*City looks at keeping cycling routes open longer *
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/coronavirus/councillor-wants-city…
CITY council could soon extend temporary cycling and walking routes until
September, and explore adding more routes year-round.
A new motion calls for nine routes — in which vehicular access is
restricted to allow more room for cyclists and pedestrians — to continue
until Sept. 7 instead of shutting down on July 6.
The routes were first promoted as an option for socially distanced exercise
during the pandemic.
Mayor Brian Bowman said they are popular.
“There’s a desire to do what we can, especially during the pandemic, to
make sure there’s additional safe spaces for people to engage in
recreation,” said Bowman. “We want to at least look at a pilot that would
go to Labour Day, so that we can see how it operates.”
On Friday, council asked the public works committee to look into it.
Coun. Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry), who raised the motion,
noted it also calls on the public service to report back in four months on
“the feasibility of establishing permanent year-round active transportation
routes.” “For little kids that have learned to ride (bikes) on them, for
the public health workers who really need us to keep going on prevention,
for so many reasons, this is a good motion,” said Rollins.
The routes limit vehicular traffic to one block from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily
on sections of Lyndale Drive, Scotia Street, Wellington Crescent, Wolseley
Avenue, Assiniboine Avenue, Churchill Drive, Egerton Road, Kildonan Drive
and Kilkenny Drive.
Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface), council’s public works chairman, had
planned to raise a similar motion on Friday. However, Allard realized just
before a council meeting that he attended by video feed that he’d need to
be physically present to sign a new motion, which led Rollins to step in.
Earlier this week, the city announced the current routes would close July
6, under the rationale that loosened pandemic restrictions allow more
options for Winnipeggers to get outdoors without violating the public
health directive to stay at least two metres apart.
The plan to shut down the routes quickly triggered backlash.
The Winnipeg Trails Association posted a petition to keep the routes open,
enhance and expand them. More than 4,000 people have signed it.
Mark Cohoe, executive director of Bike Winnipeg, said his organization will
be counting the number of users on the temporary routes until May 31.
Cohoe said that data will help determine where the city can best support
active transportation. He said the option appears to have grown more
popular as many Winnipeggers work from home, keeping them close to the
neighbourhood pathways.
“We need to be looking at expanding ways to get people to and from work, so
that there are options other than choosing a vehicle,” said Cohoe. “We’re
seeing an unprecedented number of people getting out walking and biking.”
joyanne.pursaga(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
Movement grows to extend temporary active transportation routes past
closure date
Councillor seeks approval to keep routes open until Labour Day
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/city-winnipeg-active-transportation…
They were meant to allow cooped-up Winnipeggers some physically-distanced
fresh air and exercise — and meant to be temporary.
Now there is an effort afoot to have the city's nine active transportation
routes remain open until the Labour Day weekend or perhaps longer if some
get their way.
The nine streets are closed to traffic (with a one block allowance for
residents to get to their homes and deliveries to be made) from 8 a.m. to 8
p.m., seven days a week, until July 6.
St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard says the feedback he's getting through his
office has been very supportive of extending the restrictions through the
summer.
"I've never seen so many smiling faces in Winnipeg and people are really
taking advantage of what is healthy activity that doesn't cost anything.
It's accessible to everyone who lives within any proximity to these nine
roads. I think it's tremendous," Allard said during an interview Wednesday
on Lyndale Drive — one of the nine routes.
Allard will table a motion at city council this Friday calling for the
routes to remain restricted to vehicular traffic until the Labour Day
weekend.
Some residents who live along the routes are not so enthusiastic about the
restrictions running all day, every day.
"I just don't know about the sense of having it all day during the weekdays
… as you can see right now, it is not that busy. Around 3:30 gets a little
bit busy, [and] in the morning … but what is the sense of having it all day
long, that I'm not too sure," said Norwood resident Chantal Wlock.
Wlock, who lives along Lyndale Drive, acknowledges the routes are popular
and uses the empty streets with her family sometimes, but says perhaps the
restrictions could be eased to allow residents to drive more than a single
block to get to their homes.
"I appreciate that everybody needs space to walk and feel nice. It's by the
river, it is a nice walk, there's no doubt. It's just for the residents
to have just the one block to get out … it's not always handy," she said.
Allard's motion to extend the program until the September long weekend
isn't enough for some.
A petition started by the Winnipeg Trails Association says, "Keep
Winnipeg's open streets open and expand them until we have a safer and
connected city."
The petition had just shy of 2,000 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon.[[
*[Note: Find the petition here
<https://www.change.org/p/keep-winnipeg-s-open-streets-open-expand-them-unti…>.]*
*Push begins to extend half-day street closures*
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/public-works-chair-allard-wa…
A political move to extend temporary active transportation routes has
begun, just one day after the City of Winnipeg announced all nine of them
would close July 6.
The routes limit vehicular traffic to one block from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily
to provide extra space for pedestrians and cyclists. Its aim is to help
Winnipeggers stay active while keeping at least two metres apart, per
coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
While announcing the planned closure Tuesday, a city official said the
loosening of such rules is allowing Winnipeggers more alternatives to get
outdoors.
"We see the need for this temporary measure decreasing as people are
allowed to move outside of their own neighbourhoods and as traffic volumes
start to increase," said Jason Shaw, assistant chief of emergency
management.
<https://media.winnipegfreepress.com/images/NEP8138119.jpg>
On Wednesday, Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface) said he’ll push for the
routes to last until at least the Labour Day weekend.
"You can see how well-used and loved they are by Winnipeggers… Active
transportation is a perfectly safe way to get out there and get some
exercise, and it’s accessible to everybody," said Allard.
The chairman of the public works committee said he’ll introduce a motion
for the extension at Friday’s council meeting, which will likely be
referred back to the committee.
The nine temporary routes had been expected to close May 29. They include
stretches of Lyndale Drive, Scotia Street, Wellington Crescent, Wolseley
Avenue, Assiniboine Avenue, Churchill Drive, Egerton Road, Kildonan Drive
and Kilkenny Drive.
Shortly after the announcement, the Winnipeg Trails Association posted an
online petition
<https://www.change.org/p/keep-winnipeg-s-open-streets-open-expand-them-unti…>
calling for the routes to remain open and be expanded.
"We want this to grow by kilometres every week until we have a complete
(active transportation) network," said executive director Anders Swanson
By 3 p.m. Wednesday, the petition had more than 1,800 signatures.
Swanson urged the city to also extend vehicle restriction timelines, to
ensure those who commute before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. can use the routes
to get to work. He’d like the city to commit to keep the routes open well
into the future.
"We’re refusing to give people the certainty they need while they’re making
some very serious, life-altering transportation choices… If we’re only
extending (the routes) by a month here or there, people aren’t able to make
their decisions properly," said Swanson.
Erin Riediger regularly rides her bike to get to and from work, to shop,
and for fun. Living between the Wellington Crescent and Wolseley Avenue
active transportation routes — and spending weekends exploring the other
seven paths — Riediger said she’s never seen so many people make use of the
wide, winding roads for cycling, walking and other physical activity.
"It's important because people need safe spaces that are separated from
other people to get out and to exercise, to be with their family, to have
recreation," she said of the repurposed streets. "(The city) will never get
more support for active transportation than they will right now."
Ideally, Riediger would like to see the active transportation routes stay
open until Thanksgiving, noting many Winnipeggers will still be working
from home and avoiding cramped spaces (such as public transit), despite the
province’s reopening business sector.
"Now's the opportunity to provide something better; to redesign our
streets, reallocate some of that space. Not ban cars, not take away cars,
but just... provide people with safe, comfortable options to go to work, go
to the grocery store, and then also for leisure," she said.
joyanne.pursaga(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
julia-simone.rutgers(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @jsrutgers
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200514143511.htm
In the past couple of years, if you lived in a major, or even mid-sized
city, you were likely familiar with bike-share bikes.
Whether propped against a tree, strewn along the sidewalk or standing
"docked" at a station, the often brightly colored bikes with whimsical
company names promised a ready means to get from Point A to Point B.
But one person's spontaneous ride is another person's commute to work.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, in cities where bike-share systems have
been introduced, bike commuting increased by 20%, said Dafeng Xu, an
assistant professor in the University of Washington's Evans School of
Public Policy & Governance. Xu studied U.S. cities with and without
bike-share systems, using Census and company data to analyze how commuting
patterns change when bike shares become available.
"This study shows that bike-share systems can drive a population to commute
by bike," said Xu, whose study was published May 11 in the *Journal of
Policy Analysis and Management*.
Bike-share systems, common in cities in Europe and Asia, were launched in
four U.S. cities in 2010 and as of 2016 had grown to more than 50. Not all
systems have been successful: Convenience -- how easy it is to find and
rent a bike -- is the key. In Seattle, for example, a city-owned bike-share
program failed in 2017 due largely to a limited number of bikes and a lack
of infrastructure, but private companies in the same market thrived prior
to the pandemic.
[Around the world, cities have enacted mobility restrictions during the
coronavirus outbreak. The responses of bike-share companies, and bike-share
usage, have varied by community.]
Among other interests in transportation and immigration policy, Xu
researches the effects of bicycling on the environment and human health,
and on the ways bike-share systems can play a role by expanding access to
cycling.
"In general, biking is good and healthy, and it means less pollution and
traffic, but it can be expensive, and people worry about their bikes being
stolen, things like that," Xu said. "Bike share solves some of these
problems, because people don't need to worry about the cost and theft."
For this study, Xu sorted through nine years of demographic and commute
statistics from the American Community Survey, a detailed, annual report by
the Census Bureau. He then examined bike-share company data (through the
National Association of City Transportation Officials) from 38 cities with
systems, focusing on trips logged during morning and afternoon rush hours.
By comparing the number, location and time of work-related bike commutes
from Census data against bike-share company records of trips logged, both
before and after the launch of bike shares, Xu was able to estimate the use
of bike shares for commute trips.
Xu found that in both bike-share and non-bike-share cities, the rate of
bike commuting increased, while car commuting decreased, from 2008-2016.
However, the rate of bike commuting -- and the use of public transportation
-- was significantly greater in bike-share cities.
For example, in bike-share cities in 2008, roughly 66% of commuters drove
to work, about 1% biked, and 22% took transit. That compared to
non-bike-share cities, where about 88% of commuters drove, fewer than 1%
biked, and 4% took transit.
By 2016 -- after many bike-share systems had launched -- car commuting had
fallen to 59% in bike-share cities, while bike commuting had climbed to
1.7% and transit to 26%. Commuting by car in non-bike-share cities had
slipped to 83% in 2016, while bike commuting had grown to 1%, and transit
to 6%.
Nationwide, 0.6% of commuters bike to work, according to an American
Community Survey report in 2017.
In general, cities with larger bike-share systems also experienced sharper
increases in bicycle commuting, Xu said.
"This is not surprising: A large bike-share system means a higher density
of public bicycles and is thus more accessible by commuters," he said. "In
contrast, sadly, Seattle's Pronto struggled to attract commuters and was
finally doomed only after three years of operation partially due to its
relatively small size."
In his paper, Xu points to Chicago, which operates a municipally owned
bike-share system called Divvy. Prior to Divvy's launch in 2013, 1.5% of
commuters biked to work, Xu said, but afterward, that rate grew to 2%.
The trends held, he said, even when controlling for a city's expansion of
protected bike lanes -- another significant factor in whether people choose
to bike to work, according to other research.
Overall, the numbers before COVID-19 were promising, Xu said. The numbers
could grow, he said, if communities and bike-share companies make changes
that can boost the appeal of bike commuting: adding bike lanes to city
streets, expanding programs to outlying communities, or increasing the
allowable rental time. Many bike shares, for instance, last only up to a
half-hour before a user has to pay for a new trip.
Xu is also the author of a previous paper analyzed the impact of bike-share
systems on obesity rates.
------------------------------
*Story Source:*
Materials
<https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/05/14/bike-commuting-accelerated-when-…>
provided
by *University of Washington* <https://www.washington.edu/>. Original
written by Kim Eckart. *Note: Content may be edited for style and length.*
------------------------------
*Journal References*:
1. Dafeng Xu. *Free Wheel, Free Will! The Effects of Bikeshare Systems
on Urban Commuting Patterns in the U.S. *. *Journal of Policy Analysis
and Management*, 2020; DOI: 10.1002/pam.22216
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pam.22216>
2. Dafeng Xu. *Burn Calories, Not Fuel! The effects of bikeshare
programs on obesity rates*. *Transportation Research Part D: Transport
and Environment*, 2019; 67: 89 DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2018.11.002
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2018.11.002>
Active transportation routes are a big hit
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/lance/correspondent/Activ…
On May 4, the City of Winnipeg opened St. Vital’s Egerton Road as a
Sunday/holiday style active transportation route, seven days a week for the
duration of the month.
In this arrangement, non-emergency vehicle traffic is restricted to one
block, and encouraged to enter and exit the street at the nearest available
intersection.
It is one of nine such routes opened up in Winnipeg during the pandemic
shutdown — the city’s four permanent summer active transportation routes
(Lyndale Drive, Scotia Street, Wellington Crescent, Wolseley Avenue) plus
five new (Egerton, Kildonan Drive, Assiniboine Avenue, Kilkenny/King’s
Drive, Churchill Drive).
The concept was first pitched by Egerton resident Christian Robin, whom I
interviewed for an article published in September 2017.
Robin has been pleased with the result so far.
"Health professionals are constantly reminding us to find ways to keep
ourselves active and safe," he said. "Active transportation routes like
Egerton Road tick all the boxes for walkers, joggers, cyclists, pet owners,
couples, seniors, and families with young children and it’s great to see
all of them take advantage."
Circumstances aside, 2020 has been an exciting year in St. Vital for
pedestrians and cyclists, with several new amenities opening or being used
to their full potential for the first time. Egerton is complimentary to
some wonderful new active transportation infrastructure.
The new AT tunnel beneath Fermor Avenue connecting the Glenwood
neighbourhood and the Niakwa Trail to the Niakwa Road and Alpine Place
neighbourhoods has been a hit. Its addition has created an unanticipated
walking circuit between itself & Archibald Street, utilizing the two Seine
River foot bridges on either side of Fermor.
That same project also added a new, secondary active transport trail up at
road level along the Fermor bridge, providing a helpful alternative to the
nature trail below during seasonal flooding.
New bike pathways and signals at Fermor and St. Anne’s Road, linked to the
existing pathways, have been a dramatic improvement for cyclists in the
area, providing safe, segregated and efficient access into the picturesque
low-traffic residential streets of St. George, south of Fermor.
Perhaps best of all is the realization that all of these projects were part
one of the largest road rehabilitation the area has seen in years. The
success here goes to show that car, pedestrian, and bicycle infrastructure
need not be at odds. All wheeled vehicles from semi-trucks to baby
strollers and everything in between were the big winners of the Fermor
rehabilitation.
A reminder that our communities prosper when collaboration, rather than
competition for our scarce resources rules the day.
*Ryan Palmquist is a community correspondent for St. Vital.*
Vancouver looks to slow streets and space for patios, pedestrians amid
COVID-19
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/health/vancouver-looks…
Vancouver is considering plans to repurpose 50 kilometres of roadway in an
effort to create more space for restaurant patios and lines outside of
businesses, as well as walking and cycling, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The so-called "slow streets" would have signs and barriers telling people
to drive slowly and use the streets for local access only, the city said in
a news release Monday.
Its plans also include expediting the permitting process for outdoor patios
that allow room to serve people while maintaining physical distancing
requirements.
The city said 12 kilometres of slow streets have already been installed and
council will consider a motion asking staff to rush the repurposing of road
space in more neighbourhoods across the city.
Lon LaClaire, the general manager of city engineering services, said
physical distancing will be in place for some time and more space is needed
for people to safely go about daily activities, such as exercise or travel
to work.
"We also want to help people return to some of the things they really enjoy
doing, like eating at a favourite restaurant, picking up items from local
businesses or connecting with friends outdoors."
The city will work with businesses and community partners to assess the
needs for space while making sure streets and public spaces are safe and
accessible, LaClaire said in the city's release.
In Victoria, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reported 12 new
cases of COVID-19 and four more deaths on Monday for a total of 161
fatalities among 2,530 cases in B.C.
Gatherings will be limited to 50 people for now even as some COVID-19
restrictions are being loosened, said Henry, because any new outbreaks
could affect vulnerable residents in long-term care homes.
She said bigger gatherings would undo the gains B.C. has made to "flatten
the curve" of the epidemic, while creating more work for public health
employees doing time-consuming contact tracing.
The public health officer's order establishing a maximum of 50 vehicles at
drive-in events also stands, said Henry, adding that increasing that number
would bring together more people who would likely not stay inside their
vehicles.
Henry said it's also dangerous to reopen long-term care facilities to
visitors but health authorities are considering how that could be done when
the time is right.
Another wave of the pandemic may strike in the fall as respiratory
illnesses such as flu make their seasonal appearance, so keeping the number
of COVID-19 cases low through the summer is key, she said.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said he understands and regularly hears about
the consequences for families who can't visit their loved ones in care
homes.
"For the moment it is not possible to change those policies around
visiting," he said.
Dix said emergency-room visits around the province are going up, indicating
people are starting to use them as they should.
*This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 25, 2020. *
A less encouraging view; looking at the suburban situation:https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-pandemic-is-s… the truth is that the big priority for cities as their citizens return to work in the next weeks and months is not going to be bicycles or pedestrians. Rather, it’s going to be a large-scale shift from public transit to private automobiles.And that’s because the people whose lives will change the most are not the fortunate downtown minority who can afford to live within a half-hour’s cycling distance of work and shopping and child care. We may dominate the conversation, but the biggest challenge involves the far larger number of employed citizens who live farther out and are too vulnerable or frightened to get back on their crowded buses or commuter trains.This is a pandemic of the suburbs. The places with the highest infection and death rates aren’t the big cities but the residential areas far outside them. Paris and Stockholm have seen relatively little infection, while their apartment suburbs have been badly hit. Even in New York City, the virus has largely spared Manhattan, but Queens and Long Island and especially bedroom communities such as New Rochelle and Rockland County have been devastated. It is the low-density places where death and fear have generally been the highest.That’s why automakers, despite a near-total collapse in sales in March and April, are surprisingly optimistic, their shares recovering. “We definitely do see a return to what I’ll call personal transportation and trust,” Volkswagen’s U.S. chief executive Scott Keogh told Bloomberg. Cars, he said, are being pitched as sources of public safety....Sent from my phone.