New Bike Cage to Help Curb Theft from Point Douglas School
https://www.chrisd.ca/2019/05/21/bike-cage-stanley-knowles-school/
Students and teachers who ride their bikes to Ecole Stanley Knowles School
now have a new place to safely lock up their rides.
A new enclosed bike rage in Stanley Knowles Park officially opened Tuesday
in Point Douglas.
The K-8 school has seen an increase in bicycle theft and vandalism, so
officials are hoping the new cage alleviates some of the risk linked to
bringing a bike to school.
“With the recent construction of the active transportation routes directly
connected to Ecole Stanley Knowles School, there has been an increased need
for a safe locking facility for the students and teachers,” said Point
Douglas Councillor Vivian Santos.
The bike cage is located on city land at 2286 Inkster Boulevard just south
of the school. The $15,000 project includes a 15’ x 30’ enclosed cage, a
community bike repair stand and new granular path and pad.
*Portage gears up for Bike Week*
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/headliner/News-briefs-510…
Portage la Prairie cyclists are invited to join in the fifth annual Bike
Week from May 25 to 31.
Portage Active Transportation Committee member Maureen Owens said she hopes
that many will join in at least one of the week’s activities.
Bike Week kicks off with a scavenger hunt, used bike sale and barbecue on
Sat., May 25 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Greasy Chain, a bike repair
workshop at the corner of 1st Street NW and Fisher Avenue.
Yoga in the Park is featured near the bandstand at Island Park on Sun., May
26 at 11 a.m.
Cyclists can ride out to Fort la Reine Museum (2652 Saskatchewan Ave. E)
between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. to receive a homemade cinnamon bun and free
admission to the museum.
A public art tour is set for Mon., May 27 at 7 p.m. and the Junk Yard Dogs
Bike Trails will meet at the dump hill at 7 p.m.
Families can take part in a cookie ride on Tues., May 28 from 6 to 8 p.m.
with cookies available at Portage elementary schools.
The cycling grub crawl is being held on Thurs., May 30 starting at 5:30
p.m. at the Splash Island parking lot. Tickets are $25 and are available at
the Portage la Prairie Regional Library, 40 Royal Rd. N.
Portage students are encouraged to bike to school on Fri., May 31.
The full schedule of events is available at
facebook.com/activetransportationplap
<https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/headliner/facebook.com/ac…>
*Further coverage on the bike registry...*
*Mandatory bike registration unwieldy: city *
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/little-support-for-mandatory-bicycl…
A CITY committee will vote next week on implementing a mandatory bicycle
registration program at the point of purchase, a measure the city’s
administration opposes. In January, the protection, community services and
parks committee directed city staff to study the feasibility of operating a
mandatory municipal bicycle registry.
The city already operates a voluntary bike registry — which aims to help
police return recovered stolen bicycles to rightful owners — but it isn’t
widely used. In an average year, less than 10 per cent of the roughly 1,000
recovered stolen bicycles are registered.
Following consultations with the Winnipeg Police Service, 21 retailers and
three cycling organizations, administration staff determined it wouldn’t be
feasible or beneficial to force people to register their bikes.
“While the inherent value of a bike registry is widely recognized, our
engagement with stakeholders pointed to significant challenges related to
implementation and enforcement of a mandatory bike registry,” city bylaw
officer Winston Yee wrote in a report that was submitted to the committee.
“Therefore, the public service is recommending that mandatory bike
registration at the time of purchase not be implemented.”
The report notes mandatory registration and licensing programs have been
scrapped in other cities because the cost outweighs the benefits.
The majority of retailers that were consulted were concerned about
collecting personal information from customers, adding to their workload
and the logistics of passing the information on to the city.
Meanwhile, police suggested mandatory registration would add barriers to
cycling, in addition to placing extra burdens on retailers. Many of the
bicycle retailers surveyed for the report said there was value in the
voluntary registry and some said they provide information about the program.
The police service said it has identified opportunities to enhance its
efforts to curb bike theft, including improving available resources. The
report will be voted on at Wednesday’s meeting.
*Nason wants to slow residential traffic as concerns mount over pedestrian
deaths*
* Councillor calls for speed reduction *
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/councillor-moves-to-reduce-winnipeg…
PEDESTRIAN safety took centre stage at city hall as councillors discussed
lowering residential speed limits and expanding school-zone driving
restrictions.
Councillors clashed over whether Winnipeg is doing enough to develop a
comprehensive road-safety plan.
In the shadow of a deadly first half of 2019 — six pedestrians have been
killed in the city thus far — Coun. Shawn Nason (Transcona) said he plans
to table a motion on Monday, seeking to reduce residential speed limits
throughout Winnipeg.
The rookie councillor is also planning to call for an expansion of
school-zone driving restrictions that would result in reduced speed limits
year-round for 12 hours per day.
“With regards to residential (neighbourhoods), I’m open to having dialogue
on either reducing it to 40 or 30 (kilometres per hour),” Nason told
reporters following Thursday’s monthly city council meeting.
“I think that’s a good dialogue to have, and I think that would go towards
reducing risks on residential streets and not having a major impact on
people getting around the city.”
Research shows dropping the speed limit to 30 km/h from 50 km/h would add
an additional 48 seconds for every kilometre travelled during a commute,
Nason said.
That’s not an unreasonable delay, he said.
Other Canadian municipalities are looking at similar measures. Vancouver is
in the process of piloting 30-km/h speed limits in residential zones, while
Edmonton city council is discussing the possibility of lowering its limits
in such neighbourhoods.
Nason said Winnipeg council has repeatedly looked at it over the years, yet
no action has been taken.
“I get tired when people use reports as a crutch. As a council, it sounds
like we can say, ‘Let’s go this route.’ The reports have been done. I think
it’s high time we take some action on this and show some leadership,” he
said.
So far this year, eight pedestrians have been killed in Manitoba. In an
average year, there are 12 pedestrian deaths in Manitoba, officials said.
On Wednesday night, a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle in an alleged
hit-and-run on Portage Avenue near the Viscount Gort Hotel. The victim was
taken to hospital in critical condition, but was subsequently upgraded to
stable. The Winnipeg Police Service said a suspect turned himself in
shortly after the collision.
During Thursday’s meeting, Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West) repeatedly
questioned Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface), chairman of the public works
committee, about when the city will have its own “comprehensive road safety
strategy.” Three attempts by Lukes to have the question answered — and to
get a firm timeline nailed down — were sidestepped. Instead, Allard
repeatedly pointed to the fact the city subscribes to the province’s
“Towards Zero” strategy, while highlighting piecemeal initiatives the
municipal government has been implementing in the past year.
Efforts aimed at getting people to drive slower and safer weren’t limited
to city hall.
Manitoba Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler held a news conference
Thursday to warn motorists to slow down while passing construction sites
and crews that are working outside.
“A lot of pedestrians are becoming fatalities on our roads, and it is a
really serious issue that we have to address. We just had two fatalities
again on a road in just the last 48 hours,” Schuler said. A man and a woman
were struck and killed while crossing Nairn Avenue at Panet Road on Tuesday.
kevin.rollason(a)freepress.mb.ca ryan.thorpe(a)freepress.mb.ca
Mandatory bike registry unlikely for Winnipeg: report
https://winnipegsun.com/news/news-news/mandatory-bike-registry-unlikely-for…
[For tips, check out / share:
https://greenactioncentre.ca/healthy-travel/how-to-avoid-bike-theft/]
The city’s public service is advising council not to add a mandatory bike
registry.
Back in January, council ordered a study of mandatory registration at the
point of bike purchases, with the goal of returning more stolen bikes to
their owners.
But the public service now recommends that idea be scrapped, arguing it
would be too expensive and too complicated to implement.
“Our engagement with stakeholders pointed to significant challenges related
to implementation and enforcement of a mandatory bike registry,” Marcia
Fifer, the city’s licensing co-ordinator, writes in a report headed to
council’s protection, community services and parks committee.
In a follow-up interview, Fifer said smaller retailers were concerned that
adding registration to each bike purchase would demand too much staff time.
“We didn’t want to put a burden upon our retailers,” said Fifer.
She said a scan of bike registries in other Canadian cities found all who
had tried mandatory ones, which at one point included Winnipeg, have since
abandoned them. Fifer said the cost to administer and enforce such programs
was found to exceed the potential benefits.
“The cost definitely outweighed any money the program was bringing in,” she
said.
The public service does plan to find new ways to better promote the city’s
voluntary bike registration system, which has grown to list 12,000
bicycles, Fifer said.
“That’s significant because we used to get only a few hundred new
registrations a year, now in the last year we’ve gotten about 3,000,” she
said.
Coun. Ross Eadie (Mynarski), who lobbied for the mandatory registry, said
he’s disappointed by the report. Eadie said reuniting owners with stolen
bikes is especially important in his ward, where cycling is a key means of
transportation.
He fears maintaining the status quo means it will remain difficult for
police to return stolen bikes to their rightful owners.
“They’re not considering the burden on the officer on the street, who will
also face the frustration of the people,” said Eadie.
Coun. Sherri Rollins, who chairs the protection and community services
committee, agreed bike theft is a pressing concern, noting her own three
children’s bikes were all stolen last year.
“Winnipeg has particular challenges with respect to bike theft, so I think
there is an imperative to always see … if there is any innovations that we
could be doing,” said Rollins.
The chair said she was pleased by the report’s extensive consultation
efforts and will wait to hear her colleagues’ responses to it before
weighing in on its recommendations.
The protection committee will consider the report on May 22.
jpursaga(a)postmedia.com
Twitter: @pursagawpgsun
*Manitoba needs better road-safety strategy *
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/manitoba-needs-better-…
A NUMBER of high-profile pedestrian deaths resulting from collisions in
Winnipeg this year has road safety on the minds of many. The question is,
what to do about it?
Manitoba’s Road Safety Plan 2017-2020 highlights a grim statistic: despite
the fact some progress is being made — traffic-related deaths declined to
80 in 2015 from 120 in 2006 — motorvehicle collisions are the province’s
fifth-leading cause of injury-related deaths.
Clearly, action is required.
Public awareness campaigns are one approach, to encourage safer driving
practices and better awareness for motorists and pedestrians who use our
streets and sidewalks. MPI’s “Save the 100” advertisements highlight
individual responsibilities for making our roads safer, with emphasis on
factors such as distracted driving, impaired driving and speeding.
Actually making the most dangerous sections of road safer, however, is a
stickier proposition.
City Coun. Janice Lukes has pushed for a traffic safety initiative since
2016, aiming to get traffic fatalities down to zero.
The initiative, Vision Zero, was developed in Sweden in 1997 and focuses on
the design of infrastructure and how it is used, analyzing data to create
safer spaces.
And it’s working: Sweden has one of the lowest annual rates of road deaths
in the world, at three per 100,000. Pedestrian fatalities there were
reduced by half within five years.
Other jurisdictions have adopted this outlook: in 2014, New York City
launched a plan employing traffic data and improved engineering to get
traffic deaths to zero within 10 years.
Clearly, investing in our roads, walkways and other infrastructure with a
view to safety is critical. Here’s another question: how do we pay for it?
In this, the province has a role to play. The previous New Democratic
government floated a proposal to devote funds from MPI to improve high-risk
spots. That went nowhere, thanks to vocal opposition over the prospect of
the insurer funding infrastructure upgrades rather than returning surplus
funds to ratepayers.
The fact that safer intersections reduce the risk of accidents and save
lives must not have been enough justification for those opposed, but — if
money is the issue — the additional knowledge that reducing the number of
collisions also reduces the number of claims and thus lowers premiums
should have been. It’s also worth noting that decreasing accident and
injury numbers lessens the financial burden on the taxpayerfunded
health-care system.
Other jurisdictions have taken this approach. The Insurance Corporation of
British Columbia partners with local government to pay for safetyrelated
road improvements. A 2015 evaluation found that the initiative led to an
average 24 per cent decrease in severe collisions over a threeyear period.
Manitoba has taken a lot of flak for not devoting more money to road and
highway repair. Yet, the much-criticized increase to the provincial sales
tax under the NDP was intended to fund infrastructure, something the
opposition Progressive Conservatives attacked at the time. Even if the
Pallister government were not philosophically opposed to spending PST
income on roads, the revenue loss created by its promised-anddelivered one
percentage point PST cut (effective July 1) would make such an investment
difficult to achieve.
We use our roads, highways, sidewalks and intersections every day, and
pointing fingers doesn’t make any of those routes safer. It’s time to take
a long-term approach, as Sweden did, and learn from what other
jurisdictions, such as B.C., are doing.
Because as the various safety campaigns make clear, the only number of
traffic deaths we can all live with is zero.
Please join Green Action Centre in the EcoCentre
<https://greenactioncentre.ca/uncategorized/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-…>
boardroom for a group viewing of the following webinar (or register here
<https://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/webinar-05-19> to
watch it at your desk).
*Engaging Youth to Choose Car-free Mobility*
*Wed, May 22nd, 12-1pm*
Today’s youth are tomorrow’s riders, bikers, walkers, voters, and
transportation planners. As more transit agencies begin to offer free fare
passes to public middle and high school students, it is important to have
good communication strategy in place to encourage transit usage so they
don't miss out on the potential to affect behavior change.
Thus, transit agencies need to develop age-appropriate messaging strategies
and tactics that promote youth car-free mobility.
This webinar will present results from a NITC research project that sought
to create and evaluate communication messaging that fosters more positive
attitudes, intentions, and behaviors related to transit and other car-free
transportation options among Portland youth. While there is no "one size
fits all" approach, the Portland-based findings may yield insights that
could be adapted for application in other regions.
KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Understand the car-free mobility-related attitudes, intentions, and
behaviors of teens in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area;
- Identify communication channels and settings that could be most
effective with youth in regards to transportation system information and
promotion;
- Study the data to learn how strategic themes promoting car-free
mobility were perceived by Oregon youth.
*How We Talk About Drivers Hitting Cyclists *
*What the media gets wrong, and why, says a lot about how our society views
vulnerable road users*
Hardly a week goes by without an article about a crash in which a driver
hits and kills a rider... Almost as troubling as the rise in deaths is the
media coverage of these crashes... News stories often play a key role in
shaping public understanding of traffic safety. And when news stories
victim-blame or fail to convey the larger context in which these crashes
take place, they do deep injustice to the victims and the conversation
about road safety in general.
Two new studies on inaccuracy and subtle bias in mainstream-media reporting
about driver-cyclist crashes highlight the extent of these issues. What
they show make clear just how deeply rooted the problem is—and how
difficult it will be to fix.
Full article:
https://www.outsideonline.com/2392955/lets-talk-about-drivers-hitting-cycli…
--
Beth McKechnie* | *Green Action Centre <http://www.greenactioncentre.ca/>
3rd floor, 303 Portage Ave | (204) 925-3777 x102 | Find us here
<http://greenactioncentre.ca/content/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-options/>
Green Action Centre is your green living hub
Support our work by becoming a member
<http://greenactioncentre.ca/support/become-a-member/>. Donate at
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