There’s been a lot of this sort of argument recently:
I thought of how this city, my city, puts more care into providing bike lanes for urban professionals than for housing the homeless. … If Robertson and the city of Vancouver would put one ounce of the passion into putting a few roofs over a few heads as they do with providing surplus recreation for the over-privileged, there’s one old man who might still be here today.
That’s from an op-ed in today’s Sun. But it’s typical: Choose your issue – and then decry the expenditure of dollars for something as trivial – or at least of lower priority – as a bike lane.
Such a juxtaposition usually suggests confusion between capital and operating expenditures. That is, the difference between paying for a program in an annual budget versus paying (or borrowing) to build or maintain a permanent piece of infrastructure.
And that’s not just a wonky distinction. If resources can be shifted from capital to operating any time a consitutency or politician dislikes a high-profile project, then any attempt at planning for infrastructure that extends beyond the term of a council wouldn’t be taken seriously.
But hey, so what. It makes a point about our priorities. So why not go where the real money is?
Did you know we are spending $22 billion on the Pacific Gateway – ports, roads, railways and airports. That’s a lot of money. (To illustrate: a million seconds equals about 12 days. A billion seconds? Almost 32 years.)
Doesn’t quite turn people’s crank like a bike lane, does it? And while, sure, the Gateway project is arguably justified as a jobs-generator, as good for the economy, so, arguably (no kidding), are bike lanes.
Illustration:
This is the block of Hornby Street (you can see the cycle-track divider in the foreground) between Beach and Pacific where the Appleton Gallery (the red building on the left) was once located – the business the owner claimed was killed by the Burrard bike-lane project.
But look what is next to it. The gray building is the Tactix Gym, which specializes in the kind of cross-training that appeals to, guess who?, the kind of customer who will be attracted by the bike lane. So which kind of business has the most potential for investment, jobs and growth? The art gallery or the gym? And which will benefit by this ‘investment in infrastructure’? I’m guessing the gym. With the bike racks out front.
So if job generation and economic growth is a good argument for the Pacific Gateway, it’s a good argument for a bike lane that attracts customers for the business that pays the city rent and property taxes. Which then helps pay for a city-funded shelter in the lane a block from the gym.
(Interestingly, the architect, Richard Evans, who has his office atop the gym, tells me that practically all eight of his staff will cycle to work, walk or take transit, with no need for car parking. Another saving, another competitive advantage for a downtown business.)
I think the trouble is that $22-billion is so much money that it’s nearly impossible to comprehend. It’s outside our scale of understanding, so we dismiss it too readily.
$3.2-million, on the other hand, is much easier to wrap our heads around. In Vancouver, many people can fathom spending that much money on a house (or at least they have friends or acquaintances or landlords who would) so it’s easier not to dismiss that sum.
I also think that it’s all too easy to diminish the perceived effect of a dollar spent on one project and amplify the perceived effect of it spent on another project. For instance, it’s quite easy to think that the money spent on the bike lane will have very little benefit because, hey, there’s never been a bike lane there and the street looks alright (i.e., it looks the same as many other roads and that’s normal). However, the homelessness problem is very obvious (as the title of the linked op-ed says) — we can see homeless people in the city and very quickly judge that there is a problem. By that immediate judgment, it’s tempting to say that a dollar spent on “homelessness” will go further than a dollar spent on bike lanes.
However, that’s only a superficial judgment. And it’s also a false dichotomy. It’s not like city council looked at their bank statement, saw that they had $3.2-million, and decided to spend it on the Hornby bike lane *instead* of on homelessness. It’s that they saw a need for the bike lane and found the money for it (a while ago, when the capital budget was designed). In fact, they also saw a need for work on homelessness, so they have that in the budget as well (though it may be in a different budget).
Lastly, the bike lane isn’t just for urban professionals. The last time I looked, Vancouver’s homeless population gets around far more by bicycle than by car. Perhaps if those who cannot afford a car can get around the city more easily, they’ll be more likely to find and keep a job.
The ‘criticism’ does not make any sense – on any level. The number one users of ‘bike lanes’ are….homeless people. After them, just cruise on up the socioeconomic ladder through every other rung of status until you reach ‘rich person who also bikes’. You can ask homeless folks whether they would prefer more/better housing or bike lanes — I suspect the answer will be bike lanes, at least here in sunny San Jose, CA, but very possibly most everywhere else in America, too. That says nothing about the best way to end/alleviate homelessness/poverty, which very well may be providing ways for non-rich people to get around (i.e. bike lanes).
That’s what opinion pieces do – they complain… and newspapers feed off of the sensationalism.
(i.e. another headline today – OMG, you can’t open and close the new BC Place roof in a hurricane!)
*****
BTW – looking at your photo, above – does the separated curb cause a problem getting street sweepers into the bike lanes to remove leaves? and does this cause a hazard to cyclists?
I just realized – street sweepers are gasoline powered as far as I know, so that would be inconsistent with the bike lanes. Time to get out the rakes!
Good article, and good point. I think more than anything, papers such as the Vancouver Sun simply aren’t actively questioning the need for Gateway, despite it’s, i believe, clearly faulty justification. It’s the same with transit – people are debating whether we should build Surrey or Broadway corridor expansions of our rapid transit system first, thinking we can’t build both, all the while we’re spending billions on road expansions, which won’t solve the problem. That’s a case of misplaced priorities.
At the same time, there’s no reason we can’t have a homeless shelter AND a bike lane, especially since, as was mentioned, poor people (like me) use bikes much more than the rich. Taxes on the wealthy and, especially, on corporations, have been cut by ridiculous amounts over the last 10 to 20 years to create this false sense of scarcity. Corporate taxes are now in the range of half of what they were in 1990 in Canada. The income taxes announced recently cost $600 million – why don’t we talk about spending that money collectively instead of each being able to afford a few more lattes? Income tax cuts certainly don’t help the homeless, or the very poor.
At the same time, this article completely ignores the jurisdictional responsibilities of the provincial and federal governments, both of which walked away from their responsibilities to house the homeless, and while the province has since come crawling back when the problem got several multiples worse, the feds have yet to do the same. What about pressuring them? They’re the ones with the big money, much more than $3.2 million.
There’s so much wrong with the comparison in that op-ed that it’s frightening. And it’s a problem because the rest of the op-ed raises a very serious, legitimate and frightening problem about our province, country and society. But let’s not lay the blame on bikes – that’s just nonsensical.
I imagine that even the location of the Appleton Gallery will soon be re occupied with a business that will draw people that cycle to it. The big concern in the area really should be the lack of bike parking which should be increased as I know this will become a big issue as the new separated cycle lane is completed. I rode in the area and even now with the cycle track not complete there is already a lot of cyclist riding along Hornby. I am excited to see once the lane is complete all the traffic that will flood this new bike lane.
I rode by Drake and Horby this afternoon. There was a guy with a bike and a trailer stuffed with what was I suspect everything he owned.
I can see it now: the next big thing bike lane opponents will seize on is that it attracts homeless people…
Tessa, you make a great point. Both issues need to be addressed, and the only reason resources are so scarce is because the taxation/economic pendulum of the political spectrum has swung so far to the right in the last generation or two that there’s no longer enough resources for government to effectively address multiple issues. It then becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that critics of government action can say, look government can’t do anything right. Well, no, of course it can’t if it doesn’t have the resources to do it. Are we supposed to choose between social equity and environmental stewardship?
I’m not as sure that the Appleton gallery will be rented out, my understanding is that it’s owned by the city, as is Kettle of Fish. Perhaps the PEF has an alternative plan for very prime real estate.
Gordon, an interesting piece. A couple of thoughts….
We need to revisit this post in the future to see what happens to the businesses along Hornby…do any of those that depend on car parking fail before their leases are up? are they replaced by businesses that can depend on bicycle parking rather than car parking?
On a related matter, what criteria have been established in order to assess whether this bicycle ‘trial’ is a success or a failure? Are the evaluation criteria publicly available? Do they contemplate some business failures? Do they contemplate a certain percentage increase in cyclists?
Finally, I was astonished by Peter Smith’s comment above:
“You can ask homeless folks whether they would prefer more/better housing or bike lanes — I suspect the answer will be bike lanes, at least here in sunny San Jose, CA”
I seriously doubt that that Vancouver’s homeless would chose bike lanes over housing.
And while I appreciate that we can have both, and different levels of government have different priorities, I would like to see this Mayor and Council demonstrating the same enthusiasm and commitment to housing the homeless that it has demonstrated towards bicycle lanes. Yes, we have a few more shelters, but there’s so much more that could be done.
Yes, the Kettle of Fish / Appleton site owned by the City is included in the City’s current Higher Buildings Policy Review for an increase in height (but not quite as tall as the Pattison/Reliance site up the street) (from 220ft to about 300 ft).
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/capacitystudy/pdf/Higher%20Building%20Open%20House%20Boards.pdf
[Note this is a big file, download instead of viewing online]
@Michael, I’m sure more can be done to house the homeless, but what does that have to do with bike lanes?
Also, while I appreciate it’s bad form to excuse current failures on past failures and that’s not what I’m trying to do here, is there a case to be made that the previous NPA council did more to help homeless than Vision? The only major difference I can think of between the two terms off the top of my head that was an initiative of the city of Vancouver first would be the HEAT shelters, which Vision introduced, and had a significant impact, if at the cost of complaints from neighbours.
Oops. It appears that link doesn’t work anymore.
Ron,
Here’s a link that works:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/capacitystudy/feedback.htm
Don