Yesterday's LPT meeting on the cycling strategy covered:
In the Herald:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/travel/Calgary+bicycling+strategy+faces+cit...
Sun:
http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/06/21/cycling-plan-gets-nod-but-needs-bucks
Metro:
http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/896894--bike-strategy-pass...
Will never get used to comments on Sun website
Submitted by fixmtl on
Can't believe what I read there. However I don't think it's worth losing any time replying back to those comments - not sure the people who write them know how to read anyways. For the most part the rubbish they repeat over and over again is addressed in BikeCalgary's FAQ page (http://bikecalgary.org/faq) so when we go to City Council (or engage in an actual discussion with someone) we have to be comfortable answering even the most illegitimate questions.
Whatever we do let's be positive and try mitigating the backlash that is coming our way!
don't let it get you down
Submitted by sj_mckenna on
The Sun is a borderline tabloid paper full of articles littered with opinions. That's not good reporting - unbiased stories full of facts is. It sells its papers purely on shock value so I don't think we should expect much more from its readers.
Which is why
Submitted by BCDon on
I seldom read anything from the Sun. Sometimes I see the paper, free, in which case I may read a few headlines but that is it.
TdnS perspective in the Herald?
Submitted by Richard Z on
http://www.calgaryherald.com/travel/Auto+crats+should+start+pedalling+ri...
An awesome article.
Submitted by Scott on
Right on the money.
Any chance that someone will take this lead and go to council to say try again? We need nothing right now but dedicated bike lanes. NOTHING else. You cant build a house without a foundation.
Agree
Submitted by sj_mckenna on
To me the strategy is aiming to do everything at once. Based on past examples, this is a recipe for nothing to happen. I'm with you - start with dedicated bike lanes including physical seperation on high traffic streets. After that I believe the next best step would be a well thought out advertising and educational campaign aimed at drivers and cyclists alike focusing on rules of the road with respect to cyclists. It would also be a good idea to push to include a cycling education portion on the drivers test and in drivers ed.
To make the bike lanes happen we'll still need some sort of design criteria though to keep things safe and well thought out.
I wonder ...
Submitted by jondub on
.. if they deliberately tried to put 'everything' into the strategy knowing that it would inevitably get paired back. The bike share scheme is an obvious candidate to be given up as it is a fairly controversial given the issues surrounding how much use it would actually get.
If they gave up on that to appease the critics and got everything else, I would say that that woudl be a success.
spend money
Submitted by mikewarren on
That *is* the one good thing about the (latest) cycling stategy: they actually have a dollar figure and some (hopefully) clueful staff earmarked for the transportation department. What I don't understand is all the hand-wringing over funding: I presumed "4% of the transportation budget" meant exactly that: take 4% of TransDep's funding and use it for "bike stuff".
They could have saved a lot on the plan by just updating the 2001 plan's map (god knows how they came up with 89% of it being implemented; I see almost nothing) and actually allocating AND SPENDING money on it.
Anyway, decent article.
4%
Submitted by Richard Z on
The strategy's proposal for 1.5m$ p.a. operating cost is 1/2 of 1% of the Transportation budget!
Don't get it
Submitted by Richard Z on
The strategy was supposed to be comprehensive. Putting in a few bike lanes downtown and doing nothing else for another several years is just silly. The strategy already contains recommendations for downtown bike routes, some of which are already going to be implemented this year, some planned for next few years. They won't be on 4th and 5th ave, but taking away lanes from the busiest downtown thoroughfares for bikes is just asking for a backlash. To get more people on bikes, you need to do many other things, and they're all the things included in the strategy. Parking. Destination facilities. Education. Wayfinding. Cycling facilities away from the cars (that's part of the Pathways Review recommendations: widening the river valley paths, twinning pathways; and in the proposal to use LRT right-of-way in the Cycling Strategy). Bike boxes. Segregating bike lanes. Bike/transit integreation. Etc. etc. We've had 15+ years of research and practice of building cycling infrastructure and making cities bicycle friendly which the planners took into account in coming up with this strategy. I don't think "throw this away and instead build a few bike lanes someone suggested 30 years ago" is an appropriate response.
x2
Submitted by amf673 on
It is no good to put in lanes without the other aspects like education, destination facilities etc. The experience from other jurisdictions support this. It is like building a freeway system without also considering gas stations and driver training.
The strategy does have bike festivals etc. in it but it also has the routes into and through down-town. They are top of the list to be done in 2011-12, 2012-13 and beyond. I wonder if Ms. Arab read the strategy?
All of the focus on the bike share is a fallacious argument. "Here is a part that may not work, throw it all out!".
Ms. Arab's Article
Submitted by bclark on
Wow, I wish that they would have spent the $4.5M back in 72 for 265km of dedicated bike lanes. Imagine how that may have changed the streetscape we have today!
That aside, Ms. Arab's article has some good points about the lack of action vs. the volume of recommendations. There are a couple things I can point out where she misses the mark based on what I heard at LPT and read in the report.
There is a plan for bike lanes in the City Centre. No they are not on 4th and 5th avenue and they do not involve a road-diet (my own personal thoughts on the road-diet aside). No they are not physically separated. Yes, they will still define a cyclists "space" on the road. Will you want to take your 8 year old on a ride down one? Unlikely. Will it make your own commute safer or more convenient? Probably.
Will the City push ahead with Bike Share no matter the cost? No. Admin came right out and said that, without the mandate to build bike lanes, the bike share would not go ahead. Also, an amendment by Ald. Keating pretty much ensured this would not happen without private $$.
Should the City be able to go ahead with Bike Share, will Calgarians grab a "bike taxi" to go to a meeting? I can think of a number of occasions I've hopped on my bike to run errands at lunch (i.e. downtown over to MEC or to Kensington). I think there is a possibility people just might.
Is a public bike festival a bad thing? No. It raises awareness of cycling and cycling issues. We already have a number of bike festivals (MEC Bikefest, TdNS Ride the Road, Cyclepolooza, etc.) and perhaps the City facilitating them coming together into one "Bike Month" wouldn't be a bad thing.
Is the plan perfect? No, there are definitely things I would have liked to have seen emphasized more and I pointed them out at LPT. A number of other people pointed out very similar concerns. Did committee members and admin give thought to these concerns? Absolutely.
The report’s committment is to “engage stakeholders in developing a new Pathway and Bikeway Implementation Plan”. It is my hope that, with this engagement, the strategy will be more specifically tailored to address these outstanding concerns.