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WFP: Safety of bike paths criticized (Jul10'19)
by Beth McKechnie 14 Jul '19

14 Jul '19

*Former police officer says crumbling routes deter riders* * Safety of bike paths criticized* https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ex-police-traffic-commander-cycling… FOR some Winnipeg cyclists, the city’s bike paths are full of holes. Gord Friesen has been commuting by bike for more than two decades, including for many years to his job as an officer with the Winnipeg Police Service. Now, the River Heights resident said he’s worried the city’s patchwork of bike paths — including a south Osborne route that has a gap between Brandon and Togo avenues, where it turns into a dirt trail, forcing cyclists who don’t want to weather the rough terrain onto a busy street or sidewalk — might deter people from getting into cycling. “It’s just an additional challenge,” Friesen said. “Gaps are obviously problematic for people, because I think one of the things about being out on a bike is you want to be able to have some predictability in terms of the quality of the road surface.” In an emailed statement to the Free Press, a city spokesperson said plans to improve the south Osborne route were put on hold because of riverbank stabilization issues. It also said the city will be doing a design study of another route with similar issues later this year: the North Winnipeg Parkway, which has a gap between Burrows and Alfred avenues, forcing cyclists into a zigzag of residential streets, or onto Main Street. Friesen said his career with the police force — where he served at one point as the commander of the traffic division — helped form his perspective on cycling and other kinds of active transportation. Even in retirement, the 57-year-old said he and his wife use their bikes to get wherever they need to go, and he hopes more people will start to do the same. “Our car sits for days on end, because (whatever we do), it’s almost always on a bicycle,” he said. Mark Cohoe, executive director of the Bike Winnipeg advocacy group, said he was riding on the south Osborne bike path with some friends a few nights ago. They turned around after deciding they wouldn’t be able to make it through the gap. Cohoe said if people who are new to cycling encounter the same problem, it might turn them off entirely. “People remember the worst part of their ride, and that’s sort of the decision point for them,” he said. “If they don’t feel like they have a safe connection... they’re going to choose to drive.” Meanwhile, cyclists travelling a few minutes southeast on the same south Osborne route are being forced onto the road for the foreseeable future. On Friday, the city announced it was closing the east sidewalk on the St. Vital Bridge for at least 18 months to replace the sewer main underneath. With two elections looming in the coming months, Cohoe said he’s hoping to see more leadership encouraging cycling in Winnipeg. “I think if we want to act on climate change, if we want to act proactively on health, we need to make sure that all levels of government — especially the provincial government, which is responsible for health — make sure funding is available to get people out of their cars and onto their bikes,” he said. caitlyn.gowriluk(a)freepress.mb.ca

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Back to the future?
by Charles F 09 Jul '19

09 Jul '19

⁣ A bit of humour that this audience might enjoy.. . https://getpocket.com/explore/item/make-driving-dangerous-again?utm_source=…

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BBC News: Electric cars 'will not solve transport problem, ' report warns
by Charles F 05 Jul '19

05 Jul '19

Electric cars 'will not solve transport problem,' report warns https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48875361

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E-scooters: a transport 'tsunami' flooding cities worldwide
by Zdan, Terry (MI) 05 Jul '19

05 Jul '19

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-e-scooters-tsunami-cities-worldwide.html HAPPY TRAILS Terry Zdan BA MEDes Policy and Legislation Unit | Manitoba Infrastructure 1520 215 Garry Street Winnipeg MB R3C 3P3 C 204 227 3724 E Terry.Zdan(a)gov.mb.ca<mailto:Terry.Zdan@gov.mb.ca> [winnipeg-jets-logo-new] "...Resilience is the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events..." þ Think green, read on screen | Soyez écolo, lisez à l'écran

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Safe Speeds Winnipeg
by Dave Elmore 05 Jul '19

05 Jul '19

If you would like to see speed limits lowered in Winnipeg, please consider signing the on-line petition by Safe Speeds Winnipeg. Here is their website with the link to the on-line petition. https://www.safespeedswpg.com/

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Join Bike Winnipeg for TAC Webinar: Protected Intersections in Vancouver
by Mark Cohoe 02 Jul '19

02 Jul '19

Please join Bike Winnipeg for a group viewing of the July 9th webinar, “Protected Intersections in Vancouver” in the EcoCentre <http://greenactioncentre.ca/uncategorized/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-o…> boardroom. This will be followed by discussion for those who wish to stay. RSVPs are welcome, but are not required. Date: Tuesday, July 9th Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Location: MB Eco-Centre Board Room (3rd Floor, 303 Portage Avenue) *About the Webinar* Since 2013, Vancouver has been building protected intersections, which extend protected bike lane design principles into the intersection to create a safe and comfortable environment for everyone. This webinar will give examples of protected intersection designs that Vancouver has implemented, discuss the design principles behind them, and show how those principles have been adapted to different situations. *Presenter* *Paul Storer, City of Vancouver* Paul manages the City of Vancouver’s Transportation Design Branch, and is responsible for transportation infrastructure improvements including functional design, public engagement, and implementation support. He is a professional engineer with 15 years of experience at the City of Vancouver in street design, bike facility planning and design, neighbourhood traffic calming, rapid transit planning, and implementation of the City’s Transportation 2040 plan. Mark Cohoe Executive Director Bike Winnipeg t: 204-894-6540 e: mark(a)bikewinnipeg.ca

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WFP: Electric scooter company interested in Winnipeg (Jul2'19)
by Beth McKechnie 02 Jul '19

02 Jul '19

*Electric scooter company interested in Winnipeg * https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/electric-scooter-company-interested… THE CEO of Bird Canada, a new subsidiary of California-based e-scooter company Bird, would love to expand to Winnipeg after it launches in Edmonton and Calgary. “We’re going to who raised their hands first,” Bird Canada CEO Stewart Lyons said. “Most provinces need an exemption in their highway traffic act because e-scooters were not thought of when the regulations were drafted.” Lyons said the company decided to launch in Alberta because it anticipates that exceptions to provincial regulations requested by the cities of Calgary and Edmonton will be granted soon, allowing the e-scooters to be operated on public roads. The company says Kelowna, B.C., will likely be the next city it will operate in. Lyons said Saskatoon and Charlottetown have also expressed interest, but the company “would love to come to Winnipeg.” He said the company will put between 500 and 1,000 e-scooters in Calgary. The size of the city dictates the number of scooters it gets. Generally, electric scooters have been praised as a welcome addition to public transit. Bird Canada customers would be able to use the vehicles at a cost of $1.15 to start and 35 cents per minute after, a rate that Lyons said makes the service competitive with public transit. Electric scooters, however, have been criticized for cluttering roads and sidewalks and being tossed into waterways. There’s also the potential for injuries and the issue of insurance liability. Temporary bans have also been placed on companies like Bird in U.S. cities such as Nashville, where a man was killed after being hit by a car. Lyons said the subsidiary company is more focused on safety and doesn’t anticipate any bans in Canada. In Winnipeg, theft is a concern. The city has a notorious reputation when it comes to bike thefts. Lyons realizes scooters are easy to carry, so there’s no guarantee that they won’t be stolen. But he said the scooters’ wheels can only be unlocked through the company’s app. “The wheels won’t move, but you could take it,” Lyons said. “It could make for a nice doorstop, or something in your garden.” In February, council’s public works committee voted to direct city staff to spend six months determining how scooter-share and bike-share companies such as Bird can operate here. A city spokesman said “changes to City of Winnipeg bylaws and policies may be needed to permit firms to share bikes, e-bikes, or other small transportation micro-mobility options.” Gord Spado of the Winnipeg Police Service’s traffic division said provincial legislation would not allow Bird Canada scooters to be driven in Winnipeg. Under the Highway Traffic Act, e-scooters would be considered motor vehicles, which means they would have to be driven on roadways. Manitoba Public Insurance said anything specified as a vehicle under the act would need to be licensed and insured. Spado said, however, that e-scooters “cannot be registered due to the fact they do not have safety equipment, and are not part of any registration class of vehicle. Therefore they cannot be operated on the roadway, under the (Highway Traffic Act).” He added that, even if the scooters did not have an engine, they could not be driven on roadways because push scooters must be driven on sidewalks. Spado said only electric bikes can be driven on roads right now because they are listed in the traffic act. Founded in 2017, Bird has grown to operate in 120 cities, mostly in North America and Europe. Lyons said the company negotiated the exclusive licence to offer device-sharing services in Canada. nicholas.frew(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @n_frew

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Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Risk and Equity: Implications for Street Improvement Projects
by Beth McKechnie 02 Jul '19

02 Jul '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Zdan, Terry (MI) <Terry.Zdan(a)gov.mb.ca> Date: Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 8:36 AM *Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Risk and Equity: Implications for Street Improvement Projects <https://odlinks.govdelivery.com/track?type=click&enid=bWFpbGluZ2lkPTM0NTg1N…>* <https://odlinks.govdelivery.com/track?type=click&enid=bWFpbGluZ2lkPTM0NTg1N…> The Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota has released a report that illustrates how estimates of pedestrian and bicycle crash risk and assessments of inequities may inform prioritization of street improvement projects. This report provides information about variations in crash risk across street networks to inform...

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CBC: 'There has to be something else': Winnipeg's car culture is unsustainable, say urban planning experts
by Beth McKechnie 01 Jul '19

01 Jul '19

*'There has to be something else': Winnipeg's car culture is unsustainable, say urban planning experts* *City needs transportation alternatives to 'a system that we allowed to be dominated by the automobile'* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/car-culture-urban-planning-road-saf… If Winnipeg is to shift out of the well-worn rut of being a car-first culture, it's going to require two crucial elements: creativity and daring leaders, say urban planning experts. "That is the biggest challenge — the overwhelming scale of retrofitting a city to be something more, to reflect new ways of thinking about how we as citizens move within the urban environment," said Jino Distasio, director of the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg. "To create a sustainable city, to create a sustainable country, we need to look at alternative modes of transportation, and to get it right we need to have visionary leaders. "We cannot continue to build cities based on automobile use. There has to be something else." Winnipeg has taken some steps, such as adding bike lanes around the city, but their effectiveness is questionable. Many have no protection from cars, some are marked by symbols painted near curbs of lanes that were never widened for bikes, several end without notice and force cyclists into traffic, and others run between lanes of traffic and leave cyclists exposed. In multiple places, the city has dedicated lanes that are shared between bikes and buses — pitting the smallest, most vulnerable mode of transport against the largest. "It's a work in progress," said Mark Cohoe, executive director of cycling advocacy group Bike Winnipeg. But since the city adopted its pedestrian and cycling strategy <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-council-approves-bike-pede…> in 2015, there's been improvement from what was previously a random, disorganized system, he said. At the same time, Cohoe says it often seems like the city slapped together a section of the network just to say a cycling component was included in a project "rather than creating something that's built around the needs of the system … aimed at attracting the type of user we're hoping to convert, to get out of their car." There are new, concrete-curb-protected, bicycle-only lanes throughout the Exchange District and along part of Sherbrook Street (before it ends at Broadway, leaving cyclists in an unprotected lane). Those protected lanes take away a lane from cars, which is a good start, said Cohoe. "It's shown that you can do it but it takes a willingness," he said. "As the city grows we have to make some different choices and focus not on how to move cars, but how do we move people." Distasio signalled the Graham Avenue transit mall, created in 1995, as a positive change. That has relocated a number of buses off other roads in an attempt to ease congestion. It runs parallel to the city's major artery of Portage Avenue and hosts 1,800 buses and 100,000 riders every weekday, according to the Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone. But that's not enough progress to make significant change, said Orly Linovski, assistant professor in the department of city planning at the University of Manitoba. "There's not a lot [that has been done], to be honest with you. They're going in fits and starts," she said. Distasio agrees, saying there needs to be "a massive shift" with a full commitment to change. "We're trying to retool a system that we allowed to be dominated by the automobile, and trying to retrofit all these other uses into it," he said. "It doesn't work." Chicken and egg Part of the hesitation in committing to that massive shift can be attributed to the city being in a chicken-and-egg situation when it comes to public transit, said Linovski. That being, which comes first — ridership or investment? "It's 100 per cent a chicken-and-the-egg thing. Obviously politicians don't want to put money into a system that's seen as failing, but also people won't take it if the service isn't good," Linovski said. Same goes for the bike network, said Cohoe, whose Bike Winnipeg commissioned a Probe Research survey that found <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-cyclists-poll-caa-1.4759579> 21 per cent of Winnipeggers ride a bike daily or a few times a week. "When we asked [how many people would ride] if we … create the facilities and the network to make cycling comfortable for you, that percentage of people who might be biking went up to 45 per cent," he said. Winnipeg is making strides in that direction with its rapid transit network — designed to cut down commuting time by having buses zip along exclusive corridors — though many people probably haven't noticed much change yet, said Distasio. The initial 3.6-kilometre stretch, from downtown to the Pembina Highway/Jubilee Avenue underpass, opened in 2012 at a cost of $138 million. "I think it's done well but it's such a small scale I don't think people get the full impact. As that second leg gets completed, I think Winnipeggers will get their first strong taste of how quickly you can move at a long distance without repeated interruptions by street traffic," Distasio said. Phase 2, a seven-kilometre extension from Jubilee to Bison Drive, near the University of Manitoba, is scheduled to be done in 2020 at a cost of about $470 million. I think the city is trying to take important steps forward," but it can't do it alone, Distasio said. "We need the enhanced political support from all levels of government, along with the citizens of this city, to realize investment in transportation benefits everybody. It's about creating a more efficient city that will take us into the next century." City originally designed around public transit Ironically, Winnipeg had it right a long time ago. In its early days and into the beginning of the 1950s, the city was designed around the streetcar and public transportation. The automobile was almost secondary. "A lot of the neighbourhoods that are easy to cycle and walk in today is because of their built form that's historic," said Linovski. "Osborne Village was developed as one of the first streetcar suburbs, so its built form was based on people, not driving." The neighbourhood developed a healthy density because people wanted to live close to the streetcar line. That density also attracted businesses and services, which turned the area into a compact community, with many people walking and cycling. "That mix of uses is hard to replicate in a new community," Linovski said. But the city wants to try. It hopes to develop density along bus rapid-transit corridors <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/tower-stradbrook-transit-corridor-1…> with residences close to the stations. "We were at the leading edge and now we're sort of looking back at where we should be," said Distasio. The change came during the late 1950s and '60s as suburbs became popular and vehicles became a necessity to get around. That was the period where many North American became "hell-bent on punching freeways through inner-city neighbourhoods," said Distasio. Winnipeg also embraced the automobile "hook, line and sinker," building bigger parking lots and wider streets and became dominated by a car culture, he said. However, its growth didn't match that of other large Canadian cities and Winnipeg avoided the freeway frenzy — but not by choice. There were plans in place, including one that called for the demolition of much of the East Exchange District to make way for modernist buildings and expressways. However, Winnipeg is seeing a rebound. The city's population has grown by nearly 42,000 — or 6.3. per cent <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/census-manitoba-winnipeg-growth-1.3…> — since 2011, according to 2016 census data (the latest census profile available). In comparison, it added about 30,000 people between 2006 and 2011 — a 4.8 per cent change. And a report from the City of Winnipeg <https://www.winnipeg.ca/cao/pdfs/CommunityTrendsandPerformanceReportVolume1…> projects the population will surpass 1 million by 2040. The city has also seen rapid growth in its suburbs in recent years. As a result, Winnipeggers are facing more traffic congestion than they have in generations. "We're now at the point where, in the next 10 years, if Winnipeg's growth continues, people are going to face an even more significant traffic crunch and more interruptions by infrastructure renewal projects that are going to continue to heat up tempers," said Distasio. That is, unless pressure is taken off that road infrastructure by establishing a multi-modal network — whether that uses buses, subways, trains, or monorails — that respects bicycles, cars, and pedestrians, he said. "Now is the time. Every year that we hesitate on creating a sustainable transportation environment, the more critical it's going to be and the more expensive it will become." The tricky part is how to do it. "We can look at the great cities of Paris and New York and London and say that they have these wonderful transportation systems," Distasio said. "But we need to look at what would work for this city, this climate, our topography, our urban structure, and come up with a solution that fits the city not only today, but for the next 50 years." Some cities on the right track, he said, include Seattle, Ottawa and Minneapolis, all of which have seen their car culture evolve into a transportation system that combines buses and light rail transit <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/rapid-transit-a-tale-of-two-cities-…> . Winnipeg considered light rail when it first began plans for rapid transit. The city's executive policy committee recommended that route in 2010 but a new council nixed the idea in 2014. While Distasio likes what those other cities are doing, it doesn't mean Winnipeg can just use their template. "Those systems can't simply be transplanted here. We need to figure out, with our rivers and our existing patterns, what's going to make sense." Political will In addition to infrastructure changes, there need to be policy changes to discourage vehicle use, such as higher taxes on fuel and cars, Linovski said. "Other jurisdictions have car registration taxes, like in Quebec, [where] the car registration tax goes to fund public transit," she said. "But there isn't the political will to tax ourselves to pay for different types of improvements even though, historically, we have subsidized roads and cars, as well as gas, in a way that has made it very easy and very cheap to drive." The thing that has consistently proven to encourage people to drive less is making it easier to walk or cycle, or providing fast and convenient transit options. Period. That's the framework on which Winnipeg needs to build its system, Distasio said. "It's incumbent upon us to come up with a system that alleviates that pressure but does so in a manner that is sustainable," he said. "We're talking about a plan to continue to ensure that Winnipeg is a healthy, safe place to commute in — by any mode that anybody selects on any given day." ------------------------------ *Interested in making Manitoba streets safer? CBC created a new group on Facebook called Road to Safety <http://www.facebook.com/groups/860243351022929/?source_id=170300219399>.* Darren Bernhardt spent the first dozen years of his journalism career in newspapers, first at the Regina Leader-Post then the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. He has been with CBC Manitoba since 2009 and specializes in offbeat and local history stories and features. Story idea? Email: darren.bernhardt(a)cbc.ca

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Montreal & Vancouver make Top 20 cycling cities in world list
by Beth McKechnie 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

https://www.wired.com/story/most-bike-friendly-cities-2019-copenhagenize-de… -- Beth McKechnie (she/her/hers) *| *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 CanadaHelps.org <http://canadahelps.org/> <http://www.gomanitoba.ca>

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