Good article in the weekend Globe about European cities becoming
bike-friendly
In Europe, cycling caught on in a big way this year as COVID-19 discouraged
cars and crowded public transit. Some cities' leaders hope to make the habit
permanent and make congestion a thing of the past
Biking went mainstream virtually overnight, and cities such as Paris and
Milan pushed the notion of the 15-minute city, where all of lifes
necessities are within a 15-minute reach by foot or bike .
Pontevedra is a Galician city of about 83,000 on the Atlantic, just north of
the Portuguese border. When Mr. Fernández Lores, now 66, was elected mayor
in 1999, he inherited a pretty but ailing little metropolis. The historic
centre was plugged with cars, and its narrow streets were filled with fumes
and drug dealers. The street in front of his office saw 14,000 cars pass by
a day. In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, he said he found the centre
dead."
Within a month, he and his team swung into action. The entire historic
centre was made a car-free pedestrian area. Surface parking spots were
eliminated, opening up almost 1,700 spots for public use, and underground
ones were built on the periphery. In the outer zones, they replaced traffic
lights with roundabouts to ease traffic flow and end the gunning of engines
at green lights, and brought speed limits down to 30 kilometres an hour.
Footpaths, bike lanes and green space were added.
It wasnt supposed to work, but it did. He got some pushback from motorists,
who thought they had the right to park two tonnes of metal and rubber next
to medieval buildings, but only some. Years before the pandemic persuaded
other mayors to follow a similar route, Pontevedra was lauded as an urban
renewal model and has won several international awards, including the
UN-Habitat award in 2014. Most children now walk to school alone, and the
streets have become alive and filled with people, the UN said.
The city claims zero traffic deaths since 2008, a 70-per-cent reduction in
carbon dioxide emissions, 12,000 new inhabitants (no small achievement in a
country whose towns are depopulating fast), a drop in crime and a
30-per-cent increase in business revenues .
Ms Hidalgo, 61, is a member of Frances Socialist Party and was first
elected Paris mayor in 2014. She came in with a vision a clever one.
Instead of launching a war against cars and climate change per se, she went
after air pollution, a quality-of-life issue that ensured broad buy-in. Who
could be against breathable air?
By 2016, she had introduced Paris Respire days that eliminated cars from
most areas of the centre on the first Sunday of each month and made public
transportation free on those days. Later, she turned the busy highway that
runs along the north side of the River Seine into a riverside park.
European cities, like Paris, were smart to focus on air pollution rather
than climate change, says Mr. Toderian. Air pollution is real for people.
You can see it, smell it. People liked what she did.
Before the pandemic hit, Ms. Hidalgo ramped up her effort to reduce
pollution, which meant getting Parisians out of cars and onto bikes and
pedestrian walkways. She is creating 1,400 kilometres of bike lanes
throughout Paris almost every street will have a lane and has removed
thousands of surface parking spots. Her plan is to get rid of 60,000 of
them, or about 70 per cent of the total. The major east-west artery, Rue de
Rivoli, went car-free when Paris emerged from lockdown in May. From 2024,
diesel cars will be banned
More than a few European cities are emulating, or hope to emulate, the Paris
model. One is Milan, Italys commercial capital, which is also discouraging
car use by handing over streets to cyclists and pedestrians. The Lithuanian
capital, Vilnius, where a former mayor once used an armoured military
vehicle to crush a car parked in a bike lane, is doing the same.
But it wont work everywhere. Athens botched its Great Walk project,
conceived only last year, to turn car-clogged streets in the centre into
gracious, tree-lined pedestrian boulevards. The project was poorly designed,
executed and marketed to the public. Edinburgh, one of northern Europes
best-preserved old cities, is struggling to add bike lines and
pedestrian-only streets.
Anthony Robson, an Edinburgh solicitor and bike-lane lobbyist, says
Conservative factions and motorists are resisting the idea of adopting a
strategy similar to Pariss. The Conservative councillors equated more cars
with more shopping, he says. They said, No cars, no commerce.' Weve been
trying to debunk this notion.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-bikes-pedestrians-and-the-15-
minute-city-how-the-pandemic-is/
Zolo (national online real estate brokerage) report: Top Canadian cities
for alternative transportation
<https://www.zolo.ca/blog/best-centres-alternative-transportation>
Spoiler alert: Winnipeg ranks 22nd
* * * * *Calgary Herald: The bike path factor: active transport of growing
importance for homebuyers
Author of the article:
Joel Schlesinger • for the Calgary Herald
Publishing date:
Nov 13, 2020
https://calgaryherald.com/life/homes/new-homes/the-bike-path-factor-active-…
Living in communities with plenty of opportunity for active transport —
bike trails, transit and walking paths — are viewed as increasingly
desirable, a new study shows.
Yet the report on the top Canadian cities for alternative
transportation painted Calgary in a rather unfavourable light, ranking
it near the bottom of the 100 urban centres surveyed.
“We were examining how communities may be more desirable because they offer
transport accessibility outside of using your car,” says Romana King,
director of content with Zolo, a national online real estate brokerage,
which published the study late last month.
In this respect Calgary ranked 79th with a negative score
for alternative transport. The score is compiled using a variety of
metrics, such as elevation change, precipitation, along with the quality of
bicycle and walking paths, and mass transit.
Montreal and Ottawa ranked No. 1 and 2 in the study, with Edmonton in 36th
place.
King says Calgary’s ranking — while interesting — is not a damning
indictment of its active transport opportunities. “Larger urban areas are
always going to outshine smaller ones because they have larger public
purses to build more infrastructure,” she says, adding Calgary has the
fourth largest population among Canadian cities.
Zolo included several other factors to balance large cities, which
typically have rail transit and extensive bike lanes and paths, with
smaller centres like Okotoks and Cochrane, which ranked 33rd and 34th
respectively.
The elevation change metric no doubt hampers Calgary’s score, she adds,
given it is hilly making riding a bike to work more challenging, for
example.
King further notes the study examined alternative transport because of its
growing importance to buyers.
On that point, realtor Tim Jones agrees.
“Being active is important to Calgarians in general,” says the broker/owner
of Re/Max Prime in Calgary. “Proximity to bike paths, walking paths, parks
and green space all have a positive effect on the value and saleability of
homes in the Calgary region.”
He further notes in the last few months, because of COVID-19, that
properties located near pathways and parks are especially seeing higher
demand from buyers.
But being near public transportation is less of a concern among buyers.
Jones says this demand trend could also be a result of the pandemic with
more people working from home.
“Both large and small organizations have been forced to have staff work
from home this year, resulting in many cost saving benefits” for people,
such as lower gasoline and parking costs.
Consequently the focus for buyers is more on communities with active
transport options that are recreational as opposed to those offering
alternatives to commuting to work by car.
Still, King suggests the study reflects that when people are looking for a
home, considerations like proximity to these amenities can be just as
important as what’s inside the home.
“When people are looking for a home, quite often what they want is
something that is going to satisfy their budget, but they also look for
things like being close to a school, close to work or easy access to
grocery stores,” King says.
* * * * *
Edmonton Journal: Alternative transport study ranks Edmonton ahead of most
big Canadian cities
[image: Joel Schlesinger, for the Edmonton Journal]Joel Schlesinger, for
the Edmonton Journal
Published on: November 13, 2020
https://www.norfolkandtillsonburgnews.com/life/homes/alternative-transport-…
Edmonton ranks well among major Canadian cities for alternatives to the
automobile for getting around, a recent study reveals. The capital city
placed 36th among 100 municipalities in Canada, according to a new study by
Zolo, a national online real estate brokerage.
“It’s not just about the transit score,” says Romana King, Zolo’s director
of content. “It’s also about the ability to bike and walk.”
The survey ranked communities according to a number of metrics from walking
and biking paths to transit access, and even other variables like elevation
change and precipitation.
King says the purpose behind measuring several factors was to balance out
the advantage big cities have — with extensive transit systems — over
smaller ones, which may feature better walkability but less robust public
transportation.
An Edmonton bedroom community, for example, “might not be the best for
public transportation, but it likely ranks better for walkability,” she
says. “So while you can’t walk from your home to downtown Edmonton in a lot
of cases, you can get around with walking and biking in these smaller
communities so that would allow them to rank higher in some respects.”
The only community near Edmonton to appear in the study was Spruce Grove,
ranked 38th. (Other surrounding communities such as St. Albert and Sherwood
Park were not ranked.)
Nationally, Montreal and Ottawa ranked first and second, while Calgary sat
in 79th place. The highest ranking Alberta city was Fort McMurray at 32nd
place.
For Edmonton realtor Kathy Schmidt, active transport amenities are becoming
more and more important to buyers.
“Every buyer has individual priorities … whether it’s being close to the
airport for frequent business travel, close to their work especially if
they’re someone who may be on-call, or close to family for help with child
care or caring for aging parents,” says the broker/owner of Schmidt Realty
Group Inc.
Increasingly, many buyers are seeking to live closer to downtown, which has
more options for transit as well as access to the river valley trail
network, she adds.
Additionally, homes with good access to alternative transport and amenities
tend to appreciate better than average in the city.
Schmidt cites neighbourhoods like Ritchie, adjacent to Mill Creek and close
to Whyte Avenue, along with Greenfield and Sweet Grass, both a little
farther south. All have good access to transit and paths for walking and
biking to shops and restaurants — though Ritchie offers more in that
respect, as well as being closer to downtown.
“Looking back 10 years, you can see that single-family homes in these
neighbourhoods have held their value or increased in value over time,” she
says.
The average single-family detached home in Edmonton increased by 10.5 per
cent in value while the average home in Ritchie grew by 20.7 per cent. A
home in Sweet Grass slightly also outpaced the city average with a gain
of 12.8 per cent.
Yet Schmidt further notes LRT and bike paths — particularly those on major
thoroughfares — can be “controversial.” While homeowners appreciate these
amenities, many prefer to be 10 minutes’ walk from an LRT station as
opposed to adjacent to these amenities. With respect to bicycle options,
some buyers driving to work find their commute negatively affected by lanes
on key arteries, she notes.
Still, King and Schmidt argue alternative transport is increasingly a
positive for home values.
“It’s more than likely homes offering better active transport accessibility
hold value better in downturns and accelerate better in upswings,” King
says.
Know any talented UX designers or software developers who are into cycling,
graduated university, and wanna do something special?
Check it out:
https://www.winnipegtrails.ca/job-postings/
Anders
This report examines the climate impact of personal and shared electric
kick-scooters, bicycles, e-bikes, electric mopeds, as well as car-based
ride-sharing services. Users in cities across the globe are rapidly
adopting new mobility forms, helped by digital connectivity and
electrification technologies. New urban mobility services are often sold as
“green” solutions. But what is their real impact on energy demand and
greenhouse gas emissions? This study analyses the life-cycle performance of
a range of new vehicles and services based on their technical
characteristics, operation and maintenance, and compares it with that of
privately owned cars and public transport. Finally, the report identifies
solutions to make new mobility a useful part of the urban transport mix
while helping to reduce energy use and limit climate change.
https://www.itf-oecd.org/good-to-go-environmental-performance-new-mobility