City snapshot shows spike in winter cycling numbers
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/city-snapshot-shows-spike-in-winter…
A growing number of Winnipeggers are cycling long after snow hits the
ground, according to a recent city count.
The total number of local cyclists who used some key active transportation
routes during the winter nearly doubled during a March survey period,
rising to a daily average of 236 in 2021, up from 119 in 2020, a report
notes.
“It shows there is a pretty sizable demand for people to actually be able
to bike in winter… I think there’s a bigger barrier (with winter weather)
in perception than necessarily in the reality,” said Mark Cohoe, executive
director of Bike Winnipeg.
City officials note last winter’s unusually mild weather made active
transportation especially appealing. The report also credits the change to
increased interest in cycling, especially as Winnipeggers engaged in more
recreation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The counts were taken on 10 key routes over four days in early March in
2020 and 2021.
The results offer a “snapshot” of general increased interest in cycling,
Cohoe said. He believes the trend is clearly linked to improved snow
clearing on the routes, since those selected were prioritized for more
frequent snow clearing a few years ago.
“It’s not really a surprise finding that when we plow our roadways and bike
routes, people respond by actually biking,” he said. Coun. Matt Allard
agreed.
“(It needs to be) where snow clearing is at the level of service
where somebody riding their bicycle to work knows that when they get out the
door they’ll have a path cleared of snow so they’ll get to their
destination on time,” said Allard, public works committee chairman.
The cycling increase builds the case for greater investments in active
transportation, he said. In addition to meeting a demand from Winnipeggers,
it would also help reduce reliance on personal vehicles and combat climate
change, he said.
“As we build dedicated cycling facilities and provide proper snow clearing,
people will use the facilities more and more on their daily commute and for
other purposes.”
joyanne.pursaga(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
Last month, Clarence Eckerson journeyed to Montréal to see how much
progress it has made in reining in the car culture, creating more livable
communities, encouraging cycling, making roadways safer and, most
important, bringing back freedom to inhabitants long oppressed by car
drivers.
Of course, Montréal has fewer open streets than New York City does, but the
open streets in the Paris of North America are much better.
Montréal’s 13 open streets are much longer and operate almost entirely
car-free — car-free, meaning no parking, either! — 24 hours a day, all
summer long.
“It’s about making the city accessible for everyone,” Montréal’s mayor
Valérie Plante told me. “There has to be more room for cyclists and
pedestrians, and arts and parklets.”
On Montréal’s open streets, you don’t just see people walking or biking as
you see in New York, but also art installations, benches, bioswales, swings
(with cupholders!), play areas for kids and bollards to keep out the cars.
“It just brings so much joy and fun and, of course, safe spaces for our
kids,” Plante added.
And local business owners confirm that pedestrianized zones bring in more
money for struggling merchants.
Read the full article from Streetsblog here:
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/09/16/see-it-montreal-offers-lessons-for-a…
Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi5wmsK-3Zk
New bike lanes praised, questioned
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/metro/New-bike-lanes-prai…
The new, nearly-complete bike trail system running through West Broadway
and Wolseley is garnering mixed reviews from cyclists.
The trail begins where Memorial Boulevard meets Granite Way just north of
the Osborne Bridge. From there, it winds through the two neighbourhoods up
to the intersection of Walnut Street and Westminster Avenue.
Though many were pleased the city is investing in bike infrastructure, some
cyclists pointed out several points along the trail that can cause
confusion or potentially dangerous situations with drivers and other riders.
Some believe more signage and painted lines will only do so much to solve
the bike path's flaws.
One of the most contentious spots, according to cyclists who spoke with *The
Metro*, is at Westminster Ave and Young Street in front of Balmoral Hall
School. Here, the path splits from a bidirectional trail to two
unidirectional routes.
To negotiate a turn onto the one-way westbound lane from the two-way path,
cyclists must take a sharp turn and cross the roadway at a three-way
traffic stop.
"It really breaks up the flow of your riding, because there is signage that
says to turn right, but I guess they don’t have the directional signs on
the ground yet," said cyclist Reynold Beniza.
Beniza, 30, is a digital marketing manager who lives in the Exchange
District and has followed this route to work for the last year, in summer
and winter. While Beniza is happy the city is focusing on active
transportation, he doesn’t believe this stretch of road needs bike lanes.
"I would much rather see this sort of work done on, say, Portage Avenue or
Main Street and getting more of these protective barriers on the really
car-heavy roads," he said. "Or, even adding more active transportation
routes from the North End."
At press time, there were directional markers painted on the east and
westbound bidirectional lanes, but not in the intersection itself. A draft
of the finished design can be found in the city’s Wolseley to Downtown Walk
Bike Project plan.
Just to the northeast, another tight turn on the bidirectional path makes
for some "pretty hairy situations," especially during morning and afternoon
commutes, Beniza said.
Mark Campbell lives in the heart of Wolseley and uses the bike paths almost
every day. Campbell said he really likes the paths and has found them
useful, but the 33-year-old software developer has a gripe with the west
end of the trail. At this junction, cyclists are forced to merge with
vehicle traffic.
"The cars just speed up and there’s parking, so you’ll still fighting with
cars, right." he said. "Turning across Westminster is extremely dangerous."
Campbell is a fan of the bi-directional path because it allows him to bike
alongside his partner and daughters.
Michael Falk, a 42-year-old self-employed festival worker, lives in the
West End. Falk uses the new bike paths three to four times per week.
"I’m super-glad to have a bike path, but there’s little decisions here and
there that feel like they’re weird budget decisions resulting in little
peculiar moments," he said.
While Falk knows there’s more signage on the way, he said the stretch where
the path splits into two is "a bit clunky" regardless. The slow
introduction of signs and painted lines has left Falk perplexed.
"When they build a road, signs go up right away. You don’t just have six
lanes of road going with no signs," he said.
Looking beyond their neighbourhoods, Campbell and Falk are in step with
Beniza’s sentiment that there needs to be more bike routes connecting
downtown with the North End.
Campbell and Falk also noted that there’s room for the city to improve on
existing bike paths by closing the gaps. Both pointed to the fractured bike
lane on Sherbrook Street just north and south of Portage Avenue.
The Globes editorial today; note the last sentences: The shift in direction
is decisive. The arguments over bike lanes are settled. Theyre becoming
what they should have long been: an ordinary way of getting around our
cities.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-is-the-war-agains
t-bike-lanes-finally-over/
On Vancouvers downtown peninsula, crews are at work on the citys newest
bike lanes.
Both of them, on Richards and Smithe streets, will be physically separated
from car traffic. Once theyre finished, Vancouver will have an extensive
and connected network of protected bike lanes throughout and in and out of
the citys core.
Whats more, the latest projects are being built free of the controversies
of yesteryear. It is the opposite of the late 2000s, when the city opened
its first protected bike lane on the Burrard Bridge into downtown. Chaos
feared, blared one headline. Doomed to failure, opined a columnist. All
that proved incorrect: The Burrard Bridge bike lane, billed as the busiest
in North America, saw
<https://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/how-we-collect-bike-volumes.asp
x> 1.4 million rides in 2020, 40 per cent more than its first full year a
decade earlier.
Bike lanes, in Vancouver and across Canada, have grown from political
flashpoints and ideological signifiers to standard-issue civic
infrastructure. Theyre being built everywhere.
Penticton, in the British Columbia Interior, this summer opened its
Lake-to-Lake bike lane; it plans
<https://www.pentictonwesternnews.com/news/penticton-looks-to-spend-over-15-
million-on-bike-lanes-over-the-next-5-years/> to invest $15-million over the
next five years. Sarnia, Ont., is
<https://www.sarniathisweek.com/news/local-news/bike-lanes-extension-on-russ
ell-street-planned-2> extending its bicycling network. In Halifax, about a
third of a
<https://www.halifax.ca/transportation/cycling-walking/expanding-network/reg
ional-centre-bikeway-update> planned 57 kilometres of protected bike lanes
is complete. It includes Hollis Street through the heart of the city.
Montreal last November opened a long north-south route on Saint Denis Street
as part of its
<https://montreal.ca/articles/le-rev-un-reseau-express-velo-4666> Réseau
express vélo network.
Toronto,
<https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/covid-19-activeto/covid-19-
activeto-expanding-the-cycling-network/> spurred by the pandemic, has
installed protected lanes across the city. One new
<https://twitter.com/TO_Cycling/status/1441110656644640768> segment on Bloor
Street East opened in late September. These lanes are billed as temporary,
but it would be a short-sighted mistake to reverse course.
The key element in each is the bike lanes are physically protected from
traffic. In years past, cities would take the cheap route and paint some
lines on the street. Without real separation from cars, they were underused.
Many potential riders did not feel safe in between moving and parked
vehicles.
Data have long indicated protected bike lanes are essential to draw riders.
A flurry of new research underlines that conclusion. A
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920921002145> study
from Ryerson University in May, one that looked at the Toronto region, found
that protected bike lanes were
<https://www.ryerson.ca/city-building/news-research/2021/05/new-cycling-data
-dashboard/?mc_cid=1b91686d73&mc_eid=24ee3949b9> more than two times as
likely to attract riders than unprotected ones. A
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213624X21001097?dgc
id=author> study in Boston showed that a protected bike lane increased
bike-share traffic by 80 per cent. This is a sort of induced demand build
it, and they will ride.
Its no surprise. A protected bike lane is obviously safer than a faded line
painted on the street. Whats fascinating is the findings from
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140518301488>
research in 2019 that concluded such bike infrastructure can make a citys
streets safer for all users drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
The goal of protected bike lanes isnt to get every single person on a bike,
or for cars to be forever abandoned. Bike lanes are neither a disaster nor a
saviour. Theyre about options. A well-built network means a family can ride
for fun on a weekend, and that workers can commute by bike when able. (The
arrival of October is a reminder that weather in Canada will always be a
challenge.)
Vancouver recognizes this. The citys goal is to have 12 per cent of all
trips walking, car and transit included be made by bike by 2040. The
<https://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/annual-transportation-survey.as
px> most recent figure was 8 per cent double the rate in 2013.
A little change can make a big difference. Research suggests that if
Canadians drove
<https://www.fastcompany.com/3062989/50-reasons-why-everyone-should-want-mor
e-walkable-streets> one day less a week, it could cut almost four megatonnes
of greenhouse gas emissions a year. Ditching the car once in a while isnt
unrealistic. The advocacy group Vélo Canada Bikes points to Statistics
Canada data that show almost 40 per cent of commuters in cities live within
five kilometres of their workplace.
Canada has made gains but Europe is home to the worlds
<https://copenhagenizeindex.eu/> top bicycling cities starting with
Copenhagen. It is sometimes said, Well, were not Europe. Forty years ago,
European cities such as Amsterdam
<https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1436961474837024777> were clogged
with cars. Not any more. Paris of late is going through
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/paris-bike.html> a total
overhaul. The Rue du Rivoli, adjacent to the Louvre in the centre of the
city, is now closed to private vehicles. Canadian cities can likewise
change.
The shift in direction is decisive. The arguments over bike lanes are
settled. Theyre becoming what they should have long been: an ordinary way
of getting around our cities.
Charles Feaver
Bike Winnipeg
Councillor wants 2022 budget to increase funding for green transportation
Boost to cycling options peddled
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/boost-to-cycling-options-peddled-57…
THE public works committee chairman is calling for a major increase to the
City of Winnipeg’s active transportation spending.
Coun. Matt Allard wants the 2022 budget process to consider such funding
that equals 10 per cent of the annual road construction budget. The
investment could build up cycling and pedestrian routes, which would help
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change, he says.
“Every year, we emit more and more carbon, and we need to find ways to
reduce the amount of carbon that we’re putting into the atmosphere,” Allard
said Thursday. “In order to make (Winnipeg’s) climate action plan deliver
what it intends to, we need to add that meat on the bones to ensure we
(complete the active transportation network).”
At $1.7 million, dedicated spending for active transportation falls far
below that amount in 2021, with a roads budget of $152 million. If Allard’s
change is approved for 2022, it would increase the AT budget from a
forecast $2.3 million to $16.2 million (based on a projected road budget of
$162 million).
The St. Boniface councillor said some AT spending occurs separately within
specific road projects. But he said many road renewals don’t include it,
including 2021 projects at Roblin Boulevard and Day Street.
Allard also wants council to make active transportation investments
eligible for revenue raised through annual tax hikes.
Mayor Brian Bowman has promised to cap the property tax hike at 2.33 per
cent again in 2022, with two per cent earmarked for roads and bridges and
0.33 per cent for rapid transit.
Allard said increased AT funding would help the city ensure half of all
local trips involve greener modes of transportation than single-passenger
vehicles by 2030, one of its key climate change goals.
“For every bicycle used in a commute, that’s one less car on the road,” said
Allard.
The proposed funding hike is welcome but meets the minimum investment
needed for cycling and pedestrian routes, said Mel Marginet, a workplace
commuter options co-ordinator at the Green Action Centre.
“That will give us a fighting chance to move forward on the pedestrian and
cycling strategies that the city already has,” said Marginet.
In 2015, city council approved a 20year, $334-million cycling and
pedestrian strategy
but actual investments have delayed its implementation.
With roughly 80 per cent of Winnipeggers choosing personal vehicles for
their trips, much more investment is needed to make the green
transportation options of walking, biking and bussing more convenient, said
Marginet.
“It’s really a shift in the paradigm… At this current time, cars go first
(in budget priority).”
Mark Cohoe, executive director of Bike Winnipeg, said active transportation has
been persistently underfunded in recent years, which leaves gaps in cycling
routes.
“(The current budget is) really just a fraction of what’s been needed... We
see it in an unconnected network,” said Cohoe, adding the extra funding
would spark a huge improvement.
Coun. Janice Lukes, a former public works chairwoman, said she supports
Allard’s proposals. However, she said he and other executive policy
committee members should never have allowed the AT budget to drop to its
current level. “We would have been much further ahead (on active
transportation) at this time (if they hadn’t),” said Lukes. “It’s gone down
millions.”
In 2019, for example, the preliminary budget included $3 million for active
transportation, down from a previously forecast $5.7 million.
The current forecast predicts the funding will drop to $1.7 million in
2023, and $1.4 million per year from 2024 to 2026.
Allard said provincial funding cuts played a role in the reduced investment
in recent years.
His motions will be considered by council’s public works committee Oct. 12.
joyanne.pursaga(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga