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The Dangerous Rise of the Supersized Pickup Truck - Bloomberg
by Beth McKechnie 15 Mar '21

15 Mar '21

[You can also check out a recent webinar recording with Angie Schmitt at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zoXDPi8-40] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dangerous-rise-of-th… What Happened to Pickup Trucks?As U.S. drivers buy more full-size and heavy-duty pickups, these vehicles have transformed from no-frills workhorses into angry giants. And pedestrians are paying the price. To get a handle on what’s happened to pickup trucks, it really helps to use a human body for scale. In some nerdy Internet circles — specifically, bike and pedestrian advocacy — it has become trendy to take a selfie in front of the bumper of random neighborhood Silverados. Among the increasingly popular heavy-duty models, the height of the truck’s front end may reach a grown man’s shoulders or neck. When you involve children in this exercise it starts to become really disturbing. My four-year-old son, for example, barely cleared the bumper on a lifted F-250 we came across in a parking lot last summer. [image: relates to What Happened to Pickup Trucks?] Look out below. Photo courtesy Angie Schmitt Vehicles of this scale saddle their drivers with huge front and rear blind zones <https://www.wthr.com/article/news/investigations/13-investigates/13-investi…> that make them perilous to operate <https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/19/21522959/cadillac-escalade-2021-first-d…> in crowded areas. Even car guys have been sounding the alarm about the mega-truck trend recently. A few months ago, the *Wall Street Journal*’s Dan Neil <https://www.wsj.com/articles/pickup-trucks-are-getting-huge-got-a-problem-w…>complained about his close encounter in a parking lot with a 2020 GMC Sierra HD Denali: “The domed hood was at forehead level. The paramedics would have had to extract me from the grille with a spray hose.” Since 1990, U.S. pickup trucks have added almost 1,300 pounds <https://twitter.com/kevin_degood/status/1166359839855054850?ref_src=twsrc%2…> on average. Some of the biggest vehicles on the market now weigh almost 7,000 pounds <https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/10/14/the-most-massive-cars-…> — or about three Honda Civics. These vehicles have a voracious appetite for space, one that’s increasingly irreconcilable with the way cities (and garages, and parking lots <https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2020/03/05/suvs-pickups-trucks-ga…>) are built. Styling trends are almost as alarming. Pickup truck front ends have warped into scowling brick walls, billboards for outwardly directed hostility. “The goal of modern truck grilles,” wrote *Jalopnik*’s Jason Torchinsky in 2018 <https://jalopnik.com/we-need-to-talk-about-truck-design-right-now-before-it…>, “seems to be… about creating a massive, brutal face of rage and intimidation.” The Electric Pickup Truck War Is Here During the pandemic, U.S. buyers seemed to respond <https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2020/10/31/pickup-trucks-carguru-cov…> to this kind of packaging. In May 2020, Americans bought more pickup trucks than cars <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-05/pickups-outsell-passenge…> for the first time. Five of the 10 top-selling vehicles in the U.S. last year were pickup trucks <https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/pickup-trucks-dominate-americas-10-best-sel…> . Giant, furious trucks are more than just a polarizing consumer choice: Large pickups and SUVs are notably more lethal to other road users, and their conquest of U.S. roads has been accompanied by a spike in fatalities among pedestrians and bicyclists <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-08-12/why-are-cars-still-so-da…>. As I wrote in my 2020 book <https://islandpress.org/books/right-way> *Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America*, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety <https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-suvs-are-more-le…> and the *Detroit Free Press <https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killing-americas-ped…> *have pointed to the rise in SUVs and large pickups as the main culprit in the pedestrian mortality surge. The truck trend is contributing to another troubling crash-related disparity: In a new study <https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicle-choice-crash-differences-help-expl…>, the IIHS shows that women — who tend choose smaller vehicles — are suffering higher injury and death rates than their male counterparts, despite the fact than women engage in fewer risks and crash less. Why have pickup trucks morphed into such huge, angry, and dangerous presences? Traffic safety experts, commentators on U.S. automotive culture, and social scientists have suggested a range of forces behind truck bloat. The truckification of the family car One key driver of pickup growth relates to how they are now being used. If you overlook their gleefully violent styling and garage-unfriendly footprint, these vehicles have become more practical as family vehicles <https://www.consumerreports.org/pickup-trucks/are-pickup-trucks-becoming-th…> . Despite the agrarian pursuits that TV commercials suggest, today’s pickup trucks are being built more to haul kids and families than sheep and boulders. Until the 1980s, almost every pickup truck sold in the U.S. had a single cab, meaning seating for three max in a single bench-style seat, with a bed that was eight feet long for a full-sized long-bed vehicle. That old no-frills working-style truck is fading into history. [image: Loading Hay Bales] In 1967, this was a pickup truck. Photographer: Underwood Archives/Archive Photos In 2020, 85% of pickup trucks sold had “crew cabs” or “extended crew cabs” or one of a handful of other tough-guy euphemisms with two sets of seats for five people — most with four doors. Some have four regular-size doors. These passenger-heavy, cargo-lite arrangements are so popular that some automakers — like Ram — have stopped even offering single cabs in their best-selling pickup brands. As pickups transformed into family vehicles, they also became more luxurious. The average truck in the U.S. sells for almost $50,000 now <https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2020/03/03/why-annual-pickup-truc…> — a 41% increase compared to a decade ago — and many boast posh, feature-laden interiors designed to compete with high-end SUVs and sedans, as auto writer Jim Gorzelany writes in *Forbes* <https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2020/03/03/why-annual-pickup-truc…> . As a result, today’s truck owners include all kinds of people who don’t necessarily need (and rarely use) <https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-…> these vehicles’ defining features: the open cargo-hauling bed and towing capabilities. Some choose big trucks because smaller vehicles make them feel too vulnerable on modern highways. Michael Powell, a social worker who lives in rural Maine, says he’d rather drive a compact car, but he has PTSD from a former car crash: He drives a truck, he says, “because everyone else in my town does, and it’s the only way I can get around without feeling like I’m gonna die.” Jeff Weidner, an assistant professor at a college in El Paso, Texas, says he feels a little guilty about choosing to buy a full-size Toyota Tundra — but admits he likes it. “We were looking for something that would hold six people, would be good for long trips in terms of space and carrying our stuff,” he says. At first, he planned on buying the mid-size Tacoma, but “they upsold us hard with the Tundra. They barely even had stock of Tacomas — they probably do not make enough money on them.” The U.S.’s perverse regulatory and tax environment contributes to this arms race. Ford’s heavy-duty F-250, for example, benefits from its regulatory status as a commercial vehicle, unlike the slightly smaller F-150. The same goes for other heavy-duty models like the Ram 2500 and Silverado 2500HD, which aren’t classified as passenger vehicles, but as work machines <https://jalopnik.com/its-time-to-call-bullshit-on-the-biggest-cover-up-in-a…>, and are thus exempt from EPA fuel economy reporting regulations. “Nobody tracks the gas mileage — there’s no EPA rating for that car,” says Dan Albert, author of *Are We There Yet?: The American Automobile Past, Present and Driverless <https://www.amazon.com/Are-There-Yet-Automobile-Driverless/dp/0393292746>* *.* [image: GMC Holds Vehicle Reveal Event] The mighty prow of a GMC Sierra Denali HD. Photographer: Sandy Huffaker/Bloomberg Business tax structure also encourages many business owners to opt for the bigger F-250 over the F-150, making the added cost almost negligible. Going large doesn’t necessarily exact a major toll in fuel expenses, either: While pickups have gotten bigger they have also become — while not exactly green — certainly less gas guzzling. Equipped with a hybrid powertrain, the 2021 Ford F-150 can achieve 25 miles per gallon in the city <https://www.motortrend.com/news/2021-ford-f-150-hybrid-mpg-fuel-economy/>, six more than a Honda Odyssey minivan. “We have gotten better at making them more efficient,” says Benjamin Sovacool <https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p373957-benjamin-sovacool>, a researcher who studies energy transitions. That fuel efficiency is set to leap forward again, with the arrival of Tesla’s Cybertruck, GM’s rebooted 1,000-horsepower Hummer EV, and host of other electrified rigs <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-10/electric-cars-ford-f-tes…>: battery-powered vehicles that overcompensate for their non-polluting powertrains with hyper-aggressive styling and power ratings. Make way for “petro-masculinity” But that doesn’t mean the decision to buy a $50,000 truck with a 4,200-pound payload rating for the occasional trip to the golf course or hardware store is strictly rational. Personal vehicles are not merely functional appliances: They are used as refuges, fortresses and private enclaves, and serve as important signifiers of class and gender identity, as Sovacool explored in a 2018 study <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856416311247#b0140>. To Albert, the booming appeal of bigger and more brutish trucks reflects “a crisis of masculinity,” he says. “Nothing could be more emasculating than driving a minivan. So you want the vehicle that’s going to maintain your performative masculinity.” The fact that supersized pickup trucks were often deployed as political props (and weapons <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/why-vehicle-attacks-agai…>) during the Trump era did not escape the notice of scholars like Cara Daggett, a professor of political science at Virginia Tech. In a widely shared 2018 journal article <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305829818775817>, Daggett coined the term “petro-masculinity” to describe flamboyant expressions of fossil fuel use by men (and some women as well, but mostly men) as a reaction against social progress. To these drivers, “the affront of global warming or environmental regulations appear as insurgents on par with the dangers posed by feminists and queer movements seeking to leach energy and power from the state/traditional family,” she wrote. Petro-masculinity helps explain not only these vehicles’ confrontational styling, but the often equally belligerent way in which they are operated. The EPA estimates that more than half a million trucks — 15% of the diesel-powered pickups on U.S. roads — have had their emissions equipment modified over the last decade in order to increase their power and polluting potential. There’s a cottage industry <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/09/auto-car-emissions-defeat-d…> devoted to the practice of bypassing emissions standards; such modified vehicles are believed to emit as much pollution as 9 million emissions-compliant diesel trucks. While illegal, some drivers flaunt their ability to pollute, via the behavior known as “rolling coal <https://newrepublic.com/article/143083/republicans-rolling-coal-party>,” in which drivers of modified diesel trucks blow black smoke at targets of their disapproval (often Prius drivers or bicyclists). “Burning fossil fuels can come to function as a knowingly violent experience,” Daggett writes, “a reassertion of white masculine power on an unruly planet that is perceived to be increasingly in need of violent, authoritarian order.” Built for battle Geopolitical factors have long played a role in car and truck design in the U.S.: Jeeps, of course, began as military vehicles adapted to civilian use, a heritage the company still proudly announces <https://www.jeep.com/history/1940s.html> on its site, saying the brand is “forever tied to freedom, capability and adventure.” The first iteration of GM’s Hummer brand spun from the high-profile role that Humvee military vehicles used in the Persian Gulf War <https://taskandpurpose.com/gear-tech/humvee-failed-battlefield-sparked-cult…>. Other manufacturers continue to cultivate connections to the military as well. Ford advertises <https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2014/01/13/ford-use…> its F-150 is made of “military-grade aluminum alloy” for the “working warrior.” In his excellent illustrated essay “About Face <https://popula.com/2019/02/24/about-face/>,” cartoonist Nate Powell, whose father was an Air Force officer, explores the recent emergence of the overtly “paramilitary aesthetic” in truck and SUV design and connects it to recent U.S. “forever wars,” in which regular troops have mixed with private security units, special forces and law enforcement officers in battlefields around the world. Many veterans of these campaigns employed up-armored civilian vehicles, and they brought a taste for such machines back home with them. “It’s a kind of spectacular performance of power.” That aesthetic can be detected not only in the raised “militarized” grille height of pickup trucks, but also the popularity of aftermarket modifications like blacked-out windows and “bull bars” affixed to the front end. Together, the way these trucks look speaks to a “rejection of communication, reciprocity and legal accountability,” Powell writes. At their heart, these consumer choices also reflect something else, says Sovacool: fear. “We are questioning our place in the world, with globalization and Trump. We’re also feeling really uncertain and unsafe — the pandemic, terrorism.” With its “bulletproof” stainless-steel skin and “bioweapon defense mode,” perhaps no vehicle feels as precisely calibrated to the anxieties of its era as the Tesla Cybertruck <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-22/tesla-s-cybertruck-is-bu…>. Such vehicles promise more than just “defensive security,” wherein a larger vehicle at least theoretically protects its occupants better in a collision with a smaller vehicle: They are built to project “offensive security,” Sovacool says. “If you do need a vehicle that will go off road, carry lots of weapons or run over people,” he says, “then these bigger vehicles do it better than these smaller ones.” Only in America Threaded within the pickup’s militaristic branding is a powerful appeal to national pride. U.S. automakers have long dominated pickup truck sales, which produce enormous profits for Detroit-based companies and employ a lot of domestic auto workers. No wonder there’s such hesitancy among regulators to stand in the way of some of their more egregious styling trends or emissions loopholes. “In a way, critiquing them is seen as anti-American and anti-jobs,” says Sovacool. [image: Pickup trucks with American flags affixed to their attennas] America’s “Big Three” automakers dominate the large pickup market. Photographer: Jack Smith/Bloomberg In a 2016 essay for *N+1*, Albert also reflected on the burden of associations — nostalgic and nationalistic — that pickups carry: “To drive a thirsty truck is to live in a pre-EPA era, before the spikes in gas prices, before political correctness,” he wrote <https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-american-pickup/>. “To fill the bottomless tank of a pickup … is to practice the religion of the American Way. It is to affirm climate denial, petrol-adventurism, and American exceptionalism.” There are many ways to untangle pickup trucks from this trap and rein in their most destructive excesses. Federal regulators could revise the EPA mandates that the largest pickups now avoid, and impose stronger rules <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-17/how-cities-could-push-ba…> on pedestrian safety to make trucks and SUVs less lethal. The tax code could be reformed, so businesses that purchase the largest commercial trucks aren’t rewarded with a 100% depreciation bonus <https://gscpa.com/how-much-can-businesses-deduct-for-vehicles-placed-in-ser….> on the first year. Cities could stiffen parking policies and raise vehicle fees <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-17/how-cities-could-push-ba…> so that such impractically scaled machines will be less appealing to buyers who have little need of their capabilities. But any such efforts can’t be merely “technocratic,” Daggett says — they must grapple with the broader societal forces that these supertrucks have tapped into. “A lot of things are attached to fossil fuel culture because they are symbolically a part of a certain way of life or an identity,” she says. “It’s no longer possible to operate in the world and not understand that fossil fuels are violent. It’s a kind of spectacular performance of power.” *Angie Schmitt <https://twitter.com/schmangee> is a writer and planning consultant and author of *Right of Way: Race, Class and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America <https://bookshop.org/books/right-of-way-race-class-and-the-silent-epidemic-…> *.*

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WFP: City urged to add bike lanes on Salter Street in rebuild (Mar13'21)
by Beth McKechnie 13 Mar '21

13 Mar '21

City urged to add bike lanes on Salter Street in rebuild https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/city-urged-to-add-bike-lanes-on-sal… ON any given day, the intersection of Salter Street and Selkirk Avenue is bustling with cars, trucks and buses. Those looking to cycle through the neighbourhood often find themselves on the sidewalk, deftly dodging a steady stream of pedestrians. As the City of Winnipeg plans to rebuild a swath of Salter Street, community leaders are questioning its decision to leave out active transportation routes — and are advocating for a design model that includes a bike lane on the busy roadway. All his life, Nelson Flett has navigated his North End neighbourhood by foot, bike and even rollerblades. Having bike lanes in the community, he says, would offer a safe way to get around and bring about some revitalization. “I want the future generations to be safe, have fun, get outdoors and enjoy the life I had, because I’ve been riding bikes most of my life,” Flett said Friday morning, during a news conference on the corner of Salter and Selkirk. “I think it would just rejuvenate the area, bring the life out in people.” Flett joined members of Winnipeg Trails, Couns. Ross Eadie (Mynarski) and Vivian Santos (Point Douglas), and other community leaders to call for the building of active transportation routes as street revitalization projects take place in the North End. The group envisioned what a bike lane might look like on Salter Street. “Seven feet, that’s all we’re asking for,” they called out, holding up a tape measure at the seven-foot mark. “We want to see them fix Salter and do it right; $6 million spent through the heart of the North End without bike lanes in the middle of a pandemic is wrong,” Winnipeg Trails executive director Anders Swanson said. “We want the city to integrate bike lanes into all of its road reconstruction, because we are tired of chasing after multimillion-dollar projects that could have been done better.” In late 2020, the city tendered a project to rehabilitate Salter between the Slaw Rebchuk Bridge and Cathedral Avenue. But due to a “limited scope,” the project will not include any public engagement activities, according to the city’s website. In February, the city awarded a tender valued at more than $4.2 million to Winnipeg-based Darco Group Ltd. for the rehabilitation project, which will have roads and sidewalks rehabilitated for pedestrian safety. “This considers neither current nor best practices in active transportation, otherwise the moment you see one person riding on the sidewalk here, you would put in bike lanes,” Swanson said. Flett — who has biked over the bridge to his work in West Broadway — said the busy traffic lanes in the neighbourhood are “scary” to traverse, leading many on bikes to take to the sidewalks and causing safety issues for pedestrians. In an ideal reconstruction, Flett said he would like to see protected cycle lanes, like the ones on Maryland and Sherbrook Streets, start popping up in the North End. Ground is expected to be broken on the Salter Street project in summer. julia-simone.rutgers(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @jsrutgers

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FW: $400 Million for Bike Paths, Walkways, etc.
by Charles F 12 Mar '21

12 Mar '21

Federal AT funding and engagement announcement.One small step...Sent from my phone.

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WFP: A Route to the Future - Transit Master Plan (Mar6'21)
by Beth McKechnie 06 Mar '21

06 Mar '21

A Route to the Future https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/greenpage/transforming… The city will unveil a public-transit blueprint in the coming weeks that could transform Winnipeg; there’s a lot riding on it, including the number of people willing to ride on it THIS spring, Winnipeg’s civil service will unveil its new master plan for public transit, coming on the heels of Ottawa’s announcement to shovel billions of dollars into programs across the country over the next decade in an effort to lower emissions from the transportation sector. This convergence of public money and planning seems to offer Winnipeg a chance to reimagine what is possible in the realm of transit — what the system could be going forward, despite past failings. However, it is quickly becoming clear there are no visions of streetcars or light rail dancing in their heads. Dreams for Winnipeg’s transit system are much smaller, even among its biggest proponents, which speaks to how far the system still has to go in order to meet a threshold of service that would successfully convince people to leave their cars at home. Or, even more radically, not buy a car in the first place. Breaking people of their car-driving habit is a key aspect of national and municipal climate plans. More than 40 per cent of greenhouse-gas emissions in Manitoba came from the transportation sector in 2018. Of the emissions from transportation, about 37 per cent comes from vehicles classified as light-duty cars and trucks. Electrification will help lower passenger vehicle emissions, but prospective civic policies also rely on getting more people out of their vehicles altogether and on to bikes, buses and trains. “Investments in public transit will also require some behavioural changes on the part of commuters,” declared the Senate’s 2017 report on decarbonizing the transportation sector. “Unless taking transit is easier, faster and cheaper than taking a car for one’s daily commute, investments will not result in the desired emission reductions.” Ideally, all of the pieces are meant to come together to help solve the emissions problem. But in Winnipeg, the road forward is shaping up to be a long, slow one. ●●● Coun. Vivian Santos grew up getting around the city by bus, accepting the hour-long commute between her childhood Southdale home and downtown that would otherwise take 15 minutes by car. As she got older, a bike became a better alternative to the bus, cutting her commute time in half. “I stopped taking transit because it was just, to be honest, a waste of my time in the morning,” she says. In the decades since, bus service hasn’t really improved, but her financial flexibility did, plus she added kids to the mix. And so, the Point Douglas councillor made the same choice most Winnipeggers who can afford it make, and she bought a car. There are now two in her household to shuffle her family around the city. Her children are getting to the age where they could start taking transit on their own — and she’d like to encourage them to do so — but it’s not realistic, based on where they live in the northwest part of the city. “There’s actually no transit service out here, to be honest with you. So if my son were to take transit, he would actually have to walk 10 minutes to McPhillips. Or he’d have to walk maybe seven minutes the other way down towards Pipeline and Templeton. So we’re really kind of outside of the transit system,” she says. Winnipeg has some of the lowest transit use rates per capita in the country, according to a recent report from Climate Reality Canada, the Canadian arm of former U.S. vice-president Al Gore’s international environmental non-profit organization. Among large cities with more than 600,000 residents, Winnipeg came in last, with an average of 67 transit trips per person annually. The next lowest was Calgary with 84. The Canadian leader in transit trips per capita is Montreal, with 236. Nationally, transit ridership has increased from roughly 1.8 billion regular service trips in 2009 to 2.1 billion in 2017, according to the Canadian Urban Transit Association. But in Winnipeg, ridership stalled and even declined in that same time period, according to city statistics. The last census revealed Winnipeg was the only Canadian city where commuting by public transit had declined over the preceding 20-year period. Santos believes getting more people on transit isn’t about building rail lines or any other flashy, grand plans. To her, it’s much more simple — it’s about making transit more frequently accessible and reliable, and charging less money to use it. “I think a good balance of both should be done,” she says. “They need to be done together. Because I understand that if we lower the fees, we’re going to have more people come on, we’re gonna see an uptick rate of people taking the transit. So obviously, we need to increase purchasing buses, and we need to better our frequency.” To that end, she put a motion before the city’s public works committee in February to study what the impact of lower fares might be in Winnipeg. It was rejected in a 2-2 vote. Curt Hull, director of Winnipeg’s Climate Change Connection, agrees with Santos’s evaluation of what’s needed to bring the transit system up to speed, and explains why aiming higher at this point isn’t practical. “Implementing rapid transit by rail is really a long ways further from where we are. You don’t start with that. You start with building the demand with things like developing frequent service, and then once you get enough demand, enough ridership on a particular route, then you make it rail. So we’re a long ways away from that,” Hull says. Efforts to regenerate the transit system with rapid bus infrastructure — the second leg of the Southwest Transitway was completed last spring — have proven lacklustre, Hull says, but he is hopeful new, less capital-intensive improvements will help deliver more riders. In addition to Santos’s hopes for more frequent, cheaper service, Hull adds a couple of things to the wish list. The routes need to be simple, he says, and access to lines criss-crossing the city needs to be easy. He envisions something like an on-demand service for suburban neighbourhoods, where a small van or a similar vehicle shuttles a rider to the main bus lines. Having regular but empty buses running through those neighbourhoods doesn’t make sense, he says, but you can’t cut them off from the network, either. “The issue is the availability of funding for it,” he says. ●●● Winnipeg relies more heavily on the fare box to fund transit than any other city in the country on a per capita basis, which pins the system’s progress directly to ridership. It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario — the system can’t be improved until ridership increases, but that won’t happen without system improvements. It also puts the system at risk for ridership fluctuations, as was the case for most of last year because of the pandemic. Across the country, transit ridership fell by more than 60 per cent in 2020, according to Statistics Canada. While it rebounded somewhat in the summer months, those minor gains were lost again amid the second wave in late fall and early winter. “That hits our system that much more than other systems,” says Coun. Matt Allard, chair of Winnipeg’s public works committee. Winnipeg’s reliance on fare-box revenues was cemented in 2017 when the provincial government moved away from its 50-50 funding agreement with the city. In 2019, fares represented 45 per cent of total revenues on transit, which amounted to $91.7 million of $204 million. At the public works committee meeting in February where Santos put forward the idea of free or lower-fare transit, the conversation quickly turned from one that was simply about buses and dollar figures to a much more complicated question: is public transit something Winnipeggers consider to be a public good? Taxpayers who are childless or do not have school-age children still contribute money to the education system. Taxpayers who do not borrow books from the library still pay to keep the lights on and the shelves stocked. Those who do not drive still pay to keep the roads maintained. And all of those services are free of direct costs to the user. Winnipeggers have come to an implicit agreement that some things are in the public’s interest to fund. But so far, Winnipeg and its residents have yet to bring public transit under that umbrella. As long as the system relies heavily on the fare box, it will not be viewed as a public good. At least not to the same extent that other services are. Much like parents not bringing their children to a park with broken swings and garbage strewn everywhere, a neglected transit system will not yield higher ridership. It will not be a civic source of pride, as it is in many other cities. “Convenient access to public transit” is among the United Nations’ indicators for sustainable development goals. Yet, Winnipeg fails to meet measures of success that were created as goals in developing countries. International Institute for Sustainable Development targets for appropriate wait times and distance to the closest bus stop are unattainable for a third of Winnipeggers. Transit investments have been found to have significant positive spillover effects in economic development, especially in sectors such as tourism. It also stands to reason riders save money that would have otherwise have spent on a car. Then there’s the significant shared benefits between climate interests in transit and equity policy across different socio-economic classes. “If you see transportation as a way of participating in society — which it certainly is — the more accessible transit is, the more people can easily get around and the more their experience becomes comparable to somebody who owns a vehicle, who’s more economically advantaged,” Allard says. The push for change has become louder as the urgency of climate action increases. Carolyn Kim, the director of transportation at the Pembina Institute, argues that making the decision as a city to invest in transit would be transformational, in itself. “If you’re able to increase the level of service, and people can ride a bus that is more frequent, it’s more reliable. It’s affordable,” Kim says. Also critical to the conversation is deliberately targeting dense housing and business development along the main transit arteries, she adds. Getting people onto transit is about making it a more convenient, cheaper alternative to driving. So the flip side of the equation, though often unpopular politically, is to find ways to increase the cost of driving through increased parking rates, lowering parking availability and other planning tools. It’s another avenue to pursue transformational changes, Kim says. Take London, as an example. The British city has created an “ultra-low emission zone” where, depending on how much your vehicle pollutes the air, you are charged a daily fee to drive in certain areas. Cities are free to get creative with policies and find solutions that work for them, Kim says, but they have the power to set priorities and pathways that change residents’ behaviour. ●●● Winnipeg is also contemplating where the electrification of buses fits into the picture. A pilot project for the use of both battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell buses will be considered by council this spring. Allard says he’s looking forward to debate on the topic, but to him, more buses on the road — regardless of how they’re powered — is the priority, since the transit fleet is responsible for such a small fraction of emissions in the city compared to personal passenger vehicles. Joanna Kyriazis, a senior policy adviser with Clean Energy Canada, warns against that kind of thinking, pointing out that electric buses actually stand to save cities money, since operation and maintenance costs are so much lower, even if up-front costs to purchase the vehicles are still higher. “The life of a bus is 12 to 18 years. And so if we keep making diesel bus purchases today, that that decision has consequences for another two decades,” she says. And the added allure of electric buses might be another way for the city to persuade drivers to park and ride, she says. Along with electrification, the new buses also come with GPS to track where they are on routes, and that information can then be sent to users. Generally, they also come with electronic-pass scanners, so riders don’t need to fumble with correct change and tickets. All of these upgrades make the transit experience better, she says. Plus, no more diesel fumes. “It’s also a great way for people to experience an electric vehicle for the first time. And the more we see them on our streets, the more we ride them, the more we see how many benefits they deliver, the more likely those riders are to go and buy an electric car themselves. So there are these spillover effects,” Kyriazis says. “Doing the same thing we’ve always done isn’t working. And so modernizing and connecting these vehicles is going to help improve the rider experience.” In Winnipeg, transformational changes might not be as big and headline-grabbing as they are in other cities, but this city is coming from behind and has more ground to make up if transit is going to become a priority. Rail lines or a world-class network of multimodal transit aren’t on anyone’s realistic wish list. But perhaps Winnipeg is on the verge of a different radical change. One where transit isn’t looked at as a lost cause, but rather something to be invested in for the good of the community. sarah.lawrynuik(a)freepress.mb.ca <sarah.lawrynuik(a)freepress.mb.ca> Twitter: @SarahLawrynuik

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Edmonton to roll out new community-led street safety program this spring
by Beth McKechnie 05 Mar '21

05 Mar '21

The City of Edmonton wants to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries on city streets by 2032, and starting this spring, it will be asking community members to help make that happen. The Street Labs program <https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=81995> aims to introduce temporary measures in an attempt to make residential streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists. It is the latest initiative under Vision Zero <https://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/traffic_safety/vision-zero.aspx>, the city's long-term traffic safety plan. Neighbourhood residents will come up with their own ideas, and city officials will provide materials, funds, and guidance. Full article: https://edmonton.taproot.news/news/2021/03/03/city-to-roll-out-new-communit…

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March 16 free webinar re: transportation behavior change
by Beth McKechnie 01 Mar '21

01 Mar '21

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Jessica Roberts <jessicaroberts(a)altaplanning.com> Date: Mon, Mar 1, 2021 at 4:27 PM Subject: [Transp-tdm] 3/16 free webinar re: transportation behavior change Hi all - I'm giving a webinar on Tuesday 3/16 at 10 am Pacific for the California Active Transportation Resource Center. It's about using research findings to build better transportation behavior change programs, and it includes new material I haven't presented on before about behavior change theories and incentives. I'd love to see you there! Please sign up here <https://cdph-conf.webex.com/mw3300/mywebex/default.do?nomenu=true&siteurl=c…>, and forward this to anyone who might be interested. Complete details below. Best, Jessica ----- [image: ATRC.png] ATRC On the Move: Perspectives 2021 Webinar – *Changing Transportation Behavior: What Really Works?* Tuesday, March 16, 2021 10:00am – 11:30am PST Please join the Active Transportation Resource Center for the first On the Move: Perspectives 2021 webinar entitled, *Changing Transportation Behavior: What Really Works?* Click here <https://cdph-conf.webex.com/cdph-conf/onstage/g.php?MTID=e1d128ac04eb60aa52…> to register! *______________________________* Whether you work in Safe Routes to School, traffic safety, policy development and beyond, we're all in the business of convincing humans to change their behavior. Humans are complex, so we can't just tell them what to do and expect them to comply. The truth is that behavior change is HARD. Join this webinar to learn more about what research tells us about transportation behavior change. You'll learn about major behavior change theories, the role of incentives in program design, and creative ways to test if your program is working. By the end of this webinar, you'll have new practical ideas you can put to work in your own active transportation campaigns and programs. *Featured Speaker* *Jessica Roberts, Principal, Alta Planning + Design* *Jessica Roberts is a Principal Consultant at Alta Planning + Design, focusing on campaigns that help people change their transportation habits for good. She is known as the founder of the fast-growing “behavioral Transportation Demand Management (TDM) movement”, which is building bridges between behavioral scientists and transportation professionals. Her work in this arena is creating more effective campaigns that are based on evidence and theory, and that are evaluated rigorously to determine the mode shift impact of individual program variables.* *To register for this free webinar, click on this **link* <https://cdph-conf.webex.com/cdph-conf/onstage/g.php?MTID=e1d128ac04eb60aa52…> *.* You are encouraged to send any questions in advance of the webinar to atsp(a)cdph.ca.gov. *JESSICA ROBERTS, TDM-CP* *Pronouns: she/her* Principal | *Alta Planning + Design, Inc.* *Working remotely: c**:* 503.752.4144 Portland, OR | altago.com *We have a new domain name and logo! Please update your Contacts with my new email address: jessicaroberts(a)altago.com <jessicaroberts(a)altago.com>.*

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Watch: How Induced Demand Explains the Vicious Cycle of Congestion
by Beth McKechnie 01 Mar '21

01 Mar '21

A helpful video illustrating induced demand when we try to build our way out of traffic congestion. An accompanying video showing latent demand for bike infra would be nice too. https://www.planetizen.com/news/2021/02/112352-watch-how-induced-demand-exp… cheers, Beth -- Beth McKechnie (she/her) *| *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/> *We are located on Treaty 1 Territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation. The water we drink comes from Shoal Lake First Nation. * 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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Winter Cities Toolkit
by Beth McKechnie 25 Feb '21

25 Feb '21

Hi everyone, Though it doesn't feel much like winter right now, here's a recently released for winter cities: https://www.wintercitiestoolkit.com/tools/ cheers, Beth -- Beth McKechnie (she/her) *| *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/> *We are located on Treaty 1 Territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation. The water we drink comes from Shoal Lake First Nation. * 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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Green Action Centre is hiring!
by Beth McKechnie 24 Feb '21

24 Feb '21

Green Action Centre is looking for an independent, energetic and well-organized individual to join our sustainable transportation team. The position focuses on engaging schools, students, workplaces, employees and community organizations to make active and green transportation options both appealing and within reach. The coordinator supports Green Action Centre’s goals of reducing Manitoba’s environmental impacts and related GHG emissions from driving personal vehicles by increasing walking, cycling, public transit and carpooling as preferred and accessible modes of travel. Application deadline: *4pm CDT Tuesday, March 16, 2021* Please see the attached pdf for details. -- Beth McKechnie (she/her) *| *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/> *We are located on Treaty 1 Territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation. The water we drink comes from Shoal Lake First Nation. * 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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WFP Analysis: ‘Abilities Village’ plan filled with possibility (Feb22'21)
by Beth McKechnie 22 Feb '21

22 Feb '21

‘Abilities Village’ plan filled with possibility https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/abilities-village-plan-f… PROVENCHER Boulevard has a long history as the commercial heart of St. Boniface and Winnipeg’s francophone community. With wide sidewalks, a few historic buildings and local shops, it has the bones to be an active pedestrian street and centre of community life. Unfortunately, as a busy truck route and commuting thoroughfare, Provencher is challenged to be a welcoming place for a shopping stroll or break on a sidewalk patio. Several surface parking lots and vacant properties further diminish the pedestrian experience, and a low population density in the surrounding neighbourhood offers an insufficient base to support a vibrant commercial street. The neighbourhood plan for St. Boniface and Provencher Boulevard looks to address some of these issues by supporting development of higher-density and more diverse housing options, encouraging good urban design that is pedestrian focused, enhancing existing parks and celebrating the neighbourhood’s cultural assets. The City of Winnipeg currently owns two of these cultural assets on the street: the former St. Boniface city hall and the adjacent, long-abandoned fire hall. In November 2019, a request for proposals was issued to find a new owner for the buildings and adjacent parking lots, with the goal of leveraging them to breathe new life into Provencher Boulevard and the surrounding community. After a year-long search, Manitoba Possible (formerly the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities), an organization that provides services and supports to persons with disabilities, has come forward with a visionary idea that ticks almost every box in the neighbourhood plan. The proposal is inspired by a development in Singapore called “Enabling Village,” a firstof- its-kind neighbourhood campus dedicated to integrating people with disabilities into society by providing social, creative and economic fulfilment in a place that is also a hub and destination for all residents in the area. The development offers education, employment, training, retail and social amenities, while bringing people with disabilities and the broader community together to share experiences and build relationships. Manitoba Possible’s proposal, called “The Abilities Village,” envisions a campus of new multi-use buildings constructed on the existing parking lots that surround the iconic city hall and fire station. These buildings will flow together as a single choreographed space, inside and out, drawing people from the sidewalk through an active collection of dynamic experiences and public amenities. Some of the proposed features include restaurants, pubs and bistros, a grocery, a retail art gallery, a gymnasium, training centres, a daycare, offices and a technology hub for entrepreneurism. The village will elevate the heritage buildings to a new place of prominence by inviting people to interact with them in a more intimate way, as part of a vibrant neighbourhood destination that brings new life to the street. The unique twist on this dynamic community hub is that it will also be a global showcase of barrier-free design — breaking down all types of barriers to establish a sense of belonging for people with disabilities. It will reimagine everyday spaces to be meaningful, accessible and completely inclusive. The campus is specifically not an institution; it will be a model for seamlessly accessible public spaces that connects the broader community to people with disabilities in a type of reverse inclusion, helping to break down the barriers of social isolation, independence and economic opportunity while inspiring new social networks and personal experiences for everyone. The commercial and public services components of the village will provide job training and work experience to people with disabilities that will open new employment opportunities beyond the campus. The campus will also include a housing component that will be a demonstration of technology driven accessible design, providing quality independent living opportunities while increasing the population density and residential diversity of Provencher Boulevard to help support local shops and services. The campus will be a blend of dynamic, sidewalk-focused modern architecture, interior design, signage, lighting, art and landscape, woven together in a single composition with the iconic historic buildings and sculpture garden. Designed by 5468796 Architecture and Scatliff + Miller + Murray, the development will be phased to ensure it grows seamlessly into the neighbourhood over time. The derelict fire hall will be redeveloped into public space and, once the sale is complete, Manitoba Possible is hoping to work with the local community to find economically viable uses that ensure the city hall building, which will be independent of the development, remains a proud cultural contributor to the Franco-Manitoban community. The proposal for the St. Boniface city hall site presented by Manitoba Possible is an aspirational and forward-thinking idea that could bring the heart back to Provencher Boulevard. As a magnet for public gathering, it will provide an opportunity to reimagine the future of the street as a place that is a celebration of the community and a vibrant focal point of neighbourhood life. The beauty of the old St. Boniface city hall has inspired people for generations; it will always stand as a proud symbol of a proud community. In its new life as part of The Abilities Village, it will take on the added symbolism of a place that unites communities and builds relationships. It will continue to inspire as a declaration of inclusivity, opportunity, and equality. *Brent Bellamy is senior design architect for Number Ten Architectural Group.*

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