308 replies to this topic

[Evan]

The traffic may reduce, but as with water flowing through a pipe it still needs to go somewhere, so reduce shelbourne to 1 lane each way and watch Cedar Hill and Richmond and Foul Bay increase, not to mention all the money that will be spent on closing side streets.

I dont have a problem with reducing to single lane but there are certain streets that need to remain as arterial roads while others could be considered for bike lanes etc. Why not put bike lanes on Richmond and Cedar Hill Rds? Make cedar Hill 1 way and take the other lane for parking and bikes....just a thought.

This is true to a point. Dissipation throughout the street network would occur, but this would be beneficial so some extent.

More importantly, closing those lanes up would only happen as a trade-off to bike lanes and transit lanes, which have WAY, WAY more capacity (wider pipes) than vehicular lanes.



Therefore, the ultimate goal would be a modal shift, meaning more people cycling, walking, transiting, as those methods become more convenient, efficient, viable, etc.

Wide roads or wider roads will never solve traffic problems.

Traffic is a symptom of insufficient mobility options and poor land use.

Evan(makevictoriabetter dot com)

[gumgum]

They should reduce north Cook to one lanes as well.

[piltdownman]

Yes, reducing lanes seems like a no brainer to me. If anyone is concerned about this should experience the lane reductions on Esquimalt rd. I notice no difference in speeds and it's much easier to navigate.

Is Esquimalt rd going to have bike lanes when they finish? Currently they have a sign that says "Cyclist take lane". If this is the long term plan then I would say the lane reduction is an epic failure. I would also argue that mixing a crosswalk with a treed median is a dangerous design flaw.

[gumgum]

Since they do have bike lanes further west on Esquimalt I would assume it will all have bike lanes. It's not finished yet.

[North Shore]

//thread drift// Evan, where did you get those photos from? A good illustration of relative modes of transport.

[Ms. B. Havin]

^ I saw those photos when they came out, but now can't remember where.

However, the example seems to have cropped up in several versions:
here



and here, for example.


These are different from the version that Evan posted - the first one was originally in Treehugger. They seem to be made especially for specific (local) places. Photoshop wizards could probably do something similar for Shelbourne St.

[Evan]

//thread drift// Evan, where did you get those photos from? A good illustration of relative modes of transport.

I am not sure exactly where I originally came across them/it. For my work, I was researching such things and found it via google (as all things?).

Thanks for the other photos Ms B.

[Evan]

I am not sure exactly where I originally came across them/it. For my work, I was researching such things and found it via google (as all things?).

Thanks for the other photos Ms B.

Hey folks,

Just wanted to let you know that I found another one of those 'images', but with stats this time -- what I've personally been looking for.



If that's too small, then you can see it blown up a little on my latest blog post: http://www.makevicto...t-modes-of.html

The image is from an awesome brochure by the European Commission which can be found here: http://www.ecf.com/3675_1

Cheers.

[rjag]

Those are all very nice pictures and create the necessary effect that car=bad.

Currently we are car dependent in NA because everything is centralised. i.e. Large shopping centres, big box store concentrations. We do this because we want space for our private property and dont want these in our immediate vicinity.

What the car=bad picture calls for is decentralisation of services to the neighborhood level so that you can walk, bike or ride a donkey.

Not gonna work here, in europe/asia, sure but they have high density populations....we dont and you'll be hard pressed to force (brainwash) the population to give up their 1/4 acre lot and car just to ride a bus.

Shelbourne corridor is potentially a good candidate as there are 5-6 small shopping centres along a short distance, but for the most part unless youre doing a starbucks run, the current configuration of stores there require a car, think Home Depot, Groceries etc. and one of the great holdbacks of decentralisation of service businesses in neighbourhoods is Property values, property taxes and the big one, the neighbours wont support it because they'd rather drive to Home Depot or Safeway as its gonna be cheaper.

This whole thing is about societal change & control Good luck with that, We've got enough nannies in municipal government wanting to ruin (oops I meant run) our lives and what has it accomplished, not very much thank god

[Bob Fugger]

Hey folks,

Just wanted to let you know that I found another one of those 'images', but with stats this time -- what I've personally been looking for.



If that's too small, then you can see it blown up a little on my latest blog post: http://www.makevicto...t-modes-of.html

The image is from an awesome brochure by the European Commission which can be found here: http://www.ecf.com/3675_1

Cheers.

Shiva H. Vishnu, this is the most flawed metric I've seen in a long time - and I'm a public servant!!!

Firstly, I don't understand what the graphic is trying to tell me. Is this the highest possible number of people that you can cram through a 3.5m wide-space in 1 hour, or some kind of average? What is the vehicle capacity of the non-pedestrian/cycling modes? How can a sane person come to the logical conclusion that you can move more people through the same finite time and space on foot (19,000) than on bike (14,000)?

Second, this same website advocates helmetless cycling because they feel helmets dangerize cycling. They're essentially saying that the probablity of suffering an injury when cycling is small, therefore the probability of that injury being a head injury is miniscule. Yeah, I like them odds.

[Baro]

WHy would anyone advocate getting RID of helmets???

[Bob Fugger]

WHy would anyone advocate getting RID of helmets???

Why, indeed. Check out the website to which Evan is referring and some of the links (particularly cyclehelmets.org). The main theme of the latter is that helmets may well prevent head injuries, but helmets also cause a spike in the number of people that give up cycling. Since head injuries are rare and getting more people into cycling is good, helmets (and helmet laws) are bad.

So that pretty much erases any faith I would put into their silly little graphic.

[aastra]

WHy would anyone advocate getting RID of helmets???

They want cycling to take off. Nothing that messes up your hair will ever take off.

I have no doubt that lax attitudes about helmets are one of the big reasons for cycling's popularity overseas. I know quite a few folks from Europe and Asia who live here now and I'm always making fun of them for the way they carry their helmets on their handlebars.


picture from http://latimesblogs....copenhagen.html


picture from http://sustainable-s...en_cyclists.jpg

[Baro]

As long as they opt-out on any government health insurance when they crack their head open because they thought a helmet wasn't stylish, I'm for that.

What next "hard hat requirements at worksites scare style-conscious people from taking up the career". Safety harnesses make window-washing uncomfortable, lets get rid of them to attract more window-washers.

Just build a damn tram system and stop obsessing over bikes, they're over-rated in terms of "alternate transportation". For the amount of infrastructure cyclists demand compared to the amount of people who actually use their bikes instead of cars it's a bad investment. We want to build a whole new bridge in the name of bike-lanes! Better transit would get far more people out of cars.

[jklymak]

Removing a car lane and replacing it with a bike lane costs almost nothing. I'm with you about transit, but I don't understand the thinking that it bikes or transit: to me its its bikes and transit or cars.

[piltdownman]

At the risk of getting more offtopic, why is the helmet law so badly enforced? Actually cyclists pretty much get a free ride when it comes to law enforcing. Just yesterday I was behind a police car on Johnson and a Cyclist was riding the wrong way down the street ... the police didn't even bother to stop them.

[Bingo]

Removing a car lane and replacing it with a bike lane costs almost nothing. I'm with you about transit, but I don't understand the thinking that it bikes or transit: to me its its bikes and transit or cars.

I agree. This is similar to a point I have been trying to make on the Johnson Street Bridge Thread.

[Evan]

Why, indeed. Check out the website to which Evan is referring and some of the links (particularly cyclehelmets.org). The main theme of the latter is that helmets may well prevent head injuries, but helmets also cause a spike in the number of people that give up cycling. Since head injuries are rare and getting more people into cycling is good, helmets (and helmet laws) are bad.

So that pretty much erases any faith I would put into their silly little graphic.

Hi Bob,

I am that advocate of getting rid of helmet laws.

The reasons for doing so are overwhelming. You will come around.

Maybe, you should actually read the post, instead of dismissing my argument on one or two of many points.

I created a new thread as to not hijack this one.

[amor de cosmos]

jane's walks coming up in this area
http://saanich.ca/bu...urne.html#janes

[Mike K.]

That sounds like a great idea!