Kirk LaPointe delivers his “Why I Want To Be Mayor” article to the Vancouver Observer, laying out the NPA’s priorities following the November 15 civic election. Bicycles come in for mention.
“We have cyclists and motorists angry with each other because we did not build the necessary bike lanes properly or with adequate consultation.”
Apparently, all the angst around bike lanes is due to a botched process of consultation. This type of “process argument” is hard to refute, but has the characteristic that it is bloodless, and usually fails to capture public imagination. In my opinion, the angst is less about consultation, and more about very real changes to the previously unquestioned dominance of the motor vehicle on the streets of Vancouver.
No amount of consultation will cool the anger of a person who is afraid that someone is going to take their car away, or has reduced the amount of asphalt devoted to it. And no amount of consultation is going to make everyone happy. At the end of the day, such process arguments are intended mostly to slow things down to a crawl, and put off contentious decisions with endless committees, sub-committees, working groups and studies.
I suppose that we should be happy that this material contains the phrase ” . . . necessary bike lanes . . .”. It’s a big change for the NPA, a tacit admission that people riding bicycles are here to stay, and that infrastructure has a part to play. And in only three years.
“4. A minimum bicycle grid and network and technology to make traffic more effective and less polluting.”
Coming from an experienced newspaperman, this promise is not very clearly written. I’m really not sure what is a ” . . . minimum bicycle grid . . .”, or what ” . . . effective traffic . . .” is. But it sounds like a half-hearted intent to do as little bikey stuff as possible, once the committees have reported and studies are done. At the very least, I suppose that we should be grateful that Mr. LaPointe and the NPA realize that a “… bicycle grid . . ” is a thing at all, and that “rip them out” has not surfaced this election as a high priority. And in only three years.
It does occur to me that HUB’s “Un-Gap the Map” initiative is very well-timed, since it shows clearly what our well-regarded bike experts think is the necessary bicycle grid in Metro Vancouver.
– Ken Ohrn
Hmm…I think consultation and talking with people would have been important and would have made a difference regarding bike lanes or any improvement in the public realm. There is a richness in that dialogue. Consultation also enables citizens to make suggestions that the City staff would not have thought about. I have some sadness that the pedestrian experience was not vastly improved with the implementation/enhancement of many bike lanes.
That’s the point. Consultation happened. It’s just that for some people, there’s never enough until their own point of view is taken as gospel.
Well put.
Or in some cases I’ve known folks who are so detached from local planning and politics that they don’t even realize things are changing until they see construction crews working. Then they say “hey! I wasn’t consulted!”
No, you had multiple opportunities to give your input during the years of planning that went into X project, but because it’s (admittedly) pretty boring stuff, you never paid any attention to it.
It’s kind of a frustrating position.
When Gil Penalosa make the case for a “A minimum bicycle grid and network”…
All the bicycle advocates endorse and applaude at the idea (the idea is grid and network)…
they even do so at a SFU talk not long time ago
…But have the NPA endorsing this very idea…and you have Ken Ohrn explaining you how bad this “minimum grid” idea is…
Partisanship at work?
The philosophical change that the NPA has shown by saying “some bike lanes are OK, we guess, as long as they live up to our unspecified standards” is a couple decades late but still welcome.
But they won’t be above criticism unless and until they actually show some initiative in improving our bike infrastructure. For me this isn’t partisanship, it’s just that I’m desperate to have more than one municipal party eager to improve our cycling infrastructure.
I’m in favour of a maximum bicycle grid and network. And I think HUB’s “Un-Gap the Map” is a pretty good starting point.
Dude. Go back and re-read what it says up there. I think you’ve misunderstood entirely.