Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss - F. Scott Fitzgerald

North Service Road at King Road

It's just a small, insignificant stretch of roadway in an isolated part of the city.

Probably no more that 200 meters, maybe less. The North Service Road at the King Road intersection was resurfaced but bike lanes or paved shoulders weren't added.  They weren't even considered.  According to the city, the contractor forgot to put down the edge line but according to mavens at city hall, this will be rectified - soon.
You might say it doesn't really matter.  It won't make cycling safer in Burlington.  It won't add appreciably to the bike lane total in Burlington.  It won't impact the demand for cycling infrastructure in Burlington. And bike lanes on out-of-the-way North Service Road have nothing to do with bike lanes on important streets such as Lakeshore Road, Walkers, Guelph Line, etc.

Or do they????

Debased subway cars, ailing city

I first visited New York City in the late seventies to catch an inexpensive flight to Europe after graduation.  The New York that greeted me was an unnerving place.  Buildings were abandoned and boarded up.  Subways were strewn with graffiti - on their windows, ceilings, seats and floors.  When you rode the subways, the lights kept going off randomly for indeterminate periods.  You could forget visiting Central Park even in the daylight.  It was eye opening and I thought I'd never go back.  In the seventies a million people left New York City and it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

We've been back at least 10 times in the past 5 years!  Today's New York is exhilarating, vibrant and exciting.  The reason for the dramatic renaissance can be found in Malcolm Gladwell's thought provoking piece in the Tipping Point on the "broken window hypothesis."   Gladwell tells us the small things matter!  A policy of benign neglect in an isolated part of the city has adverse implications for the entire city.  In New York, the simple act of keeping subway cars clean, encouraged people to care about their city and this small transformation eventually led to reduced crime rates and a higher quality of life.

The little things count!

In 2011, Burlington missed opportunities, choosing not to include paved shoulders on North Shore Boulevard through LaSalle Park and on resurfaced sections of the North Service Road as well.  When questioned, the response was that bike lanes "were not there originally."  Another time worn excuse was that it "wasn't in the cycling master plan."  In 2013, foregoing bike lanes on Townsend Road is another example.

As Gladwell and the data points out, despite the political rhetoric, if you can't be bothered to fix the broken windows, you won't improve the city.  If you can be bothered to put bike lanes on smaller stretches of roadway, then the bigger more important roads such as Lakeshore Road won't get done as well!

The small things really do matter!

Burlington MISSED its game changer opportunity

"Leadership - Is it telling people what they want to hear, or taking them where they want to go!"

How one kilometer of bike lanes sparked a revolution

Heather Deal - Vancouver councillor  - "A couple of years ago we made the decision to close a lane of the Burrard Street bridge to cars and make it a bike lane. That was a game changer. That was the first time we took space away from cars. I was assigned the media, I thought this is the last time I’ll ever get elected because I’m going down over 1 km of 1 lane for traffic."  

Burlington council missed a golden opportunity to choose leadership that would have impacted generations of citizens in a positive, healthy way by voting against putting bike lanes on Lakeshore Road.

Councillor Deal of Vancouver was re-elected and Vancouver embraced and benefited from its bike lanes.

Cyclilng Tourism - It's IMPORTANT!

It's common to see large numbers of runners at road races in Burlington.  Hamilton hosts the oldest road race in North America, the Round the Bay Road Race.  It started in 1894 and is sold out well in advance of race day.

Cycling rides, known as GranFondos, are increasing in frequency & popularity.  The cycling "tourist" is 30-55 years old, professional, with a white collar job earning over $60,000.  They spend more and stay longer than average tourists.  The 3 year old Vancouver to Whistler GranFondo is a good example of what it brings to a city.
 
According to the CBC, the over 7,000 riders who participated, brought in over $20 million into the local economy.  20% of the riders were from outside of Canada, some from as far away as Brazil.

The Golden Horseshoe will host several rides in 2013 including GranFondos:
GranFondo Niagara - As of Feb., the site boasts over 1,000 spots have been taken.
Steve Bauer CanFondo - In support of the Milton Velodrome.
Epic Tour Halton - starting from Kelso Quarry.
Ride in Memory of Greg - Share the Road Ride in its 8th year.

Chip & Tar projects
planned for Burlington

Burlington with a central location, scenic hills and routes, is ideally situated to take advantage of cycling tourism.  Judging by the number of riders, there will be huge benefits to the local economy. Burlington should be doing more to encourage cycling visitors.

However, in addition to the lost opportunity to put bike lanes on Lakeshore Road, (without removing the centre turn lane), Burlington's rural road projects are deterrents to cyclists.  Burlington has adopted a policy of applying chip and tar (C&T) surface treatments to it's rural roads.  While these applications are cheaper by a factor of 5, they overlook the benefits of cycling tourism.

Cyclists do not like to ride on chip and tar roads and will avoid them at all costs!  C&T roads are not smooth, have loose gravel from the edges of the roadway and cyclists are prone to flats on these roads.

Google "cyclists chip and tar" and you'll find a list similar to that on the left.

Cyclists hate C&T roads!  Cycling clubs are posting chip & tar alerts on websites to enable cyclists to avoid C&T roads.  Contrary to assurances from engineers, these roads are not cycle worthy, even after several years of ageing.

C&T is myopic rationalization that looks good on the surface but once you scratch underneath, the basis for applying C&T is without merit.

As a Burlington taxpayer, I applaud the cost savings, but in this case the economic benefits of cycling tourism far outweigh the additional costs.  When we chip & tar, it's the same as hanging out banners telling cycling tourists to avoid Burlington.

In Burlington, more people walk & cycle than ride buses!!!

Despite over whelming evidence from multiple sources and speakers, Burlington council sided with anecdotal diatribes from residents fearing traffic delays, and voted against adding bike lanes to Lakeshore Road for a trail test period.

The NO voting councillors (Mead-Ward, Sharman, Taylor, Goldring) proclaimed they supported cycling!  Look at the capital budget projects and and a new ActiveTransportation Master Plan as evidence they cried.

Sorry, but the evidence states otherwise.  Below is Burlington's bike network after 15 years of councils that "supported cycling" in Burlington.  This council squandered a golden opportunity to add to the network.

A bike lane here, a bike lane there.  Nothing that you can conveniently take from point A to point B in a straightforward manner.  You can see why cycling numbers are low in Burlington!

However, even with the lack of a safe, continuous network of bike lanes, more people cycle & walk than take the bus!  Impossible you say!  In one of the largest surveys in North America, Transportation Tomorrow contacted residents by letter and phone to understand their urban travel needs.  The results below are for 3 years and show that more people cycle in Halton that ride buses.

In every year, in every measurement, more people made trips by cycling than by local transit.  

Imagine the numbers if a fraction of the enormous annual funding given to transit was channelled to cycling infrastructure - and it would only be for 1 year, unlike the annual subsidy given to transit.   

Drawing a line in the road

In a sad reversal of a previous vote, on Jan. 28th. Burlington Council voted against putting bike lanes on Lakeshore Road.

Don't worry, say the councillors and mayor who voted no against the proposal.  Burlington is a cycling friendly city and we'll champion this by spending millions on precarious, dated cycling infrastructure projects!  Specifically, Burlington will be pouring millions into multipurpose paths.  They will be put on the following streets:

Lakeshore Road (Torrance to Burloak)

Fairview St. (Walkers to Appleby)

Mainway (Northside to Walkers)

It doesn't matter that multipurpose paths, bisected by numerous driveways, next to roadways are hazardous.

It doesn't matter that MTO, AASHTO and transportation experts no longer promote multipurpose paths, bisected by driveways next to roadways.

Don't worry, cried those who voted no.  We know better!  We know more than experts and researchers.  We have our fingers on the pulse of the people .... and an election is coming in 2014!  And we'll spend taxpayer dollars on an Active Transportation Plan & experts because we need to get people out of their cars & its the right thing to do..... but if there's opposition, we may not implement it!

Dangerous                                                                                                               Safer

The Regions of Waterloo and Peel are in the process of completing their AT plans.  We can learn from them.  They've already done much of the leg work.  The chart above from the UBC research study on Bicyclists’ Injuries and the Cycling Environment, compares cycling infrastructure types and the degree of danger associated with cycling them.  

Multipurpose paths can be used to encourage cycling but they must meet specific criteria to be safe.  There must be few driveways and side street intersections, <1 per 300m.  None of the above routes meet this rule.

Sometimes the pulse of the people is wrong.  Years ago, people didn't want to be restricted by seat belts.  They would cause more accidents, they cried.  Before that, restaurants and bars, needed smoking otherwise they would go bankrupt!

It was a difficult decision.  Emotions ran high.  Misinformation was rampant.  A few councillors listened to the constructive positive arguments brought forward.  Thank you and my appreciation to Councillors Craven, Dennison and Lancaster who voted to make a safer, better Burlington.  

Year's earlier, our city's legal department sought opinions regarding the use of edge lines and bike lanes differentiating between them to avoid potential lawsuits.  Let's hope these dangerous multipurpose paths, bisected by driveways, next to roadways don't end up costing the city far more than the millions to install them.

NCDOT – Bicycle Facilities Guide: Types of Bicycle Accommodations
Bicyclists’ Injuries and the Cycling Environment  - highly recommended reading
MTO (1996) Ontario bikeways planning and design guidelines.pdf 2.6  - currently under revision as MTO Bk 18

The other [less than] 1%

At the Lakeshore Road (LSR) improvement committee meeting one council member asked why staff bothered producing a report outlining the feasibility of bike lanes because only .7 of 1% of the daily traffic were cyclists?  Similar sentiments were echoed in letters to the editor and to other council members.
There is a simple reason why few cyclists use LSR.  
The majority of cyclists will not cycle on dangerous roads with a high volume of traffic and no bike lane.  Make it safer and studies indicate, they will use it.

1.

Researchers found the presence of off-road bike paths and on-street bike lanes were, by far, the biggest determinant of cycling rates in cities. And that’s true even after you control for a variety of other factors like how hot or cold a city is, how much rain falls, how dense the city is, how high gas prices are, the type of people that live there, or how safe it is to cycle. None of those things seem to matter quite as much. The results, the authors write, “are consistent with the hypothesis that bike lanes and bike paths encourage cycling.”  Transportation July 2011 Buehler & Pucher.


A Portland, Oregon study gave cyclists GPS devices and recorded riding patterns.   She found that cyclists will go out of their way to use streets with bike lanes.

Focusing on a meaningless number is a red herring.  Independent studies from around the world show that if you bike lanes, people will use them.  If you build bike lanes that are safer to use, more people will use them.  

Beijing out of its haze - Back to the Future

No longer a common sight

"Twenty years ago, four out of five residents in the Chinese capital pedalled to work through  one of the world’s best systems of bicycle lanes."   Beijing's 9 million bicycles are being crowded out & disappearing.  Bike lanes are blocked by parked cars & frustrated motorists seeking to avoid traffic jams.  It is now "The most congested city on earth." 


The number of cars in Beijing has doubled since 2005 & 2,000 more cars are added daily.  4.7 million cars in 2010!  Pending car regulations, have spiked sales to 3,000 per day in Dec.

The Globe's Wheels section points out the fallacy of the auto-centric planning mentality.  According to Zhang Yu, a senior engineer with the Urban Transport Center under the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, “Before 1990 the government was building more and more roads but that was fine because there was a need for those roadways,” she said. “But after that, the more roads they built, the more serious the traffic jams became. So building new roads does not solve traffic jams.”

Avg Speed 20kph!
4miles in 2 hours.

"Zhang suggested different classes of tickets on public transportation to attract better-off customers, better bus and bike lanes, and more space for pedestrians. Building more roads was not the answer, she said." 
During the Olympics traffic congestion was reduced.  Cars were banned from roads on alternate days based on an even / odd system and the license plate number.   At some time, the only option is to ban cars or ironically, to make the cost so prohibitive, only the rich of this socialist country will be able to drive.  

Are there any clear days left to see
Beijing?

"[Chinese].... studies show that 60 per cent of the time, people's destinations are less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from their homes."  Its 57% in Canada!
 
Drowning in cars, bumper to bumper gridlock and a sickening pall of air pollution blocking the sun, Chinese leaders are now drafting regulations to "encouraging people in the former land of bicycles to revert to pedal power."  The state's next 5 year plan targets boosting  the number of cyclists by 25%.
The haze in Burlington is also lifting as it slowly moves back to the future.  Bike lanes help everyone, including drivers!  Why shouldn't there be bike lanes on Lakeshore Road?  The sooner, the better!

Step by step, inch by inch, ........ slowly it happens!

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."  Lao-tzu (604 BC - 531 BC)

At council's final meeting on Nov. 25, 2010, they took that step & passed the following amendment
"THAT Transportation Services staff, in collaboration with the Engineering Department, be directed to investigate the feasibility of widening Lakeshore Road from Burloak Drive to Downtown Burlington in order to accommodate on-road bike lanes and median refuge islands where possible while maintaining two narrowed travel lanes and a narrowed two-way left turn lane."

Its only 8 km from Brant to BurlOak.

With its left turn lanes and few traffic lights, Lakeshore Road encourages motorists to speed up.  The only east - west road in Burlington with fewer traffic lights than Lakeshore is the QEW!  This is a huge first step in making Lakeshore Road safer for everyone.  Thank you out-going council & mayor.

We're talking a distance of only 8km.  The impact will be dramatic!

To the new Transportation Services & Engineering Departments - let's make it happen so the new council enjoys what the old council started.  (Translation - let's do it in less than 4 years!).

Councillor Dennison was responsible for the amendment.  Thank you Mr. Dennison!!

Bicycling is a solution ..... not a problem.

Will more lanes help?

How many traffic lanes are enough?

The cars are moving too slowly, the cars are moving too slowly!  A local columnist has written 2 or 3 Lakeshore Road articles decrying council's decision to keep the status quo with 2 vehicle lanes and bike lanes.

Burlington's inglorious stretch of 4 lane Lakeshore Road, fronting our majestic waterfront, is the only 4 lane stretch until you reach Toronto.  When you think about it, the only other east/west road in Burlington with fewer traffic lights is the QEW!

Road diets, reducing 4 lanes to 2, with a centre turn lane are effective in reducing the number of vehicle collisions anywhere from 19-47%.   "Evaluation of Lane Reduction “Road Diet” Measures on Crashes"

What about off rush hour parking on Lakeshore Road?  Preliminary research on Toronto's Bloor West Village, indicated that "there is evidence to suggest that efforts to attract more pedestrians and cyclists will have a more positive economic impact on businesses than maintaining the existing parking on the street. On this section of Bloor Street, the existing parking demand can be accommodated by a reduced number of on‐street parking spaces combined with the existing off‐street parking spaces. It is clear that many merchants in the study area do not view on‐street parking as key to their business."

It would be a tremendous enhancement to the quality of life in Burlington if we road diet all of Lakeshore Road, and add bike lanes on Lakeshore to the Oakville border.

Bicycling and bike lanes are a solution, not a problem.