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Cycling and Active Transportation in Edmonton

trevorhayden said:
I would argue the removal is the complete waste of money. So is the long-term plan to move both cycling lanes to the south side of the Promenade? Now that accelerated Bike Plan implementation is funded, I highly doubt the Promenade will return to the status quo for long.
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Here’s what’s insane:

-east of 110st is a bi-directional bike lane on the north side of 100ave.
-north of jasper ave is a painted uni-directional bike lane on both the east and west sides of 121st.

I was in the engagement and the key reason for uni-directional on Victoria was because of 121 becoming 2 seperate lanes. Even though it’s crappy painted lanes in a door zone that needs to be redone anyways.

What we should actually do is just bi-directional along one side of Victoria and then change 121st to bidirectional as well since it’s not permanent yet.

Why we based a whole pilot on a bad design elsewhere that’s not even staying likely is beyond me. And we would have avoided all the parking stuff and pissed off newspaper letters AND got the bike lane design most bikers wanted.

How the city ensured both camps were pissed is beyond me tbh.
 
BASE said:
This was surely shared last year but I found it trying to gather some literature on what to expect in Edmonton with this funding.


Building a bunch of lanes is no silver bullet and some of the biggest challenges even with new lanes I see are:

  • People need a simple, safe, and secure way to store their bikes at their destination
  • Habits are very engrained so people need to be really taught about new route connections and they will have to be easy to navigate
  • Winter cities can have a bike culture but bike lane clearing as the network grows will continue to be important and convincing people to bike in the winter is a habit/culture change that could be the biggest lift.
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Safe storage will be key for us. Especially at transit stations. And we should do subsidies for turning in old cars like many European countries do. Scrap an old car and get 3k credit for ebike. Helps people think twice at a moment of decision/change. Vs trying to get people to randomly deciding in the middle of a car ownership cycle. When they’re looking at 10-40k for a new car, a 3k ebike is enticing.

also, we need major work done around high school and universities. Delaying car ownership is key. Many Edmontonians will have to have access to 1 car for a season of life (families especially). But the less households with people in the 16-25 age range owning 1 car per person the better!

And then moving as many households to 1 car plus bikes/transit is key. So many homes have 2-4cars for 2-4 people.
 
thommyjo said:
And then moving as many households to 1 car plus bikes/transit is key. So many homes have 2-4cars for 2-4 people.
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I think the city manager said there are about 715,000 vehicles registered in Edmonton so factoring out all the people who can't drive or can't afford to drive or who choose not to drive, that's a pretty high number.

About 500,000 Edmontonians have bikes, too, so that bodes well for the upcoming infrastructure.
 
TAS said:
I think the city manager said there are about 715,000 vehicles registered in Edmonton so factoring out all the people who can't drive or can't afford to drive or who choose not to drive, that's a pretty high number.

About 500,000 Edmontonians have bikes, too, so that bodes well for the upcoming infrastructure.
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Totally. We need better data on transportation in our city. Multi modal is the future. Most data we collect is commuter based and assumes the most used method is the only method.

In reality, the future for many could look like:
-walk with kid to school.
-LRT to work.
-bike share to drinks in evening
-drive kids to hockey in evening (car share or owned).

And we’ll see big seasonal swings with transit and biking for winter & school seasons. Many will rarely drive in the summers in the future, but will keep cars for winter.

We need to better measure this. It’s not about getting car drivers to become cyclists or something. But increasing the number of trips in non car modes in a typical week/month.
 
Gronk! said:
globalnews.ca

Winter cycling in Alberta growing more popular | Globalnews.ca

When Edmonton city council approved $100 million to build out a network of bike lanes, many condemned the decision, saying Alberta’s climate is not conducive to cycling.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca
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I like this from the story:

Edmontonian Nicola Dinicola started cycling through the winter months in 2018.

“I’m just a normal person, average fitness,” she said. “Kind of lazy, unmotivated, sometimes cheap. So it’s really handy to not have a car and not worry about parking or insurance or maintenance.”

Dinicola said her cutoff point is around -20 or -25 degrees with the windchill.

“If it was hard, I probably would not do it because I am not one of those with something to prove. I’m just cheap and I just want to roam free,” she said.

Story also talks about how 'normalized' winter cycling has become over time in places like Finland. It was -17C the day this pic was taken there and 1,000 of the 1,200 kids at this school get there by bike.

Screenshot_20221221-075422_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
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It's funny, I was at a dinner party at a friend's last night - an annual thing for New Years - and for the previous few years the most heated topic of debate/discussion was usually Donald Trump or the UCP. But last night, it was bike lanes, haha.

"It's stupid to have bike lanes when its -40c here."

"They took away money that should have gone to the homeless."

In a letter to the editor in the EJ yesterday, a person actually argued that bikes/bike lanes are for the privileged!

It was 5-4 at the party in favor of the lanes though - although one in favor was from Calgary, who was envious.
 
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TAS said:
It's funny, I was at a dinner party at a friend's last night - an annual thing for New Years - and for the previous few years the most heated topic of debate/discussion was usually Donald Trump or the UCP. But last night, it was bike lanes, haha.

"It's stupid to have bike lanes when its -40c here."

"They took away money that should have gone to the homeless."

In a letter to the editor in the EJ yesterday, a person actually argued that bikes/bike lanes are for the privileged!

It was 5-4 at the party in favor of the lanes though - although one in favor was from Calgary, who was envious.
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To Janz credit, he is pushing for more balanced opinions to be shared in news media about bike lanes. He sends out emails encouraging folks to share their opinions and to date there have been some positive results. Hopefully will help dilute some of the nonsense opinions about bike lanes posted in the media.
 
That's a good point. Normally at this point in a political debate, we'll hear from those who are upset at the idea, no matter the reason.
 
I dislike the talk in absolutes. Too many say there should be no bike lanes while others talk about their hate for cars and that there should be no more new roads or even roads removed.

I am most impressed by those that can advocate for their position without diminishing others. Clearly many folks want good roads just as others want active transport infra.
 
I think one thing that could encourage more cycling are the 40 km/h speed limits.in residential neighbourhoods.
 
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