Tag: Transportation

Doubling Down on Dumb Growth.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

There was a meeting last week of the Province’s Cities: the Union of BC Municipalities annual conference. People who run cities get together to talk about innovations, ideas, problems, and solutions. Pretty much like any other “convention”, except that there is another aspect to the meeting. Cities also have the opportunity to communicate with the Provincial Government. This happens through closed-door meetings where Civic politicos or staff meet with Provincial Ministers and their staff to hash out issues of an intergovernmental nature; where the UBCM passes “resolutions” of their members to ask the Provincial Government to take action on some topic; and in the Provincial Government presenting speeches to the collected City folk, to tell them what great things the Province has in store for Municipalities.

This year, the Premier (whom I like to refer to as McSparklestm) gave the Keynote address, and as is typical, offered a number of baubles to Muni leaders to show that the Province cares about families cities.

For those of us living in the Metropola of Vancouva, there has been an awful lot of talk recently about the biggest challenge the region is facing: how to move people about. As the Biggest Bestest Bridge Ever is getting rolled out, our regional Transportation Authority is bleeding from the eyes. Such is the ongoing funding crisis at TransLink that they are cutting rationalizing bus service, hiring security guards to intimidate people away from overloaded night buses, scrapping plans to invest in expanded service, cutting their bike program, and will not even be able to drive buses over that shiny new bridge…

So I waited in a cat-like state of readiness anticipating that Premier was going to show a little leadership and give the Province’s biggest Cities the relief they have been waiting for – a new funding model for TransLink, a new Governance model for Translink, a new idea of some kind in regards to TransLink. Anything. Just deal with it.

However, the word “Transit” did not appear once in her Keynote Speech to the Province’s Municipal Leaders, just as the word Leadership rarely crosses her mind. Instead, she doubled-down on building up last century’s transportation infrastructure. She doubled-down on Bridges and Roads. She doubled-down on dumb.

How bad? Almost a billion dollars in road infrastructure spending, not including the $2 Billion or more that any eventual Deas/Massey Tunnel will cost. Not a penny for TransLink or transit anywhere in the Province. I’ve said this before, and I‘ll say it again: Dumb.

The Premier announced they are going to start planning for a replacement of the Deas/Massey Tunnel, hoping to have it completed “in 10 years”. She has no plan, doesn’t know what to build, doesn’t know what it will cost, doesn’t know if it will be tolled, doesn’t know anything- but she announced that it is time to start the conversation (recognizing she won’t be arond long to complete the conversation). She want to start the planning.

Here, I’ll save her some time. You are not twinning or expanding the tunnel. It may seem cheap and easy to toss a third tube down adjacent to existing ones, but it would be anything but. The infrastructure used to make and install the tunnel is long gone (the basin built for the purpose now a BC Ferries works dock just west of the tunnel), and the design from 1958 would surely not pass 2012 seismic standards, and dropping a third tube without disturbing the existing ones or the armor rock on them would be difficult.
Further, the tunnel is currently a limiting factor on ships traversing the Fraser River. Ocean-going cargo ships are restricted in draft on the River now by the clearance at the tunnel. The Panamax Tankers envisioned for the Vancouver Airport Fuel Delivery Project could not reach their terminal unless they are less than 80% laden, and even then only at high tide. If the Federal Government are going to agree to any Deas Island crossing (and they will have to as per the Navigable Waters Protection Act), they will no doubt insist on a bridge to open up PortMetroVancouver to more flexible freight movement on the River. Any “upgrade” here will involve the removal of the Deas/Massey Tunnel, full stop.

There is also no chance of a bored tunnel (as the Canada Line takes under False Creek) working in this location. The geology there is loose river sediment at least 500m down – making it like tunnelling through jello: a geotechnical nightmare.

So it will be a bridge. If near the same location as the tunnel (as would be required to fit Highway 99, we are looking at a 800-m long main span, similar to the Pattullo Bridge, but built on technically challenging foundations due to the loose sediment. Any other location (to the east, as there is no way Richmond will be ploughing neighbourhoods to allow the bridge to move west) will mean a longer span and lesser connection to Highway 99.

But how big? The new bridge will need to be larger than the current 4 lanes to meet Premier McSparklestm 1950’s mindset that the “congestion problem” in Delta can be solved with new highway lanes. As the counter-flow system currently has three lanes with Rush Hour flow, a 6-lane bridge will also likely not be up to the task…. will 8 be enough?

For the sake of argument, let’s say the Deas/Massey Tunnel is replaced with a 8-lane bridge, just slightly ahead of the Premier’s 2022 deadline, to align with the Province’s and MetroVancouver’s growth predictions for 2021. Also presume that the current funding stranglehold doesn’t scupper TransLink’s planned 6-lane Pattullo replacement, the exponential growth of traffic lanes across the River is pretty clear:

Just between 2000 and 2021, the number of road lanes crossing the Fraser River within MetroVancouver would double from 18 to 36 with not a single increase in rail or transit capacity crossing the river in the same time.

The real economic choke point in the crossing of the Fraser is the 100-year old New Westminster Rail Bridge, with its single rail line being that flat purple line on the graph. TransLink forecasts big increases in Transit ridership across the River (well, it used to, it is unsure how the current funding crunch will impact these projections), but is currently operating the only two lanes of rapid transit (Skybridge is green line) at near capacity, will not have the money to even put buses on the World’s Widest Bridge, which will have 10 lanes, but not one of them dedicated to transit. Dumb.

This is the real story behind the TransLink “Funding Crisis”. $5Billion spent on roads and bridges in the last decade, and Billions more to come. All this while car use is declining, and our existing transit system is hopelessly overcrowded. The last comprehensive study of Traffic at the Deas/Massey Tunnel demonstrated that traffic through the Tube declined more than 7% over the 5 years, while people taking transit over the same time went up over 8% in the same period. This is not about capacity issues- this is about entrenching the building of car-oriented neighbourhoods in Langley, Surrey and Delta. This is threatening our livable region strategy, it will continue to threaten ALR land and our airshed. We cannot possibly hope to reduce our Greenhouse Gas emissions, to become food or energy independent. 

The worst part of the Surrey Leader story? The Vice-Chair of TransLink (who happens to be Mayor of the City with the greatest proportion of car users in the region) calling it “a great announcement”, while the only quote from the NDP opposition seems to be critical that the tunnel can’t be replaced sooner. There is plenty of dumb to go around here.

The Transportation System is Broken

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

Two remarkable transportation stories hit the media this week, but few people have mentioned that they are connected at the hip.

Story #1: The ongoing crisis with public transportation in Vancouver has reached a new low.

Frustrated transit users are being left behind as demand continues to increase, and TransLink cannot afford to even maintain existing levels of service. Anyone trying to catch a 145 to SFU in the morning or a westbound 99 B-line pretty much any time of day know the system is broken.

Now increasing numbers of people, enjoying our revitalized Downtown (which is finally shucking the “No-Fun-City” reputation) while responsibly avoiding drinking-and-driving, find they cannot get out of downtown after Transit effectively shuts down at 1:00am. There is no budget to increase the number of NightBusses that are leaving people standing on the street at 2:00am, so TransLink is instead hiring Security Guards to manage the pissed-off customers!

Get that straight, the regional Transit System is so failing at its mandate, it has to hire security to beat the customers away from using their service.
On what planet is that a rational situation?

Story #2: The protracted opening of the new Port Mann Bridge is starting.

First, the announcement that tolls for the bridge will be cut in half until after the election, then that there will be no tolls for the first week (reinforcing the message that car dependency is like any other addiction – freebees help get your customers hooked!) , then the snap announcement that EastBound lanes will be opened (today), relatively bereft of fanfare, it was more likely a hasty response to a bit of poor planning yesterday that resulted in temporary traffic chaos (which should be differentiated from the permanent traffic chaos that will result from this entire project)

The missing context is how these two stories are really just one story. The Province and Feds are saying they cannot possibly afford to provide a couple of hundred million dollars to support the continued operation of a Transportation System that is bursting at its seams from overuse, so the Cities like Burnaby and Vancouver are going to have to buck up and find other solutions on their own dime. At the same time, the Feds and the Province are blowing somewhere north of $5 Billion building a transportation system that few people outside of Langley and Surrey want.

The tolls on the Port Mann are not going to pay for the Bridge (see this year’s projected $38 Million shortfall on the Golden Ears), and they are not even intended to pay for the 37 Kilometres of Freeway expansion from Grandview to 200th Street, or the dozen interchanges that are being stripped down and replaced. They are also not going to pay for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, or the Pitt River Bridge Replacement, the spectacular expansion of Lougheed Highway through Coquitlam Big-Box Hell (with concomitant King Edward Overpass).

Strange that after all the money spent on these roads, it is the Provincial contribution to the Rapid Bus Service that is only part of the project that has not barged ahead, costs be damned!

Yet the first opening day for the Bridge- the centrepiece of the most expansive roadbuilding project the Province’s history – was overshadowed on the front page of the Province by some sort of alleged taxpayer revolt over TransLink’s request for a little more money to keep operating the only alternative to more freeways. The biggest news in the Minister of Transportation’s home riding is that they may have to pay $2 to park their car all day in a park-and-ride to catch the Rapid Bus their MLA refuses to allocate the funds to operate!

These are twisted times, my friends.

As much as I may have questioned TransLink’s motivations in the past, I am starting to feel sorry for them, because none of this is their own doing.

I am convinced TransLink would rather provide enough NightBusses to get people safely home from Downtown at night, and not have to hire extra security to scare off potential fare-payers. I am positive TransLink would love to have an efficient and reliable RapidBus service to get people from Langley to Downtown in a reasonable time. I am sure TransLink would have rather have invested $150Million in service improvements than be forced to waste that amount on FalconGates that will not even address the alleged Fare Evasion “problem” on the system.

I am also sure that given a stable funding source, and a governance model free of political interference, TransLink would be able to achieve the goals they set for themselves in the Transport2040 plan. They would be fulfilling their mandate under the Livable Region Strategy. They would be able to deliver decent service and adapt to changes in how people use Transit. Instead, they are sitting outside a SkyTrain Station, hat in hand, looking for enough money to get their next fix, hoping the Transit Cops don’t shoo them away, while Elected Officials biker over which form of tax is most “appropriate”.

As it is now, the entire system is broken. Road lanes are being built, bus service is being cut. The entire $5Billion Gateway program was announced, designed, built and brought onstream in a little over 7 years, meanwhile it has been 15 Years since a Rapid Transit Line to the Northeast Sector was announced, and there are no signs of an Evergreen running any time soon, never mind Rapid Transit expansion on the Broadway Corridor or South of the Fraser.

The saddest part is the lost opportunity. During the Olympics, MetroVancouver proved what could be done: we could move a huge number of confused, lost, (and commonly drunk) people cheaply and efficiently even as we were reducing road space for cars. At the time, it was seen as a vision for the future, the model being proven that it can work. We had the momentum, but we lost it.

That lost opportunity, not some shiny new bridge looming like the Sword of Damocles over Coquitlam, will be Kevin Falcon’s legacy.

Bicycle Lane Obstacle Course #4

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

On Labour Day, I rode my bike along the Central Valley Greenway, one of the premier regional bike routes.

Also a good place to park.

Its not like the driver couldn’t see the diamond or the bike symbol. What made them think this was a parking spot?

Possibly because it used to be a parking spot. It has been part of the CVG since the bike route opened more than three years ago to much fanfare. However, up until a few months ago the very spot this car is parked looked like this:

Yes. That is an operating parking meter. There were about a half dozen of them along the bike lane on Sapperton. In defence of the City’s Transportation guys, once this was brought to their attention, they took the meters out pretty quick (there are meter-stumps there now). So I guess Mr. Civic Driver figured it was now free parking. Bonus!

I am just confused that the fact there were parking meters on a bike lane had to be brought to the attention of the Transportation Staff three years after the bike lane opened. I mean, did the guys painting the lanes not notice the meters? Did the Meter Collector not notice the lane paintings? Did no-one working for the City put two and two together?

Thousands of cyclists must have ridden by parked cars in the bike lanes over those three years… and silently lamented the cars parked in the travelling lane. That is how unremarkable the first photo is to cyclists, even on the region’s premier bike routes.

Helmets are at least 7% of the solution.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

This is a tragic story. Cyclist falls off his bike, hits his head, and dies. No less tragic than the driver who is momentarily distracted, causing an accident or death (something that occurs dozens of times a year in Toronto, and causes over 500 deaths a year in Ontario) or a pedestrian slipping and falling causing fatal injuries (more common than you think!), or even a pedestrian being killed by a car (which happens more than 100 times a year in Ontario), but tragic and probably completely avoidable.

Of course, the immediate reaction reading this (especially amongst non-cyclists) is the presumption that a helmet would have saved the cyclist’s life, and ergo: helmet laws. We don’t know if that is true, but it fits the current narrative in the media (bicycles are dangerous, nothing we can do about it but drive cars instead just to be safe, or at least put styrofoam beer coolers on the cyclist’s heads!). In this story, that is further reinforced by the last paragraph:

“About two months ago, Ontario’s deputy chief coroner released a report on more than a hundred cycling deaths that said helmet use by all cyclists can decrease fatal head injuries.”

Just for fun, you can read the Deputy Chief Coroner’s report right here. Proving that the CBC got the report pretty much right, while fitting the current media narrative, the DCC did indeed recommend a provincial helmet law. Down there on Page 30, we find Recommendation #11:

The Highway Traffic Act should be amended to make helmets mandatory for cyclists of all ages in Ontario. This should occur in conjunction with an evaluation of the impact of mandatory helmet legislation on cycling activity in Ontario.

The DCC is suggesting a helmet law, and that the impact of that helmet law on bicycle use be evaluated after it is implemented. This reads to me like some acknowledgement of data from various jurisdictions that helmet laws actually dissuade people from riding bikes. See the experience with bike share programs in cities with mandatory helmet laws vs. cities without them. There is an argument to be made that the public health risk posed by helmetless bicycle use may be outweighed by the public health benefits of more people riding bikes. The data ia ambiguous at best, so the DCC is just asking the Government of Ontario to collect this data, allowing the policy change can be fairly evaluated. Sounds reasonable.

You know what is missing from much of the reporting on the DCC report recommending a helmet law? The other 13 recommendations!

I am pretty agnostic towards helmet laws (although I wear one 95% of the time while riding), but wouldn’t mind them so much if there was an equal push from non-cyclists so concerned about the health and well being of cyclists to implement the other changes the DCC suggests (excerpted here) :

Recommendation #1: A “complete streets” approach to guide the development of existing communities and the creation of new communities…require that any (re-)development give consideration to enhancing safety for all road users, and should include: Creation of cycling networks (incorporating strategies such as connected cycling lanes, separated bike lanes, bike paths and other models appropriate to the community.) and Designation of community safety zones in residential areas, with reduced posted maximum speeds and increased fines for speeding.

More info on “complete streets” is available here, but basically, we have to stop designing roads to just move cars as quickly and efficiently as possible while treating sidewalks, bike paths, and crosswalks as inconvenient things shoehorned into an established car-moving network.

Recommendation #2: An Ontario Cycling Plan should be developed [to] establish a vision for cycling in Ontario, and guide the development of policy, legislation and regulations and commitment of necessary infrastructure funding pertaining to cycling in Ontario.

My translation: make planning for bicycles on the public roads a Provincial policy, not just leaving it up to local governments, and make the Province provide the funding to build the appropriate infrastructure.

Recommendation #3: The Ministry of Transportation should identify the development of paved shoulders on provincial highways as a high priority initiative.

Makes sense: fix the damn roads.

Recommendation #4: A comprehensive public education program should be developed to promote safer sharing of the road by all users [including] a targeted public awareness campaign, in the spring/summer months, with key messages around cycling safety; education targeted at professional truck drivers regarding awareness and avoidance of cycling dangers; education / regulation directed towards Beginning Driver Education (BDE) courses and driving instructors to include sharing the road and bicycle safety; public safety campaigns around the dangers of distracted and impaired cycling.

Of course education would help, but I love how the target for this education is not just cyclists, but also professional and learning drivers. The very sad recent story in New Westminster where a Professional Driver was found not at fault for the death of a young cyclist that he “just didn’t see” before delivering the right hook demonstrates part of the problem.

Recommendation #5: It should be a requirement that important bicycle safety information (such as rules of the road and helmet information) be provided to purchasers of any new or used bicycle. Such information could be included in a “hang tag” information card attached to the handlebar of every bicycle at the time of purchase which would include critical information and a reference to the Ministry of Transportation website and Service Ontario for additional bicycle safety information and publications.

OK, here is one I am less fond of. Putting a label on a bike that says “this thing is dangerous” irritates the hell out of me. I can go into Home Depot and buy an axe without having to sift through a bunch of warning labels about the ways I can hurt myself or others with it. But I buy a barbeque and am provided 400 pages of nonsensical warnings about burning myself or immolating my neighbourhood. This seems an onerous burden to put on bicycle manufacturers and sellers, with little actual gain. But maybe it is my life in a retail bike shop coming back to influence my opinion here…

Recommendation #6: Cycling and road safety education should be incorporated into the public school curriculum.

Boom! Yes! Mandatory bike safety training of the youth would go a long way towards correcting bicycle behavior, and normalizing the use of bicycles amongst youth. Right now, organizations like BEST and HUB scramble to get grant money and volunteers to put on education programs, and (as far as I know- can anyone in the school system correct me here?) there is no formal training in school for kids. Maybe I’m engaging in used-to-be-ism, but when I was in grade 3 or 4, our school had an annual bike rodeo, where the RCMP would set up a training course in the school parking lot and teach us basic rules of the road, hand signal, and how to safely get to and from school. Just teaching kids to see the bike as not just a toy, but as a tool they need to be aware of using safely. Does this happen anymore?

Recommendation #7: The Official Driver’s Handbooks should be updated to provide expanded information around sharing the road with cyclists, and include cycling-related scenarios in driver examinations.

All part of the education model, and normalizing the idea of bicycles being part of the traffic system. This might even reduce the number of young drivers yelling at me to get on the sidewalk or honking at me to get out of the way when I am occupying a lane for safety.

Recommendation #8: A comprehensive review and revision of the Highway Traffic Act should be conducted to ensure that it is consistent and understandable with respect to cycling and cyclists and therefore easier to promote and enforce.

Makes sense: fix the damn laws to make riding legally understandable and sensible. I can’t imagine how a new cyclist deals with drivers telling them to “get on the sidewalk” and pedestrians telling them to “get off the sidewalk” when the law is inconsistent and unclear. In New Westminster, it is legal to ride a bike on the sidewalk in some places, and not in others, anyone out there willing to guess where? Think there is signage to indicate this, or are visitors and residents expected to go to the City’s website and search the bylaws? Is riding two abreast illegal? Should it be? How do you define “complete stop” on a bike? Do I have to put my foot down? The laws are written for motor vehicles, and bikes are expected to behave like them, unless strictly forbidden to do so. We need to update out BC Motor Vehicle Act to the modern reality of bikes on roads.

Recommendation #9: A comprehensive review and revision of the Municipal Act, the City of Toronto Act and relevant Municipal By‐Laws should be conducted to ensure that they are consistent and understandable with respect to cycling and cyclists and therefore easier to promote and enforce.

See my comments on #8.

Recommendation #10: The use of helmets by cyclists of all ages should be promoted and supported [including] financial incentives, such as removal of tax on bicycle helmets and helmet rebate program; promotion of helmet use through public awareness campaigns; enforcement of existing legislation regarding helmet use in cyclists under the age of 18.

Like I said, I am agnostic about bike helmet laws, but I almost always wear a helmet, and was wearing a helmet for years before the BC Helmet Law was introduced. This is through public awareness, and no small amount of social pressure from the people I rode bikes with: there was a time in the early 90’s when attitudes changed about bike helmet use amongst serious road riders, and I followed that trend like the obedient sheep I am. It helped that I was a mountain biker first, and mountain bikers were quick to adopt helmets, mostly because we fell off our bikes and went over the handlebars a LOT in those early days.

Recommendation #11: The Highway Traffic Act should be amended to make helmets mandatory for cyclists of all ages in Ontario. This should occur in conjunction with an evaluation of the impact of mandatory helmet legislation on cycling activity in Ontario.

See above.

Recommendation #12: The Highway Traffic Act should be amended to include a one (1) meter / three (3) foot passing rule for vehicles when passing cyclists. This change in legislation should be reflected in the Ontario Driver’s Handbook, Beginning Driver Education curricula and the driver’s licence examination process.

This is the most stunning recommendation, and of course, the most likely to not be followed. Three-foot rules are not uncommon though, and have a lot of implications. First, it means that any road with less than 3 feet of shoulder, a car is required, by law, to change lanes to pass a cyclist, like if they were passing any other vehicle. It also puts an extra onus on drivers in the event of car-bike collisions, right hooks and brush-offs (when a car passes you so closely, that they effectively push you off the road without touching you). Any bike-car contact where the car was passing the bike in the same lane would become the car’s fault automatically. If this one law was passed and enforced, it would probably do more to prevent highway cyclist deaths than any other recommendation above.

Recommendation #13: Side-guards should be made mandatory for heavy trucks in Canada. In addition, consideration should also be given to requiring additional safety equipment (such as blind spot mirrors and blind spot warning signs) to make cyclists more visible to trucks and decrease the chance of a collision, especially during right-hand turns.

Again, “I just didn’t see him” is the too-common excuse for right-hook crashes, and the result when the right-hook is performed by a large truck is usually fatal. This is not about blaming truckers, they have a lot to deal with in complicated traffic situations, but giving them the tools (actually, forcing them to have the tools) to improve the safety of those around them makes perfect sense.

Recommendation #14: Municipalities and police services (municipal/regional/provincial) should review local data related to cycling injuries and fatalities in order to identify and address opportunities for targeted education, public safety interventions and enforcement activities.

Makes sense: keep track of what is actually causing the accidents and fatalities, and direct your energy towards mitigating those causes, through education, enforcement, and/or infrastructure changes. Often, the Police and ICBC are reluctant to share accident info when bicyclesand pedestrians are involved, as it violates privace rights or is “before the courts”. They cannot even share it with those charged with designing and maintaining the road traffic system. Therefore, their knowledge of what does and doesn’t work in the pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is incomplete.
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Overall, it is an excellent set of recommendations. We don’t know if a helmet law would have saved the life of the guy in the story above, nor do we know if any of the other 13 recommendations would have. The problem with the CBC story (and the general media narrative it supports) is how it sets up the helmet as the simple solution to a complex problem; one few jurisdictions are willing to address as comprehensively as the coroner suggests. The result will be more preventable “accidental” deaths, and too much irrational attention paid to helmet laws

Transit Riders and Pedestrians work too!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

I was happy this morning to hear the local radio media reporting on this press release from the Delta Chamber of Commerce. Not because it is a “good news story”, but because it indicates Chambers of Commerce are starting to see the light about bigger transportation issues in our Cities.

This is a refreshing change from the old-skool Board of Trade argument that business just needs a wide road with many lanes and plenty’o’parking to succeed at business. In the coming decades, there will need to be ways for customers and employees to get to your door besides parking a car in front of it.

According to the report behind the presser, the people who actually operate within industrial areas and business parks are noticing that their staff is having a hard time getting to the auto-oriented developments being offered by our city planners. They are finding their lower-wage employees are demanding a sufficient pay rate to support running a car, which at about $7000 per year (according to CAA) is more than a third of the entire pre-tax income of a minimum-wage worker. There is also an increasing number of higher-skilled and higher-wage employees who are wanting better options than being shackled to a car for their daily transportation (a group within which I include myself, and a startling number of my professional colleagues and friends).

So the owners and operators of these business parks, like in the Tilbury district of Delta:

on Annacis Island:

the Richmond Port lands:

or Horseshoe Way:

…are trying to operate in areas where bus service is infrequent, does not fit shift hours, does not connect well to rapid transit, and is located a long way from residential areas. Even the infrequent bus service is limited in coverage, forcing transit-users to walk long distances on roads commonly built without sidewalks, and crowded with large trucks and poorly organized parking systems.

Just go to Google StreetView and wander around those neighbourhoods, it is a pedestrian disaster:

The Chambers above call out TransLink for not providing more comprehensive service to these areas, but that is only part of the problem. They should also be calling out on their local Municipal Councils, Transportation and Planning departments to design these “business parks” with accessibility in mind. There appears to be a legacy of bad planning here we are currently saddled with, but look at at this brochure for Surrey’s newest, most exciting business park opportunity: notice anything missing from the “features”? There is one bus that runs through this park, the 531, which provides 30-minute service from 6 in the morning to 9 at night. Marginal service at best, and if you are the guy sweeping the warehouse after the crews leave at 5:00, you are driving home at midnight. But you won’t see that in the flashy brochure. Is that TransLink’s fault, or Surreys?

Also, it isn’t just warehouses and industrial sites: the slab-walled business parks in places like the Knight Street area of Richmond have high office vacancy, not because they are not Class-A space, or because the rates are too high, but because the location between highway offramps in the ‘burbs (even the really-close-in ‘burbs) is just not where people setting up Class-A-desirous businesses prefer to be anymore. These entrepreneurs and corporations would rather be in Yaletown, on the Broadway Corridor, or even (dare I say) New Westminster – because there they can attract the best talent, and have happier employees, partly because the transit service is frequent, but more because you can walk outside at lunch and have a choice of eateries, or run errands at local businesses. Life is too busy these days to rely on a car. You can’t get anywhere in a car on your lunch hour.

It is worth noting, these things represent New Westminster’s competitive advantage. Even our worst-serviced areas, which happen to be the low-wage labour areas (the warehouses and big box retailers of Queensborough), they still see better, more frequent service and are more friendly pedestrian environments than most industrial-warehouse wastelands in Greater Vancouver. This is why the addition of 230,000 square feet of Class-A office space in Sapperton is good gamble for Wesgroup, and 130,000 square feet of Class-A is a good gamble for the City.

But that’s a topic for another Blog post.

Bicycle Lane Obstacle Course #3

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

In light of comments from someone whose opinions matter, I thought I would clarify the purpose of these posts a bit.

I am always first to point out that my bike route to work is pretty good, an example of what should be available to more people in more places. I don’t get all that concerned about the few little issues that pop up – because I am cognizant of how difficult it is to operate a City, and manage all of the little things that crop up, not to mention the hassles that typically go with living in a big urban area with 3 million other people.

So when they are tearing up a road to replace a water line, that doesn’t bother me. When they need to drill holes in a road and close a lane, and have lots of signs and flag persons, and I have to wait a minute to get on my way, that’s part of the deal of getting to use the infrastructure. Most drivers roll with that, and so do I when riding.

Sometimes commercial vehicles, for whatever reason, need to block a lane for an extended period of time to do their jobs. When that happens, they apply to the City for a temporary road closure permit, and set up appropriate safety flagging, signage, etc. The City I work for does not charge for this: the permits are free, a service your tax dollars provide. When driving or riding, you see these things as necessary and accept them as part of City life.

That’s not what I’m talking abut here. What I’m talking about is things we find in the bike lane that would never happen in a driving lane, or at least would be met with outrage by drivers, but is commonplace in the bike lane, or as it is typically viewed “the shoulder of the road”. Daily dodging people pulling into the bike lane to pass on the right is par for the course. Until they kill me, I’ll just get used to it.

So when I complained about this commercial vehicle blocking the bike lane during rush hour, it was not just him being there, it was because we know he would not block the car lane during rush hour, and it is not like he had no alternative: this is the commercial loading zone less then 20 feet away where he chose not to park, because the bike lane was just too convenient:

But here is the best example I have found yet, one I griped about earlier, but fits as probably the model example of the Bicycle Lane Obstacle Course, one worthy of BLOC post #3:

damn cyclist, swerving all over the place, and not even wearing a helmet!
Can you imagine a lit sign in the middle of the driving lane asking people to “Ride Safely!” that cars had to swerve around? What if it forced you to get out of your car (“dismount”) and push your car around the obstacle, or maybe to hop onto the sidewalk and dodge pedestrians, to get through safely – hey, its only a few seconds of your time… then you can get on your way!
So I hope to show examples of how good cycling infrastructure (all photos so far show good, well planned bicycle lanes) goes terribly wrong by missing the details, or through general lack of acknowledgement that it even matters.

Show and Shine – a trip through Car History

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Showing how behind the times I am, here is another post at least two weeks late…

Yes, I went to the Show and Shine here in New West. Sapperton Day(s), FraserFest, SummerFest, the 12th Street Festival: they all have their charms, but the Show and Shine is really the biggest one-day event we have in New West. The sheer numbers of people downtown and the scope of the whole affair is daunting. Kudos to the Downtown BIA for a great show.

I can’t avoid the irony that the biggest “Car Free Day” we have in New Westminster is, in fact, and Ode to the Car, in all its forms. However history of Columbia Street and Downtown New Westminster is, in many ways, drawn from the history of the automobile.

Columbia was built in the 1850s for horses, wagons, and pedestrians. It hosted electric streetcars for local service from 1891 to 1938, and Interurban electric passenger rail from 1892 to 1950. During this time, the rails shared space with increasing numbers of cars, and it was the increase in cars that brought Columbia to the fore.

The building of the Pattullo in 1937 brought more cars (and the end of local streetcar service along Columbia), and around the same time a bunch of what we would now call “stimulus money” was used to expand Kingsway from a small rural road to a major urban throughfare. Thus began the “Golden Mile” era of Columbia Street, as it became a major regional shopping, business and entertainment district, peaking at the time when Car was King.

Clearly, traffic wasn’t a problem in 1953. Nothing but free flow here in the good old days.
(photo courtesy the Province, via KnowBC)

Like most Kings, the Car giveth, and the Car taketh away. First the Interurban was gone, leaving an almost 40-year gap in train service. Then by the late 1950s, another phenomenon began to rise: the car-oriented shopping centre (soon to evolve into the Mall). If American Graffiti told you everything you needed to know about North American culture at the end of the ‘50s, then Mall Rats told you the story of the end of the ‘80s. The “Golden Mile”, after only a few decades, started to tarnish. Drivers went to places like Oakridge, and Lougheed, and Lansdowne; shoppers drawn to their massive free parking lots and climate-controlled browsing opportunities.

Not that Downtown gave up without a fight. They built a Parkade in 1959 to compete directly with the burgeoning shopping centres. In 1964, the Trans-Canada Highway was built way over on the Port Mann Bridge, stealing yet more attention from Columbia. Downtown New West doubled down on parking, increasing the size of the Parkade.

Alas, there seemed to be no stopping the forces at work. It wasn’t the lack of parking that was killing Columbia Street, but change in lifestyle and shopping patterns. New Westminster’s Golden Mile was yesterday’s news.

The first sign of resurgence came 20 years later with the arrival of SkyTrain and the Expo-86-funded Westminster Quay. Along with a waterfront Casino, a new hotel and the relocation of Douglas College, but for whatever reason, the momentum didn’t hold. Maybe poor City planning, inexperience on how to exploit the growth, the damn NDP, who knows? Maybe it was because despite the new improvements, Columbia Street was just not that nice a place to be in the 80s. Fast forward another 20 years and a few well-timed and well-placed developments, along with a significant road diet have changed that. A major shift came when Columbia Street once again turned from a place for cars that barely tolerated people, to a place for people where cars are tolerated. Things are booming again.

Still, one day a year, we turn the street back over to the cars, with a vengeance. And this year, the crowds were phenomenal. The beer gardens were full, the food carts had line-ups, the streets were just less than uncomfortably crowded, and the sun was out with bare midriffs everywhere (unfortunately, mostly expansive and belonging to middle-aged men). Somewhere around 100,000 people on Columbia Street easily make this the busiest day of the year downtown. It was a great opportunity for the Downtown BIA to show off Columbia Street, and they did a great job.

Of course, to support the visiting crowds on the busiest day of the year in Downtown New West, the Parkade was free. It was advertised as being free, there were cops manning the barriers at 6th Street and 4th Street so that people could drive easily into the Parkade, with signs showing just how free it was. So was I the only one not surprised to find it was not only free: it was mostly empty.

All 4 photos above taken between 1:00pm and 2:00pm on July 8, 2012.

Again, I ask the merchants of downtown, if on your busiest day of the year, when all of Columbia is turned over to public space and you could not comfortably fit more people downtown; when the Parkade is free and duly advertised as such; when the free Parkade remains is mostly empty: isn’t it time to recognize the Parkade for the white elephant it is? Can we now accept that it is time to move past the Parkade, and recover the potential human space it supplants? Can we now stop saying it is necessary to support business growth in the City?

Oh, yeah, the Cars. As much as a I appreciate the level of effort that goes into keeping them valve covers so brightly polished and chroming those headers, American muscle cars and over-wound rice rockets don’t do much for me. My personal best-of-show choice was this perfect combination of design, agility, and elegance: Porsche 356 Speedster.

Cruising the Golden Mile in 1959 – this would have been my chariot of choice.

The Air Care Landmine

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I work in Richmond, but do most of my actual living in New Westminster, so I am reluctant to get too involved in the politics on the downstream end of Lulu Island.

However, when I read a recent Editorial Piece in the Richmond Review (sister paper to our own NewsLeader and the Peace Arch News, where there is a electronic version available), I had to react. I wrote a longer piece on AirCare way back when the current public relations campaign to get rid of it started up, as part of a longer rant about the myopic old-school viewpoint of one Harvey Enchin.

Long and short, AirCare is a successful program that is cost-effective and will be until at least 2020. The only argument against it is that it is inconvenient – in that once every two years, less than 50% of drivers have to take 15 minutes out of their day and pay $45 to demonstrate that their car has an operating emissions control system. Boo freaking hoo.

So here was my response letter to the Richmond Review Editor.

I recognize the Editorial section is where opinions are expressed, but isn’t journalistic opinion supposed to rest on a foundation of fact?

In your editorial, you make statements that sound like fact, such as “Air Care hasn’t really been necessary for some time” or “There simply aren’t enough older vehicles on the road to make the expensive and bureaucratic program necessary”, or “random enforcement is best”, but indicate what these opinions are based upon. As a multi-agency program review of AirCare completed less than two years ago concluded the system was effective, efficient, and would continue to provide measureable air-quality benefits to the region until at least 2020, it seems the facts available are the opposite of your assertions.

When you characterise AirCare as “nothing more than a cash-grab from the government”, it is at odds with the fact AirCare is self-supporting, uses no tax dollars to operate, and transfers no money to its lead agency (TransLink). Compare that to the “random enforcement” strategy you propose, which will require taxpayer-funded officers to issue tickets, enforceable through the taxpayer-funded courts, to collect fines that will go to General Revenue.

Cancelling AirCare is a bad decision based not on good policy, but election-time pandering, because protecting our airshed is “inconvenient” to a portion of the population. I am, of course, editorializing; but I would love to see some facts to change my mind.

The fact that AirCare will not be cancelled until 2014, and that the proposed commercial vehicle “replacement program” has not been described in any detail suggest to me this is, in fact, a landmine being dropped by the BC Liberals. It has a bit of curb appeal, might get them a few votes, but in reality, it just puts the winner of the next election in a difficult situation. They will need to dismantle the system (which will be costly, and result in worsening air quality) or try to keep it running against public outcry (because the current government has poisoned the well, despite AirCare being good policy). This is, in many ways, no different than the recently announced limit to BC Hydro rate increases that bypassed the Utilities Commission.

What other landmines lie in waiting before we get to May, 2013?

Notes on a Rally (updated)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Even with hindsight, it couldn’t have gone better.

As Karla, one of the organizers, said to me the night before, “I feel like I’ve planned a party but don’t know if anyone is going to arrive.” That’s the nervous feeling we all had the night before. A Rally of only 10 people would have hurt.

I am glad to report the crowd that showed up was larger than I expected. If we had known, we might have made a few more signs. Lucky, many people rolled their own. 

It was also great to see a lot of unfamiliar faces, not just the regular dozen or two rabble types who show up for every transportation event in New Westminster. This is an issue that brings the breadth of opinion in New Westminster together: evidenced by the Board of Education and the District Parents Advisory Council speaking with a unified voice on the issue.

When the group arrived at the Sapperton Pensioners Hall, TransLink were there, ready to receive us. I am happy to report that this was a positive event – we had a clear message for TransLink, but we were not belligerent about it, didn’t block traffic or disrupt their Open House. Instead, we encouraged everyone who showed up to enter the hall, sign in, fill out the questionnaire and add their comments to the posterboards. We also received some signatures for a set of letters addressed to the TransLink Board, summarizing the message of the Rally.

I have to give the TransLink staff at the hall credit. The communications staff took it all in stride, had a sense of humour about it, but also treated the message with respect. They also were quick to offer us coffee and cookies. The feeling over the entire event was positive, consensus building, respectful. Let’s hope the process stays this way going forward, and TransLink comes back to the Cities with a more comprehensive consultation.

TransLink brought the cookies. The little guy looked nervous, but he got one.

I am also glad that the media message was well presented. We were there to say not just that a 6-lane bridge was bad for traffic in New West (it is easy to paint New West as being “nimby” about this), but was a poor way to invest $1 Billion in transportation infrastructure. Let’s build Surrey the transit it needs.

Here was some of the regional media impact (Flash required – works best on Chrome. Our segment starts at 13:50, right after the traffic report and Ford advertisement – irony not doubt unintentional):

If I was to comment on that report, I would only correct the part where The Voice suggests TransLink’s position is that 6-lanes is “the only way to provide space for transit, trucks, bikes and pedestrians”. Notice what is missing from that list? The 95% of users (according to TransLink’s own stats) that will not be transit, trucks, bike, or pedestrians. Not sure how they can talk about lane count and not mention that 95%.

OH, and I would make myself look less of a goof, but I’m asking for miracles here.

Update: more extensive video and interviews here: newwest.tv/videos/web
Thanks to Deepak and the NewWestTV crew!

There was other video shot. Here David Maidman for community TV is trying to
make me look less idiotic, and NewwestTV was filming.
Mostly, I want this post to be about thanking the people who made this happen. I was asked to be a spokesperson for this Rally, and many people came up and thanked me before, and congratulated me after – Which is nice, but it was not my doing! The people who should be thanked and congratulated is a long list, and this is part of a grassroots community movement that started with a couple of coffee groups in Queens Park. The same people who worked to get the word out for the City’s open house last month. There are about 20 people who took some role in making this work, and if I tried to thank them all, I would miss some. They all deserve the thanks and the congratulations.

I will point out a few real standouts, though:

Karla: for putting way, way more energy into this thing that anyone should expect from one person. You seemed to get the details that most of us forgot, you kicked the occasional butt that had to be kicked, you listened to others, and made others listen who were not always as receptive (including me!), and you never stood up to take credit for your contribution. You rock.

Karla (again), Ginny, Luc, and the Andrews for each contributing your bit to putting together a few signs: Ginny had the paper and paint, Andrew had the staplegun and staples, Luc donated the wood bits all the way from Quebec, I contributed tape and work space (Tig brought the cookies!). You all provided ideas and drawing/painting skills. The ideas and energy fermented during the 4 hours in my back yard assembling and painting was the energy that carried through the event.

People who put the word out: The local and regional media (thanks Theresa for letting us stretch your deadline!), purveyors of the #newwest and #PattulloBridge hashtags, the Residents associations, School Board, DPACs, City Council, 10thtotheFraser, those who promoted the event at the Farmers Market, and everyone who just mentioned the event to a neighbour or friend. Andthanks to Marcel for most of the photos here, I was too busy flapping my jaw to take any.

To Steve and the other folks I talked to from the other side of the Fraser, I will keep reminding people over here that your voices are as important in this as New West’s, and I hope this is the start of a long, and productive collaboration.

And finally, the 100+ people who showed up, thanks for taking time from your busy lives on a Saturday morning, for keeping things cool and respectful, for providing your comments to TransLink, and for not littering up the Park and road! I’m proud to be living in a community where the people take part in events like this, and care about its future. Here are some pics of the comments you left on the posterboards, some intended for sticky comments, and some not so much (click on them to zoom in). Good work everyone. 

And you know what? Barring remarkable news, this is going to be my last Pattullo post for a while. TransLink: the ball is in your court. Have a good summer, hope we can talk in the fall.

May you live in Interesting Times

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

That infamous Terry Pratchett curse seems to have fallen upon us.

It started on Monday, when a letter delivered to New Westminster Council from TransLink’s Director of Roads was discussed at the Council Meeting. The letter includes the following quotes:

TransLink is prepared to establish a collaborative process with the Cities of New Westminster and Surrey to undertake a comprehensive review of the following:
• All practical solutions for crossings and crossing locations;
• Bridge capacity and lane allocations;
• Implications of current and future projects (including South Fraser Perimeter Road/Port Mann/Highway 1 connections) and rapid transit projects;
• Through traffic, particularly truck traffic, in the municipalities;
• Consistency with local and regional objectives and consideration of priority relative to other regional transportation initiatives.
[snip]
The objective of all of this work would be to produce one or more agreements between TransLink and the two cities as to how the current situation with the Pattullo Bridge is to be rectified. It is suggested that reasonable and achievable target for completion of this work is early 2013.

This has been characterized as an “olive branch” in the paper version of this local news story, and it may be such. My first reaction when reading it was “TransLink just blinked”.

However, it was hard to square that thought with what I saw at the Stakeholders Open House held by TransLink on Monday. At that event, the message was (and I paraphrase): we hear you, but we are moving ahead.

This was reinforced at Thursdays Public Open House in Surrey. The poster boards from that event are available for your review here. The message was, again, we are moving ahead with the 6-lane bridge, and further, you prefer the Upstream A option.

So with that mixed message, we are heading into this:

A few notes on the Rally this Saturday. First off, I am not the leader of this group. I have been working with a group of engaged citizens, and agreed to have my name on the press release, but I am just one of the many people working on this. So my fat mouth gets me quoted in the local papers. The group right now has no leader, no name, no website (although this website was put together by some members of the group) , and no formal organization. It is a grassroots movement. There are some members of the NWEP involved, but this is not an NWEP-led event. That said, the NWEP supports the message of the Rally and will be there.

One question asked by an astute local reporter was how TransLink’s letter to Council caused our message on Saturday to change? At the time, I had not seen the Thursday Open House materials, and I said, “well, I hope it becomes a Rally of Support for TransLink in re-opening discussion about the myriad of options for the bridge”.

The reporter replied: “You’re an optimist!”

“I have to be”, I said. “Why else would I spend so much time on this?”

So I remain optimistic. And hope to see you on Saturday morning.