Transportation – Page 5

FCM Sustainable Conference mini-update

I have been having a great deal of fun attending the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Communities Conference this week, talking with all sorts of people from Nunavut to Newfoundland.

Registering people, despite being a largely dull job, was actually fairly interesting, because you get little 30-sec bios of where they are from, something that happening there, etc.
A great highlight was a bike tour of various rain gardens and low-impact developments — including the CRD Building and the Atrium — with the Fraser Basin Council‘s Angela Evans and the CRD along with 11 people from across Canada all at various skill levels with bicycling. It was interesting see some of our infrastructure from a new cyclist’s eyes, especially the abysmal Johnson St. Bridge (it just can’t go fast enough) and just how good some of it is, including the superlative Galloping Goose (although they tended to right two abreast, not realizing that this wasn’t just a recreational cycling path).
Talking funding of active transportation with the FCM’s Green Municipal Fund people, Transport Canada, and Infrastructure Canada.
Listening to CropLife Canada spin that they are not an evil GMO-pushing multinational-front that hates pesticide bans. Honest! They just want “science-based” decision-making. Preferably at the federal level where they can buy the votes to prevent pesticide/herbicide bans like Oak Bay’s from ever seeing the light of day.

I am off today to see more, if the 12-hour days don’t get me first.

Saanich Police gets windshield perspective

A truck recently crashed into Green Party leader and Saanich-Gulf Island candidate Elizabeth May’s constituency office on Quadra and the Saanich Police had this to say:

Saanich police spokesman Sgt. Dean Jantzen said May’s office and the adjacent storefronts are close to the road, with no barriers to protect them from traffic.

Umm, what? This is classic deflection of blame. The issue is cars travelling too fast, yet the blame gets passed from the driver, who was speeding, to the property owner, who “failed to protect their buildings from traffic.” If we need to build barriers to protect ourselves and our buildings from the traffic on the adjacent road, we are utterly failing to build a city for people.

Oak Bay posts Active Transportation Plan RFP

Want to help change the face of transportation in Oak Bay? The municipality is looking for a team to put together an active transportation plan. What should this plan address?

The main goal of the Active Transportation Plan is to enhance choices and opportunities and improve the usage of human-powered forms of travel and recreation within Oak Bay. It should also promote physical activity and healthy lifestyles for all ages and support green initiatives within the community.

What do you need to enter? Three hard copies of proposal marked “Active Transportation Plan Proposal” addressed to Loranne Hilton, Municipal Clerk, District of Oak Bay, 2167 Oak Bay Avenue, Victoria, B.C. V8R 1G2 on or before Friday, February 18, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. local time.

The full RFP can be download here: [download id=”6″ format=”1″] (PDF).

(Full disclosure: As a member of the Community Initiatives Committee that will be overseeing this plan, you cannot contact me with any details of any bid. To do so would be a bad thing and illegal.)

Kia bikewashes itself

“…perfectly capable of owning any road, but prefers to share it. After all, we started out making bicycles.” So runs the new ad for the 2011 Kia Sportage, a “compact crossover SUV”, which goes on to say “Sharing. That is how we can all drive change.” Umm, no. This is still a car, a fairly big one at that (by world standards), with all the problems and benefits inherent within. But don’t listen to me, see for yourself:

Opinion: BC Transit will be hard pressed to reject rail now

With both Victoria and Saanich councils coming out so strongly in favour of LRT along Douglas, I think BC Transit will find itself hardpressed to reject rail. It is pretty clear that senior BC Transit staff figure that Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, is a better short-term bet, given the realities of provincial funding, but if they do decide on bus, they are going to have to explain themselves to hostile councils, wondering why their wishes were completely ignored.

Of course, the political calculus may change . There is a great deal of political instability at the provincial level, a minority government in Ottawa that may fall in the spring, and the upcoming Nov 2011 municipal election. So by the time that BC Transit goes cap-in-hand for funding, they may be talking to three completely different governments. May we live in interesting times indeed.

If you want to take a look at how all the various options might look, BC Transit has a very nice set of [download id=”5″ format=”1″]

Camosun releases preliminary mode-share counts

Eager to see how their transportation demand management plan was actually working, Camosun recently embarked on a first-ever mode share count at both their campuses. Given that Oak Bay plays host to their Landsdowne Campus parking lots (Saanich gets the interesting bits like the buildings), I thought Iwould highlight a few preliminary results here. (It has nothing to do with the fact that I stood for several hours in the cold working on the count). Take a look:

for comparative reference, UVic’s 2008 modeshare:

The 2010 count data, which I was also involved in, isn’t available yet, so I had to use the 2008, from UVic Sustainability’s page. Both use the same method, with a few differences:

UVic counts from 6am-9am and from 2pm-6pm, Camosun from 7am-9am and 3pm-5pm
UVic uses BC Transit data for bus ridership exlusively, Camosun counted pedestrians and bus riders together and will separate out transit ridership with transit data later. How accurate this is, I don’t know as unlike boardings, disembarking passengers are not accurately counted due to the technology involved.

The data shows that Camosun has some work to do to catch up with UVic’s numbers, although given the suburban nature of Interurban, they are surprisingly close. One key barrier to greater cycling and walking was distance (in the 2009 Tod Litman-written [download id=”4″] (PDF, pg 19-20) in 2009. And this is only going to get worse when the various nursing and other health care programs move out to Interurban at some point in the near future. Nice to see the hard numbers though. Makes it easier to sell pedestrian, cycling, and transit improvements to possibly skeptical councils.

Black Press talks cycling

With a great deal afoot with cycling in the Greater Victoria area — the CRD Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan, recent works in Oak Bay and the future bicycle plan, etc.

Vivian Moreau of the Oak Bay News came to the recent Active Transportation forum, focusing her article on the Spokesmen, a group of Oak Bay cyclists who ride together each Saturday morning, and their spokesperson (sorry) Stuart Culbertson noted what many cyclists in Oak Bay know: home is where the bike lanes stop (although that will be slightly less true in the new year).

In the good news department is the recent referendum victory for a new Johnson St. Bridge, which promises to elminate a major bottleneck at the end of Galloping Goose & Lochside Trails. Hopefully the CRD will get gas tax money to save the rail link, as well. (The Times Colonist covered Victoria Mayor Fortin talking about possible funding sources today)

The Victoria News actually does a pretty decent piece of work with their article on the bridge and cycling in Victoria, even mentioning the problem with vehicular cyclists’ crazy belief in stopping all bike lanes and other similar works.This group often muddies the waters, writing letters to councils who don’t know which group of cyclists to believe.

And for the last little bit of amusement, question 7 on this faux questionnaire:
Q7. When people discover that you work for the City of Vancouver they complain to you first about:

a) Bike lanes.

b) Backyard chicken coops and bike lanes.

c) The former Olympic Village and bike lanes.

d) Property-tax rates and bike lanes.

Ah, municipal politics, isn’t it fun?

New bike lanes coming

After much debate and staff time, there are some new bike lanes coming to Oak Bay. Likely early in the new year new paint will hit the road on Cedar Hill X. Rd, closing the gap between the Saanich border and the UVic entrance at Henderson. Like most politics, this win comes with a compromise: the northern side will only be a bike lane from 7am to 7pm, Monday to Frieday, just like the Henderson Rd. lanes. (The southern side is a full time bike lane).

Slightly longer in the coming is anything on Foul Bay just before Lansdowne. Engineering staff didn’t feel that a bike box is warranted, nor do they feel it was safe, a discussion that slowed the whole process down. Engineering has yet to return a detailed design to council, a necessary first step to anything else being done.

The drive for all this work came most recently from Councillor Jensen, who started the ball rolling in the early summer, before council ultimately choose to hand the matter to the Community Initiatives Committee (of which I am a member). The CIC ultimately produced a recommendation for both bike lanes on Cedar Hill X. Rd. and the Foul Bay at Lansdowne, but the second part has been longer in coming.

Also coming in the new year is an RFP for an Active Transportation plan for the muncipality. A $20,000 project, the plan would be a first for Oak Bay, although the [download id=3] (PDF, pg 6-7) did make some specific recommendations as to improvements in 2009. All in all, things are moving, something I don’t think I could have honestly said or believed this time last year.

Active transportation forum a great success

Last night’s Active Transportation Forum was a great success, bringing together a lot of different groups, from Oak Bay, the CRD, and the school district. Despite the cold weather, there were over 50 people in attendance, up from last years. With the theme of “Connecting Locally, Connecting Regionally”, with a major goal to just get the major players in a room together. Too often these plans are considered in isolation, even within an organization (see the CRD’s various transportation plans: Regional Corridors and the Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan – not to mention the old TravelChoices). I wonder where else the head of the CRD’s PCMP, Sue Hallett; the chief architect of the new Oak Bay High, Rod Windjack; and the chair of Oak Bay’s Community Initiatives Committee, Councillor Herbert; were all in the same room listening to each other?

Success for the event can be credited to Gerald Smeltzer, one of my fellow directors at the Community Association of Oak Bay, and the various people, including myself, who he pulled in to help. In the next day or two I expect Gerald to post a great deal of information on the forum on the Community Association’s page, so stay tuned for that.

Please shovel your sidewalk

Just a reminder to think of us poor pedestrians and keep the sidewalks clear. Oak Bay bylaws require the adjacent property owner to shovel the sidewalk and keep it clear. Quoting 43.6 of the Streets & Traffic bylaw (PDF):

being the occupier, and in case there is no occupier, being the owner or lessee, of land and premises abutting any sidewalk shall permit any accumulation of snow, ice, dirt, litter or rubbish to be or remain upon such sidewalk;

Have fun in the snow.