October 2024 - AT-Network - University of Manitoba Mailing Lists

Equitable Cities is next week!
by Mel Marginet 04 Oct '24

04 Oct '24

Caution! This message was sent from outside the University of Manitoba. Greetings, Green Action Centre and Peg City Car Co-op are excited to welcome Charles T. Brown to Winnipeg for Equitable Cities<https://3common.com/equitablecities> on October 9th! Don’t have your tickets yet? If you are a student or representing a community organization or nonprofit, use ECStudent or ECCommunity at checkout to save! Charles T. Brown is the founder and principal of Equitable Cities, a minority- and veteran-owned urban planning, public policy and research firm focused at the intersection of transportation, health and equity. He is also an adjunct professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. He is the host of Arrested Mobility<https://arrestedmobility.com/>, a podcast that asks: What can we do to change the outcomes when people of colour step out their door to exist in the world? In this keynote presentation, Charles addresses how our transportation system in Winnipeg, like communities across the country, underserves and disproportionately harms those who are most vulnerable. By understanding inequities in our transportation system, Charles identifies potential strategies for action. Following the keynote, attendees will have the opportunity to take part in two breakout sessions that bring the themes of Charles’ keynote into our local context. Breakout topics are: POINT DOUGLAS: A Neighbourhood of Opportunity Facilitated by: Sel Burrows Point Douglas is one of Winnipeg’s oldest neighbourhoods. Like similar communities across North America, Point Douglas has suffered decades of disinvestment. For those who call Point Douglas home, they see endless untapped potential. Not only is this neighbourhood beautiful, with its canopy of trees and historic architecture, but also it is home to resilient people and organizations who want to see it thrive once again. The City of Winnipeg has committed resources to creating a neighbourhood plan for Point Douglas. This breakout session will give participants the opportunity to learn more about Point Douglas, and how neighbourhoods can thrive when everyone has access to what they need for health, happiness and opportunity. FREEDOM TO MOVE: How do we build an accessible city for all? Facilitated by: Sarah Manteuffel Winnipeg’s urban footprint ballooned after the second world war, spreading people and places further apart. At the same time, the city invested less in transit and active transportation, and more in roads for personal vehicles. We now live in a car-oriented city and the disability community often finds themselves on the margins, forcing the choice to use personal vehicles, or being reliant on infrastructure and transit that can be inconvenient and uncomfortable. This session will focus on what we all lose when our city is inaccessible, while also asking: how can Winnipeg become more inclusive for everyone? ARRESTED MOBILITY: Moving While Indigenous Facilitated by: Adrian Alphonso Winnipeg is home to the largest Indigenous population in Canada. Indigenous people are overrepresented as victims of traffic violence, policing and poverty. In this session, we examine Winnipeg’s transportation system to discover and discuss its long history of inequity, as well as opportunities for change. In this session we’ll ask: what can we gain when all people feel safe moving about our cities and towns? We look forward to welcoming Charles T. Brown to Winnipeg for Equitable Cities<https://3common.com/equitablecities>, and we hope to see you at the Norwood Hotel on October 9th! Thank you to our sponsors Builder [45354-PC-PegCity-Logo-RGB-Release.png] Influencer [HTFC-CMYK.png] [Selkirk_logo_RGB.png] Advocate [image.png] [image.png] Supporter [Lankmark Logo - White on Green - JPG.jpg] [image001.png] Mel Marginet | Workplace Commuter Options <http://greenactioncentre.ca/>Green Action Centre<http://www.greenactioncentre.ca/> <http://greenactioncentre.ca/content/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-options/> 300-286 Smith Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3C 1K4 | Find us here<http://greenactioncentre.ca/content/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-options/> *Note: I work two days a week at Green Action Centre and it may take a few days to respond to you. We are located on Treaty 1 Territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation. The water we drink comes from Shoal Lake First Nation. [https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif] 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/> [https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4xnHIzg-oNAxItLMxFnB1HS5HGb…]<http://gomb.ca>

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WFP: Cyclists call for enforcement as bike lane violations go largely unticketed (Oct3'24)
by Beth McKechnie 03 Oct '24

03 Oct '24

Caution! This message was sent from outside the University of Manitoba. Battle of the bike lanes Cyclists call for enforcement as bike lane violations go largely unticketed https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2024/10/03/battle-of-the-bik… WHETHER it’s moving vans, food delivery services or everyday drivers, vehicles stopping in bike lanes aren’t an uncommon sight in Winnipeg. While it is illegal — and subject to a $70 fine — city data shows it isn’t always being ticketed. There were 70 tickets handed out between January and August. Most of those tickets (43) were given out in January and February while the other months saw fewer than 10 tickets handed out. There was a single ticket for parking in a bike lane given out in May. Similarly, in 2023, there were fewer than 10 tickets sent out monthly from April to October. Andrew Kohan, a father of two who describes himself as a “utility cyclist” who uses his bike to transport him and his family as much as possible, said those numbers don’t match the reality on Winnipeg roads. “I see people parked in unprotected bike lanes all the time, often with their hazards on, treating it like it’s just a place you can stop and in the protected bike lanes as well — if it’s a wide enough lane, people will fit their car in it, and will get upset with you if you mention to them that that’s not a place to park,” he said. “It’s incredibly frustrating to hear that the city isn’t prioritizing enforcement of parking bylaws in bike lanes, because it’s so dangerous when a car is blocking that space.” He’d like to see proactive bike infrastructure that would make it harder for drivers to circumvent the rules. “For me, it’s a family safety issue, it’s a life-and-death issue, potentially, and I don’t want to be in that position where I’m forced out of that small amount of safe infrastructure we have,” he said. This year, most tickets have been handed out on Bannatyne Avenue, Notre Dame Avenue and Arthur Street. While parking in a bike lane has been a bylaw offence since 2016, the city’s bike infrastructure was integrated into the Winnipeg Parking Authority’s enforcement mapping system to include them in regular officer patrols in late 2023, after a “peak in non-compliance” and a spike in complaints, said Lisa Vermette, the authority’s manager of regulation and compliance. The parking authority also moved away from issuing tickets through the mail and instead focused on handing out tickets — and tow orders, which she said were included with every ticket handed out in 2024 — on site. “Compliance rates are sometimes a very tricky thing to measure,” she said. “The ticket data tells one side of that story.” Vermette said she hopes compliance is increasing — data over the past few years shows more tickets were handed out in winter months (25 tickets were given out in January 2024, compared to seven in March), which may mean drivers are unknowingly stopping in bike lanes without curbs and avoiding them in other months. What has decreased, she said, are complaints to 311 about cars in bike lanes. In 2023, the city received around 60 complaints, and there have been less than 20 calls made this year so far. While there are 13 to 15 vehicles patrolling in Winnipeg at any given time, she said, the parking authority still relies heavily on public reporting. “If a cyclist says, for example, ‘Every morning I travel this path, there are vehicles parked almost every morning,’ we can also set up more routine patrols and a more concentrated effort in those areas, rather than try to cover the whole bike infrastructure throughout the city to try to really minimize the rate of non-compliance in one or several specific areas,” she said. The complaint system isn’t enough to hold drivers to account, argued Patty Wiens with advocacy group Bike Winnipeg, as the city’s standard 90-minute turnaround time for complaints isn’t always quick enough. “The way it works is we call 311, and maybe by the time that the parking authority gets there, they’re still there … they are not actively seeking this,” she said. She pointed to Toronto, where bicycle patrol officers are, at times, tasked specifically with monitoring bike lanes across the city and recently raised the fine for parking in a bike path from $60 to $200. “Here — one, we can’t even get bike lanes, and two, we can’t get the officers to come out,” she said. malak.abas(a)freepress.mb.ca<mailto:malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca>

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WFP Analysis: Building a city to keep the next generation here (Oct1'24)
by Beth McKechnie 01 Oct '24

01 Oct '24

Caution! This message was sent from outside the University of Manitoba. Building a city to keep the next generation here https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2024/09/30/building-a-ci… WHEN the Jets play a road game in another Canadian city, the familiar “True North” chant can always be heard loud and clear as ex-pat Winnipeggers celebrate their former hometown. The chant is an expression of pride from those who have moved away, but its prevalence might also be an indication that Winnipeg is losing a different competition against other Canadian cities — the battle to attract and retain its young people. Every year Winnipeg loses thousands of people to other cities, many of them young, educated adults looking to establish their roots elsewhere. The inability of Winnipeg to retain its young people has always been a problem, but in the face of changing demographics, it’s an issue that has today become even more pressing. Our country is aging quickly. Fifty years ago, the median age in Canada was 25 years old, today it’s 41. This demographic shift is making young people more important to cities than ever before, needed to backfill an aging workforce and drive social vitality and economic innovation in our communities. Young people have grown up in an interconnected, technology-driven world. Their digital fluency and focus on social and environmental priorities make them a key demographic in the knowledge-based economy that creates modern, prosperous cities. The Manitoba Chambers of Commerce and Canada West Foundation recently released an important study called, Finding Their Place: Manitoba Youth Mobility. It takes an in-depth look at why young people leave Winnipeg and Manitoba. As expected, many of the conclusions focused on jobs and economic opportunity in bigger centres, but the study revealed a fascinating and often overlooked factor that deserves much more public attention. A large percentage of young people consider vibrancy and urban quality a key factor in their desire to move to other Canadian cities. The study showed that almost 80 per cent of young people in Winnipeg would consider moving to another Canadian city if it offered a higher quality of life. This was the same percentage as those who would consider economic factors. When the study looked deeper into what defined quality of life for young people, the answers were not larger backyards, more big box stores or less vehicle traffic, it was the ability to live a socially connected urban lifestyle. The most important factor that was identified by 53 per cent of all respondents was a desire to live in a walkable neighbourhood. Across North America, today’s young adults have consistently demonstrated a generational shift toward urban living with a greater preference for diverse, higher density communities, generally closer to the city centre, with shops, restaurants, services, entertainment, employment, and education within walkable access from their home. Many young people in Winnipeg are no different. The next most desirable factors that young people are looking for in the city they choose to call home, followed this urbanist trend. Easy access to urban parks ranked second and high-quality public transportation was third. Almost 20 per cent identified much-maligned bike lanes as a top quality-of-life factor when considering a move to another city. These findings are backed up by real world evidence in Winnipeg. Compared to the city average, almost twice as many young adults live in walkable, urban neighbourhoods such as Osborne Village, Corydon-Earl Grey and Broadway-Assiniboine. Residents in these areas use public transit almost twice as much as the city average and walk or bike to work three to four times more often than average — seven times more than those living in suburban neighbourhoods like North Kildonan or Linden Woods. The top destinations for Winnipeg’s young people are Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto, together attracting more than all other cities combined. Despite housing costs being far higher in those cities, young people are attracted to the socially connected, urban lifestyle they offer, something that is largely unavailable to them in Winnipeg. If we want to slow the exodus of our young people to other Canadian cities, we must begin by asking ourselves, who are we building our city for? The answer to this question should define the lens through which we view our city-building decisions. We have largely been using the priorities of older generations to guide policy, which has created an overwhelmingly suburban and vehicle-dependent city, offering fewer urban lifestyle options that are attractive to many younger people. The study clearly describes what many young people are looking for, unfortunately, building that type of city often meets with resistance and opposition from older generations. When we prioritize our residential streets for vehicle traffic, oppose bike lanes, fight reduced speed limits and traffic calming measures that help create more connected, urban and walkable neighbourhoods, we are rejecting the type of city that many young people want. When homeowners protest higher density and mixed-use infill development in mature neighbourhoods, they are fighting against the ability for young people to access to the communities they want to live in and are pushing them to other cities where they can find those lifestyle opportunities. When we contemplate spending three-quarters of a billion dollars to expand Kenaston Boulevard for cars, we might consider that Winnipeg will soon be the only city of Canada’s ten largest without light rail rapid transit. Understanding that we compete against these cities for our young people, we might instead prioritize mobility investments that are more attractive to the next generations. If we want our children and grandchildren to choose Winnipeg as the place they call home, we must begin by building a city that responds to their priorities and dreams, not only to those of their parents and grandparents. Brent Bellamy is creative director at Number Ten Architectural Group.

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