What a boring title.
Sorry.
Maybe we can we spice it up by bringing out a “gotcha” talking point I used to see when I was on Twitter?
Some people can’t ride a bike!!!
There you go!
But actually this is true. Despite being on Twitter. Some people can’t ride a bike.
Actually it’s kinda obvious, right? And that makes it… boring. Sigh.
Also true, obvious and boring:
- Some people can’t take transit.
- Some people can’t walk.
- Some people can’t drive.
That’s why we need safe and practical options for everyone.
We can address safety and practicality for each of these modes.
Transit is safe, actually the safest mode, with professional drivers and large vehicles. But it’s often not practical because it’s slow or unreliable.
- We can fix that by investing in more buses and operators, and transit priority measures that allow buses to move more quickly.
Walking or using a wheelchair is practical for short distances. But in some areas, sidewalks are too narrow or filled with obstructions, forcing pedestrians and wheelchair users onto the road.
- We can fix that with wider and better sidewalks with fewer obstructions.
Cycling and other mobility devices can be practical and safe where there is slow and little motor vehicle traffic. In other areas it’s impractical and dangerous.
- We can fix that by providing safe facilities.
Driving is somewhat safe for drivers: a crash with a pedestrian, wheelchair, bike or mobility scooter is unlikely to kill or injure the driver. But crashes with other motor vehicles and crashes with stationary objects cause many deaths or injuries per year. Driving is practical especially for longer trips. For short trips, traffic congestion and time wasted parking can make driving slower, but not really impractical.
- We can improve safety by better road engineering, and by enforcement of impaired driving, distracted driving, and speeding laws and other rules of the road.
- We can make parking more available by charging parking fees, and we can address congestion by making the space-efficient modes work better (e.g. 40% of people moving on Douglas Street are in 3% of the vehicles – buses).
So yes not everyone can use every mode. And some modes are impractical and/or unsafe for some trips.
That’s why we need to improve our public right-of-way spaces and our services, to provide safe, practical options for everyone.
The draft Official Community Plan recognizes this need in Part 3, as does Go Victoria, our mobility strategy.
And once you make modes safer and more practical, some people change their minds about how to get around. We’ve seen that recently in Victoria, where cycling went up between 2017 and 2022, even as all other modes went down (pandemic, work-from-home).
Figure from Go Victoria
I strongly support the ongoing redesign of the public right-of-way to provide safe and practical transportation options for everyone. We will continue…
Safe and practical. Keeping transportation boring!
Figure from Draft Victoria 2050 OCP