- AT-Network - University of Manitoba Mailing Lists

NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide Webinars
by Bike to the Future 26 May '13

26 May '13

Bike Winnipeg and Green Action Centre would like to invite you to join us in the EcoCentre (3rd floor, 303 Portage Ave) for a three-part webinar series on the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide<http://nacto.org/cities-for-cycling/design-guide/> . Each webinar will be followed by group discussion of local applications. This is a great opportunity to learn more about this fantastic resource on cycling design and discover how cities across North America are embracing the designs and advice … [View More]laid out in this guide to improve their cities cycling experience and encourage an ever increasing number of their residents to choose their bikes over their cars. As the city is currently in the process of developing its first cycling and pedestrian strategies, the timing for these webinars could not be better. RSVPs are appreciated but not necessary. Hope to see you then! *#1, Bikeway Design at Intersections* Wednesday, May 29 | 2:00 - 3:15 p.m. CDT Safe, effective intersection design requires visibility and predictability among all street users. In unpredictable urban environments, achieving these goals can be difficult. Bikeway Design at Intersections provides an overview of the intersection treatments in the NACTO guide, including bike boxes, bicycle signals and mixing zones, and analyzes how to resolve and mitigate several complex intersection design problems that commonly arise. Presenters: Roger Geller, Bicycle Coordinator, City of Portland Jamie Parks, Senior Transportation Planner, City of Oakland *#2, Bikeway Design in Context: Determining the right facility for the right street* Wednesday, June 5 | 2:00 - 3:15 p.m. CDT As bikeway design options have multiplied and evolved, the decision-making process for practitioners has become increasingly complex. What kinds of streets are best suited to cycle tracks? When should an engineer use a buffered bike lane rather than a conventional bike lane? Are shared lane markings appropriate for busy streets or only on local roads? This session will analyze the decision-making process that different cities go through when answering such questions, looking beyond speed and ADT to consider elements as varied as context, parking, transit routes and street width. Presenters: Joshua Benson, Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Director, New York City Department of Transportation Nathan Wilkes, Associate Traffic Engineer, Neighborhood Connectivity Division, City of Austin *#3, Next Generation Bikeway Design: Raised cycle tracks * Wednesday, June 26 | 2:00 - 3:15 p.m. CDT While many cities have relied primarily on signs and markings to radically transform their streets, a growing number of bikeways around the country have been improved and made permanent using higher cost materials, curb relocation and complex engineering. This session will look at two facilities that embody long term solutions for city streets. How can cities effectively move the curb without creating drainage problems? What "green” infrastructure solutions can be incorporated into these new bikeways? What are the highest and lowest cost alternatives to these designs? Presenters: Wendy Cawley, Engineer, City of Portland Karen Haley, Executive Director, Indianapolis Cultural Trail Jennifer Tower, Engineer, City of Portland Cheers, -- Mark Cohoe Executive Director Bike Winnipeg (formerly Bike to the Future) [View Less]

1 0

Millennials lead the trend to less driving, but what happens as they get older? (Atlantic Cities)
by Beth McKechnie 22 May '13

22 May '13

Millennials Lead the Trend to Less Driving, But What Happens As They Get Older?Emily Badger <http://www.theatlanticcities.com/authors/emily-badger/>| May 14, 2013 Find full article and graphs here: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/05/planning-our-transportatio… It is unquestionably true that Americans are driving less today than we did just a few years ago. Sometime around 2004, our addiction to driving – expressed on a graph in the decades-long steep expansion of “vehicle … [View More]miles traveled” – took a turn in the opposite direction. Per capita, we began to drive fewer miles each year than we had the year before. As the U.S. population has continued to grow, our collective miles traveled by car has begun to stagnate. It’s not entirely clear, though, exactly why this has happened or whether the downturn will continue, two questions intimately tied to the behavior of Millennials as they age. Twenty-something Americans drive about 20 percent less today than their parents did in *their* 20s. But is that because of the recession? High gas prices? A lasting shift in consumer demand? What will happen to today’s 20-year-olds as they enter their 30s, raise families, and consider moving to the suburbs? This question lurks behind every celebrated trend story about the Millennial generation: Will this group really push systemic change (as the baby boomers did) in how Americans live, work and relate to each other (sharing cars, for instance, as opposed to owning them)? Or is this moment – with its associated driving patterns – a hiccup in history? "We've basically assumed in transportation planning for decades upon decades that the amount of vehicle travel and per capita VMT can go in only one direction, and that's up," says Tony Dutzik, a senior policy analyst for the Frontier Group <http://www.frontiergroup.org>, a public interest think tank. "And we have been planning our transportation system based on that assumption." Data from the last few years clearly show that this axiom is no longer true.So what happens next? In an effort to at least sketch out some of the possible scenarios, the Frontier Group and the US PIRG Education Fund<http://www.uspirgedfund.org/>today released a report outlining three alternative futures <http://uspirg.org/reports/usp/new-direction> for America's relationship to the car. One assumes that Millennials will eventually revert to the driving patterns of their parents (the blue "Back to the Future" scenario on the below graph). The second assumes that America is in the midst of an enduring shift toward less driving, brought about in large part by the permanent new preferences of Millennials. And the last scenario assumes that the recent decline we've seen in driving will continue apace. Notably, all three scenarios project car usage well below the status quo we might expect based on the last 50 years of driving trends (even with a growing population). "Thus far in the transportation community, the question of declining vehicle miles traveled and declining gas tax revenues has been thought of as a revenue problem. There’s not enough money coming in to deal with the needs that we think we have," Dutzik says. "There's another important part of that question that we really haven’t addressed: What is it we think we're actually going to need for the future?" What if we don’t need to find funding to for quite so many highway expansions? "If the Millennial trend continues to play out," Dutzik says, "the amount of highway capacity we’re going to need in the future looks far different than it looked in government projections from just a few years ago." Dutzik and report co-author Phineas Baxandall constructed these scenarios by trying to "layer on the unknowable over the knowable." Namely, we don’t how Millennials will behave in the future. But we do know that their parents, from the baby boom generation, will soon begin aging out of the workforce in massive numbers. And when you no longer have to drive to work, that cuts a sizable chunk out of your car consumption (the 2009 National Household Travel Survey estimated that commuting trips accounted for 27.7 percent of household VMT). With these underlying demographic trends in mind, the "Back to the Future" scenario makes the assumption that Millennials will drive about as much at age 35 as their parents did at that same age, and so on as they get older. The other two scenarios are built on something of a mystery. Researchers have not yet been able to disaggregate how much of our current decline in driving has been attributable to gas prices, or the economy, or changing attitudes toward car ownership or urban living. But it’s been driven by * something.* And in these two futures, Dutzik says, “whatever constellation of things it is that has caused the shift in per capita driving over the last decade – we think that’s a real thing.” The way we work has also been changing, alongside the demographic shape of the workforce itself. And this trend, which the report did not address, could drive down VMT even further, as more people telecommute or join the freelance economy. In all of these scenarios, Dutzik assumes that we're unlikely to ever surpass our 2004 peak in per capita driving. Today, we individually drive about 7 percent less than we did in 2004 (or at levels comparable to 1996). It’s plausible we could return to that peak, but many of the factors that drove us there no longer exist: cheap gas, the growing baby boom workforce, women entering the workforce for the first time. Millennials will inevitably wind up driving more than they do today as they age. This is virtually always true of people in their 20s as they enter their 30s and beyond. Certain stages of life demand more use of a car than others. But the question is: by how much? And by how much compared to their parents? Emily Badger is a staff writer at The Atlantic Cities. Her work has previously appeared in *Pacific Standard*, *GOOD*, *The Christian Science Monitor*, and *The New York Times*. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area [View Less]

1 0

WFP: Remember walking to school? Well, your kids probably don't (May22'13)
by Beth McKechnie 22 May '13

22 May '13

[Follow up to Erik and Shoni's postings yesterday about the Physical Activity scorecard.] Remember walking to school? Well, your kids probably don't By: Lauren La Rose http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/remember-walking-to-sch… TORONTO -- Fewer Canadian kids are commuting by walking or biking as a new report reveals a marked decline among young people using active modes of transportation. Active Healthy Kids Canada released its annual Report Card on Physical Activity for … [View More]Children and Youth on Tuesday, assigning a "D" grade in the category of active transportation. A "D minus" grade was given for overall physical activity levels. Children who use active transport for commutes to and from school can accumulate up to 45 additional minutes daily of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity compared to kids travelling by car, train or bus. Yet in Canada, a recent survey revealed that while 58 per cent of parents walked to school when they were children, only 28 per cent of their own kids were doing the same today. "That's a reduction of 50 per cent in one generation. That's substantial by any estimate," said Mark Tremblay, chief scientific officer of Active Healthy Kids Canada. >From 2000 to 2010, the percentage of youth aged 5-17 using only inactive modes of transportation for school commutes increased from 51 per cent to 62 per cent. The report found many data sources in different age groups suggested only 25 to 35 per cent of Canadian kids and youth use active transport to and from school. Among youth aged 15 to 17, time spent walking daily dipped from 17 minutes to 11 minutes between 1992 and 2010. Tremblay said active transportation is among "a whole bunch of pieces" that contribute to physical activity levels, along with other key components such as active play, organized sports participation and physical education. Tremblay said there may be instances where schools are too far away for youngsters to commute by their own power. But research shows many examples where high numbers of kids are being ferried to destinations within a walking or biking distance, he noted. "There are kids that live 25 kilometres from the school. They can't walk or bike. And so we get that," said Tremblay, director of Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute. "But can those kids walk or bike to other things that are going on in their community? To their friend's house? To the baseball (diamond), which might be a couple of kilometres down the road? "This isn't just about to and from school.... We're talking about any trips." If kids walked for all trips less than one kilometre in distance, it would translate, on average, to 2,238 additional steps each day -- or around 15 to 20 minutes of walking, the report said. Tremblay said living in an auto-dependent society has made the process of commuting by car the norm. "It's not even part of our consciousness. We just hop into the car and it's not like we ever thought: 'Why didn't we walk there?' Because our frame of reference of distances to walk has reduced so much over time that we don't consider it a possibility. "A kilometre, two kilometres, three kilometres, which are totally walkable (distances) and can be very enjoyable... it just doesn't cross our minds -- and so we don't think of it for our kids, either." Time, money and safety are the three key barriers to kids being more physically active, said Kelly Murumets, president & CEO of ParticipAction. Active transportation offers a simple, cost-effective, accessible way for parents to help ensure kids are getting the activity they need without having to pay for organized sport, she noted. In instances where kids are able to travel on foot, using pedal power or some other means of active transport, Murumets said parents can organize walking school buses or bicycle caravans with a volunteer adult or group of parents convening with youngsters to commute en masse. "Kids are getting physical activity, they have social time, they're with other kids, they're safe because they're supervised, (and) some of the parents who do work are able to make their way to the office," Murumets said. *-- The Canadian Press* *Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 22, 2013 D4* [View Less]

1 0

Children driven around too much, Canadian report suggests
by Erik Dickson 21 May '13

21 May '13

A very interesting report as we enter the home stretch of the school year. I did not realize that there was such a thing as a "D minus"; I thought after a D there was only F. "Fewer Canadian kids are commuting by walking or biking as a new report reveals a marked decline among young people using active modes of transportation. Active Healthy Kids Canada released its annual Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth on Tuesday, assigning a "D" grade in the category of active … [View More]

2 1

Peg City Car Co-op Doubles Fleet
by Beth McKechnie 21 May '13

21 May '13

*Peg City Car Co-op Doubles Fleet!* *Serves more neighbourhoods thanks to local investors* Please join us today at noon to celebrate the official launch of Peg City Car Co-op's recent expansion. Hope to see you there! Find details below and here <http://pegcitycarcoop.ca/2013/05/peg-city-car-co-op-doubles-fleet/>. *WHO:* Shoni Litinsky, Board President, Peg City Car Co-op Stefano Grande, Downtown Winnipeg BIZ Alana Ollinger, Member, Peg City Car Co-op Sean Goertzen, Member, Peg City Car … [View More]

1 0

Save the Date: Winter Cycling for Everyone; Film and Discussion - May 27 or May 30
by Anders Swanson 17 May '13

17 May '13

Hi, On the cusp of the long weekend as the warm weather hits, it may seem odd, but *I would like to invite you to mark your calendars to share a special experience.* As you may know, I went to Finland this February for the first ever international conference on winter cycling, and met and experienced places that were once but figments of my imagination. I took the time to document and learn, and I would like to bring a bit of that back to you. Both events feature an original mini-documentary, … [View More]

1 0

Manitoba News Release: Budget 2013: Province Invests in Neighbourhood, Community Infrastructure
by Beth McKechnie 17 May '13

17 May '13

[Note that trails are eligible under the new funding for neighbourhood community infrastructure. -cheers, Beth] May 15, 2013 BUDGET 2013: PROVINCE INVESTS IN NEIGHBOURHOOD, COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE - - - New Program will Improve Winnipeg's Recreational Facilities: Selinger Winnipeg families will have improved recreational facilities and community centres under a new, three-year program designed to expand and improve existing infrastructure, Premier Greg Selinger announced today. "We know … [View More]

1 0

Draft changes to Winnipeg Zoning By-laws (more exciting than you might think)
by Beth McKechnie 16 May '13

16 May '13

In case you didn't make it out to yesterday's Open House at The Forks, attached are details on draft changes to Winnipeg Zoning By-laws. Why would AT Network subscribers be interested? Check out the following: - reductions in parking requirements for developments (though "maximums" in car parking could be even better than reduced minimums) - carsharing (like Peg City Car Co-op) and more bike parking at developments to offset car parking requirements - new standards for bike … [View More]

1 0

How to Increase Bicycling for Daily Travel: May 2013 Active Living Research Brief
by Beth McKechnie 16 May '13

16 May '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Terry Zdan <tjzdan50(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 09:34:31 -0500 Subject: How to Increase Bicycling for Daily Travel: May 2013 Active Living Research Brief FYI ...this report was prepared by Dr Jennifer Dill "...Conclusion Research shows that infrastructure, programs, and policies that support bicycling can significantly increase levels of bicycling for daily travel. However, it is difficult to generalize about the effectiveness of … [View More]specific strategies or particular kinds of bicycle infrastructure. Many studies only measure the impact of incremental expansions and do not capture the full impact of a completed bicycle system. Indeed, the most compelling evidence comes from communities that have implemented a fully integrated package of strategies to increase bicycling. The evidence reviewed in this brief suggests that a comprehensive approach produces a much greater impact on bicycling than individual measures that are not coordinated. POLICY IMPLICATIONS To maximize bicycling opportunities, cities must build a network of safe and comfortable routes using a mix of bike lanes, bike boulevards, cycle tracks, and bike paths that connect residents to potential destinations.26 Infrastructure that maximizes the separation between bicyclists and motor vehicles, without making bicyclists travel too far out of their way, may be more effective for encouraging new bicyclists than on-street pavement markings. Investments in infrastructure should be supported by promotional programs, such as biketo-work days and bicycle training, Safe Routes to School programs, and other programs that facilitate bicycling, including bike sharing systems and those that accommodate bicycles on buses and trains. Policies that make driving more expensive (e.g. higher gasoline taxes and parking fees) and less convenient (e.g. reduced parking supply and reduced speeds) may be necessary to maximize the effectiveness of infrastructure investments in encouraging bicycling. To encourage bicycling as a mode of transportation, communities also must implement land use and development policies to help ensure that destinations for daily needs, such as school, work, and shopping, are within convenient bicycling distance from home...." The Active Living Research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation just published this free on-line report: http://www.activelivingresearch.org/files/ALR_Brief_DailyBikeTravel_May2013… -- Terry Zdan 126 Duncan Norrie Drive Wpg MB R3P 2J9 CANADA tjzdan50(a)gmail.com <tjzdan(a)gmasil.com> [View Less]

1 0

WFP: More to bike safety than helmets, study finds (May15'13)
by Beth McKechnie 15 May '13

15 May '13

More to bike safety than helmets, study finds Bicycle lanes, safe-passing laws among factors reducing injuries By: Bob Weber http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/more-to-bike-safety-than-helmets-st… Bicycle helmets may prevent head injuries, but a newly published study has found there's no evidence mandatory helmet laws do the same thing. "It is a bit counterintuitive that we don't see an effect of helmet laws on head injuries," said University of Toronto researcher Jessica Dennis, whose … [View More]work was published Tuesday in the journal of the British Medical Association. "But there's so many other things going on at the same time a helmet law is passed that it's really hard to say that helmet law was the reason head injuries decrease." Dennis, herself a daily cyclist with a 30-minute commute to downtown Toronto, compiled information countrywide on more than 66,000 hospital admissions for cycling-related head injuries between 1994 and 2008. She compared how those injury rates changed over time between provinces that had mandatory helmet laws and those that didn't. She found admission rates for provinces with legislation dropped 54 per cent for young people between 1994 and 2003, the period during which the laws were being brought in. But Dennis also found rates dropping in provinces without legislation -- although, at 33 per cent, not quite so steeply. She also found helmet laws produced little change in adult admission rates, which were low and stable throughout the study period. Dennis found in every province with legislation, the decline in hospital admissions for head-related cycling injuries actually started years before a law was introduced. Nor did the rate of that decline change with legislation. She couldn't find any statistical link between helmet laws and reduced hospital admissions. "We were unable to detect an independent effect of legislation on the rate of hospital admissions," the report concludes. The study, the most extensive to date and the first to compare hospital admissions between provinces with and without helmet laws, suggests there's a lot more to making cyclists safe than forcing them to wear headgear. "It's a complex social intervention that's happening," Dennis said. Cities have installed cycling infrastructure such as bike lanes. Some communities have passed safe-passing laws that require motorists to move over as they drive by bikes. Many cyclists have adopted helmets on their own without being required to by law. Education campaigns for riders and drivers have been created. And there are just more people on bikes. "There's something to be said for safety in numbers." Dennis's previous research has debunked theories that helmet laws reduce ridership and has shown kids are more likely to wear helmets in provinces requiring both young and adult riders to do so. Now her latest paper suggests helmet laws don't have the safety impact they're cracked up to have. "Helmet laws are attractive because they're cheap and they're easy to implement. But as our study shows, they shouldn't be the only solution because it's not enough. "Helmet laws should be part of a comprehensive strategy to improve cycling safety." -- The Canadian Press *Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 15, 2013 C11* [View Less]

1 0