11042 replies to this topic

[sdwright.vic]

Cycling ridership was up every single month in 2018 over 2017

Okay so let's say everything is up... not enough (nor will it ever be... It will continue to climb but will meet a ultimate cap), enough to justify extremely specialized infrastructure and expense. Not so certain.

[Brantastic]

Well, yesterday it was sunny, with blue sky, no rain and a high temperature of 11.2 celsius.

 

So of course you saw bikes yesterday downtown!

Haha, oops. I legitimately didn't mean yesterday. I wasn't there yesterday!

[nagel]

This thread is so hopelessly boring.

[sebberry]

This thread is so hopelessly boring.

 

What then, in your mind, would fix that?

[rjag]

This thread is so hopelessly boring.

 

This cheer you up?

https://www.foodnetw...s-to-cook-kale/

[rmpeers]

Sadly, it doesn't really matter if the bike lanes are busy or not. Victoria has become a city of sub-Trump personality-cult politics where, if Helps says something is great, there are thousands of voices ready to bleet their approval. Unsafe for cars? Unsafe for the blind? No problem.

There is no point trying to use logic. This city is full of people who knowingly voted for a mayor who enabled, praised and rewarded a sexual predator. That's the level we are at. Very sad, but there we are.

[spanky123]

Sadly, it doesn't really matter if the bike lanes are busy or not. Victoria has become a city of sub-Trump personality-cult politics where, if Helps says something is great, there are thousands of voices ready to bleet their approval. Unsafe for cars? Unsafe for the blind? No problem.

There is no point trying to use logic. This city is full of people who knowingly voted for a mayor who enabled, praised and rewarded a sexual predator. That's the level we are at. Very sad, but there we are.

 

The Mayor promises affordable housing, equality and climate change prevention and world peace. Lots of people willing to overlook her "flaws" in order to support that.

[sdwright.vic]

This thread is so hopelessly boring.

Yet you make THIS comment instead of ignoring the thread?

[sebberry]

I still don’t understand this idea of “social engineering”. Weren’t the roads as we know them today engineered specifically to encourage a particular form of transportation (cars)? City planners from around the world now realize it was a mistake to build cities entirely around the car. Why is it so devious that infrastructure could be built to encourage one form of transportation over another? Especially when cars present so many problems (pollution, noise pollution, congestion, obesity, urban sprawl, etc). The streets have already been “socially engineered” to encourage automobiles and discourage other forms of transport, which we now understand was a mistake, so why can’t they be “socially engineered” to bring other forms of transport back?

 

Roads were built to meet an emerging demand of wheeled transportation, not necessarily to encourage it.  Responding to a demand isn't social engineering.

 

Oh, but aren't the bike lanes a response to a demand?  Sure, but they're also how this city council has decided to take aim at the big corporation/fossil fuel consumer types in an effort to specifically frustrate drivers out of their cars by neglecting vehicle infrastructure, neglecting parking needs and neglecting optimizations to traffic flow (Hello, why do we have cars waiting for three full light cycles to turn right from Pandora to Blanshard?)

 

I don't take issue with the installation of bike lanes.  I take issue with the blatant attack on motorists.  Throw us a bone - pave Johnson for crying out loud, it's a goat trail of a road.  Improve light timing, make it easier for drivers to see lane markings on a rainy night (that'll improve pedestrian and cyclist safety too).  Stop encouraging addicts to roam the city looking for cars to break into.  

[rmpeers]

The Mayor promises affordable housing, equality and climate change prevention and world peace. Lots of people willing to overlook her "flaws" in order to support that.

Of course, they make excuses but make no mistake, if you voted for the mayor, you advocated for sexual harassment.

[Mike K.]

Uhh, no. Mode share shifted considerably in the past 15 years, whether you measure all trips (CRD OD data) or just work trips (Stats Can Census Data). And regional mode shifts mask much bigger trends at the city and smaller level.

 

Considerably is a bit of a stretch. From the CRD's latest transportation report:

 

Finally, the table below compares daily mode share. It can be seen that the auto driver / auto passenger shares have generally remained stable over time, with slight drops evidenced in both modes in 2011 and continuing in 2017. Nonetheless, the two modes together capture three quarters of all daily trips. After a reduction in 2011 to 6.5% from 7.0% in 2006, transit’s share has increased to 7.8% in 2017. The bicycle and walk shares has increased, with the cycling share almost doubling to 5.1% in 2017 and the walk share increasing slightly to 13.7%.

 

So we're literally where we've been for time immemorial, despite cycling "almost doubling" to 5.1%. It's a little disingenuous to call the nearly indiscriminate fluctuations considerable, since all that happened was transit moved to 7.8% from 6.9% over a span of 16 years, cycling pushed from 2.6% (2001) to 5.1% (2017) and walking (2001) 11.7% to 13.7% (2017). Walking and cycling added nearly the same proportional growth (cycling 2.5 percentage points and walking 2.0 percentage points).

[rjag]

Considerably is a bit of a stretch. From the CRD's latest transportation report:

 

 

So we're literally where we've been for time immemorial, despite cycling "almost doubling" to 5.1%. It's a little disingenuous to call the nearly indiscriminate fluctuations considerable, since all that happened was transit moved to 7.8% from 6.9% over a span of 16 years, cycling pushed from 2.6% (2001) to 5.1% (2017) and walking (2001) 11.7% to 13.7% (2017). Walking and cycling added nearly the same proportional growth (cycling 2.5 percentage points and walking 2.0 percentage points).

 

But we keep being lectured that 1 in 10 commutes in town are by bike....that sounds awfully like 10%...that would mean 10% of traffic twice per day ie between 7:30 and 9AM and 4PM-6PM taking place are by bike...Not seeing that when I drive and walk downtown. 

[sdwright.vic]

Don't forget to factor in population increases as a reason for the increase in cyclists as well, thus not being new cyclists (ie- not people who decided to take up bike riding because of the new lanes).

[Mike K.]

The mode share split is laughable, isn't it?

[Nparker]

At 13.7% mode share for walking, it seems like some re-investment in sidewalks would be warranted.

[Mike K.]

Instead we have the CFIB taking the City of Victoria to the baseball diamond over the creation of unsafe conditions for blind pedestrians.

[Jackerbie]

Instead we have the CFIB taking the City of Victoria to the baseball diamond over the creation of unsafe conditions for blind pedestrians.

 

The design is fine, the users are the issue. If the lawsuit was truly about the design, then we should expect the exact same lawsuit brought against every single right-turn slip lane in the city. The context is no different, and the danger is far greater.

[Mike K.]

I think the issue is the safety of being forced to disembark a bus between a vehicle travel lane and two bicycle travel lanes. That creates a lot of danger/uncertainty for blind persons.

[shoeflack]

I think the issue is the safety of being forced to disembark a bus between a vehicle travel lane and two bicycle travel lanes. That creates a lot of danger/uncertainty for blind persons.

 

So does the slip lane that Jackerbie points out above, though. At almost every intersection that has one, the accessible chirping signal doesn't cover the crosswalk to get across the slip lane, just the one to get across the main traffic lane.

 

And there are a heck of a lot more slip lanes to cross in Victoria than there are bike lane island bus stops.

[sdwright.vic]

we should expect the exact same lawsuit brought against every single right-turn slip lane in the city. The context is no different, and the danger is far greater.

Actually it is different. Cars drivers are conditioned and trained to yield way to pedestrians at those, as well the blind can hear a car a lot more than they can a car.

I can see and can't get bike to yield to me.