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EBC is a non-profit society dedicated to making Edmonton a more livable city by supporting active transportation.
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Mandel calls bike-lane plans a 'nightmare'
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Even more now than at election time, I need you to act today, tomorrow, and in the next few days.
Please, call or e-mail your councillor and the Mayor to tell them:
It can be as simple and powerful as that, and you don't necessarily need to delve deep into details. City Hall just needs to hear that residents truly support investing in cycling infrastructure. Because what they're hearing right now is frustration and anger.
Take heart: positive feedback, rarefied as it is, rings louder than negativity.
But they need to hear it from you. Not just me. We cannot take this for granted. Nor does it matter where your councillor currently stands on the issue: they need to hear where you stand.
So call today. You can use the ward finder on our election site, CycleEdmonton.ca to see which ward you're in.
Please, voice your support. It just takes a 1-minute phone call.
Many thanks,
Christopher Chan
Executive Director
Edmonton Bicycle Commuters' Society
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If you have 10 minutes, please complete the City's 2013 bike route survey as well, as this is also very important. If you can attend the open house on Wed, Feb 20, from 6-8:30pm at Crestwood School (9735 144 St) and show your support, you'll also have an opportunity to directly speak with the engineers and planners.
You can follow our updates on Twitter @edmontonbicycle (using #yegbike), and on Facebook, as well as on our website, http://edmontonbikes.ca.
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Does EBC really support the 2013 on-street bike route plan?
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We've debated long in our advocacy committee, along with discussions in Complete Streets Strathcona, over the merits of the 2013 bike route designs, spending many hours studying the maps and speaking with City engineers, and while we've requested a number of changes and improvements, we do support the designs as planned. With buffered bike lanes and a bicycle boulevard, they are significantly more robust than anything we've seen in previous years. And they finally connect a good many segments together.
We are still pushing for even more robust infrastructure in core areas for the future plans, but we support where 2013 is going.
You can read more about the routes on our site.
We've also put together a frequently asked questions page that covers some of the more common questions, including why specific routes were chosen.
If you are still curious (e.g. why can't they put cycle tracks in this location?), feel free to e-mail us for a non-City analysis of the road design.
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If you do want to offer reasons for your support, there are myriad:
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Financial: you contribute to property taxes, and on-road cycling infrastructure only gets 0.4% (four tenths of one percent) of the road budget. Yet cars cause 20 times the wear on roadways, and while road reconstruction costs about $3-6 million per km to build (on the simple projects: Scona Road cost over $15 million per km), cycling infrastructure costs about $0.04 million per km. Cycling also reduces health care costs, congestion, and numerous other externalized costs of private automobiles. That's good ROI.
Not sure about the numbers? Check out our slideshow on the costs of infrastructure.
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Equity: On every single street in Edmonton, over 4700km of roadway, cars have dedicated space. 35% of Edmontonians cycle weekly in the spring, summer and fall. 54% of Edmontonians are cyclists, and a healthy 1 in 5 cycle for transportation. They all pay taxes. Yet there is almost no on-road bike infrastructure: a not-so-healthy ratio of 0.0076. With numbers like that, bikes aren't threatening to "eliminate cars" in this city. (We drive cars too, after all.)
And the weather? Well, it's not so bad, as it turns out, and in many respects, with less snow, less rain, and more sun, it's better than cities like Montreal and Minneapolis (selected by Bicycling Magazine as the #1 Bike-Friendly City in the US, over Portland Oregon!).
The proof, once again, is in the numbers.
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Policy
Council — including most of the current councillors — has approved a number of policies which support the current bicycle plan. Not the least of these is the Bicycle Transportation Plan, part of the Active Transportation Strategy & policy, of course, but it is wholly supported by other powerful bylaws and policies.
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A variety of transportation modes and active transportation networks for residents [is] essential for a community’s livability and residents’ health.
Policies include:
4.6.1.3. Support the design of accessible and safe active transportation networks in accordance with best practices in universal design.
5.7.1.2 Support the design of street systems to be easily navigated by pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles and to provide clear and direct connections between major activity areas in the community.
5.7.1.3 Undertake streetscape improvements to create high quality public spaces through tree planting and landscaping, pedestrian scale lighting, good quality street furnishings and decorative paving and through design approaches that reduce impacts of parking and public utilities on the quality of the pedestrian environment.
5.7.1.4 Support opportunities to reallocate existing road space for use by pedestrians, cyclists and transit service.
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The City of Edmonton understands the ecosystems and ecosystem services upon which Edmonton depends, valuing and protecting them as Edmonton grows.
Strategic Actions
3.1.3 Encourages renewal and densification of mature neighbourhoods by ensuring superior living experiences that include priority to pedestrians and bicycles over automobiles
City Policy C569: Optimization of the Transportation System Network
The quality of service for cyclists will be more critical on roads that are part of the cycling network...
To address instances of congestion it is recognized that:
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mitigation measures or strategies must be consistent with The Way We Move.
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trade-offs will be necessary and sometimes roadways improvements will be made for one mode at the expense of another mode.
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the system capacity will be analyzed using a holistic approach in order to maximize the use of existing infrastructure.
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trade-offs will have to be made and that different levels of congestion will be experienced in different contexts.
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7.2 Management of the Road System
Management of the roadway system is becoming increasingly important as the city continues to expand and vehicle traffic increases. As Edmonton matures from a mid-size prairie city into a large metropolitan area, it is inevitable that traffic congestion will increase, particularly during the peak periods. Physical, financial and community constraints in many areas make it unfeasible or even undesirable to build or expand roads to alleviate congestion. It has been shown in other cities that it is not possible to build enough roads to manage demand. As such, the City of Edmonton will need to place greater emphasis on strategies to optimize the use of the existing road system and shift residents to other modes.
Promoting use of alternative modes
The use of travel modes other than single occupant vehicles will reduce demand on the road network.
7.3 Automobile Parking
Management of the supply, location and price of parking can be an effective way to influence travel behaviour and encourage alternative travel modes.
In transit oriented residential areas and high employment areas such as the Downtown, Transportation Demand Management initiatives may be supported by regulating both on-street and on-site parking to encourage reduced automobile reliance and create livable communities. This may include limitations on the supply of parking at both the origin and destination of commuter trips as well as pricing controls on destination parking.
Strategic Actions
a. Managing on-street and on-site parking to strategically anticipate and respond to projected parking supply constraints or surpluses, provide convenient business access and influence sustainable travel choices.
b. Developing land use and parking policies that manage the supply of parking provided for a development with a focus on providing only essential parking and supporting Transportation Demand Management.
c. Developing a parking policy, including parking pricing strategies, to discourage the use of single occupancy vehicles in appropriate locations in favour of other modes.
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OUR HOURS
BikeWorks South
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Wed |
6pm-9pm |
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Sat |
1pm-5pm |
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Sun |
1pm-5pm |
1 st, 3 rd & 5 th Sundays of the month reserved for Women and Transgendered persons only; 2 nd & 4 th Sundays of the month open to the general public
BikeWorks North
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