 Duncan Norrie Drive Wpg MB R3P 2J9 CANADA tjzdan50(a)gmail.com <tjzdan(a)gmasil.com> ng. Support our work by becoming a member <http://greenactioncentre.ca/support/become-a-member/>

9 years, 10 months

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AT-Network June 2014