ON active transport news 2024-02
What is newsworthy in active transport this month?
This used to be published as an email newsletter. We’re taking the leap to Medium to try to reach a broader audience. The goal is to aggregate some of the most interesting and important news related to active transportation in Ontario, Canada.
Previous month: 2024–01
Upcoming events
Ontario bike summit, April 3–5 in Waterloo.
Plans in the news
Following are 3 major news stories: Hamilton pitched a cycling plan, Canada announced an Active Transport Fund, and Quebec City plans to build 150km of cycling infrastructure.
Hamilton pitches 60 M$ plan for cycling. The proposal would add more than 140 km of new or improved bikes lanes and multi-use pathways (MUTs) before 2028.
Canada announced an Active Transportation Fund of 400 M$. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault specified that it is for projects that encourage walking, cycling, and the use of wheelchairs, scooters, e-bikes, roller blades, snowshoes and cross-country skis.
Québec City plans to build a new 150 km all-season cycling network over the next 10 years. This is a city of population 540k in the neighbouring province of Québec; there are 3 cities in Ontario with similar populations: Hamilton, Kitchener, and London. The 14 new active mobility routes are referred to as “Vélocité corridors.”
Better street design
Better Street design saves lives. The effects are both physical, by providing safe barriers to protect vulnerable persons, and psychological, by making drivers perceive their speed and maintain their attention. For example, after the transformation of La Jolla Blvd, noise levels dropped 77%, retail sales rose 30%, and traffic crashes fell by 90%. In other cases, reckless driving dropped 90% after calming.
The post below by Strong Towns of the transformation of La Jolla Blvd really shows the difference of better street design. Notice the much shorter pedestrian crossing distances. There are still some problems: it would be much more comparable if the photos were from the same angle, it isn’t clear where cyclists are supposed to go, the the parking buffer or in line with motor vehicles with a limit of 40 km/h (25 mi/h). It is also worth noting that this seems to be a major arterial road with priority to motor vehicles with room allotted for buses. Want to read more? Check out this post by Project for Public Spaces. You can also explore the spot from PPS on Google Street View.
The Dutch are way ahead when it comes to street safety. This is no accident: it is a result of deliberate engineering and risk mitigation over decades. Becoming more familiar with the gold standard in road safety will be a recurring theme here.
Thanks to the Dutch Cycling Embassy for pointing out these aspects.
‘Build the Lane’ highlights the five key ingredients that go into making Dutch Roads:
✅ The Traffic Law
✅ The CROW & SWOV
✅ The Responsibility of Safety
✅ Dutch Environmental Laws
✅ Polderpolitiek
Video on YouTube: Build the Lanes, 19:09
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cycling_Embassy/status/1737035095494570374
‘Sustainable Safety’ is the Dutch approach to road safety; a policy that proactively removes danger rather than reacting to it. Mobility is seen as a right, and cities must accommodate all ages and abilities.
CROW-Fietsberaad has published a new memorandum on the profiel van vrije ruimte (PVR; profile of free space) for cyclists.
The designer uses the recommended measurements to determine the (minimum) dimensions of cycling infrastructure on the right-of-way.
Psychology of transport
“Car Brain” — the cultural blind spot that makes people apply double standards when they think about driving — is real, measurable and pervasive.
Read the paper: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/egnmj
Summary on Twitter: https://x.com/ianwalker/status/1615248156186247169
The hope of ONAT (this publication) is to help promote cities be designed for people, not for cars. These monthly news rollups are just one approach to this, and more in-depth content will also be published.
Edited in response to feedback: remove some inline linked content to improve continuity, and to provide more details.
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