This weekend in Centennial Square the Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition and a whole host of community partners, including Safer Cycling Oak Bay, are hosting Velo Victoria: a celebration of bike culture. The festivities start up at 7pm on Friday night, with movies and music. Saturday morning comes the kids bike decorating event followed by a bike parade for kids, a place to get your bike fixed up, consignment sales and more. Check out the schedule for full details.
Safer Cycling OB will be there to talk about our upcoming bike master plan, which we are still deep in data collection for. We are still looking for volunteers to help with counting, so if you are interested, drop us a line.
The dirty little secret about Spencer Road interchange being useless is now official. Interchange project manager Tim Stevens told Saanich News that,
There is no functional urgency at this point. The Spencer Road intersection at the highway is still working
Of course, the slow down in the housing market has nearly stopped development on Bear Mountain and Skirt Mountain developments, but even so, this giant white elephant is a lovely reminder of how useless new highway development really is. Now hopefully we can kill the McTavish Rd. interchange before if even starts construction.
The long struggle over the future of Jordan River is nearer to a conclusion after a court ruling in favour of Western Forest Products, the development company masquerading as a forestry company. Gordon O’Connor, forest campaigner with the Dogwood Initiative quite rightly says,
a step backwards for this area and everyone who cares about the future of our wild coast.a step backwards for this area and everyone who cares about the future of our wild coast.
WFP is already restarting plans for 319 subdivisions in the area, with public hearings in the fall. However, all is not lost, as the CRD can still reject the developments on an individual basis, but this is going to cost a lot of money, something that Geoff Young, CRD Chairman and City of Victoria Councillor, would love for the province to help pay for.
Beyond the loss and degradation of habitat through the building of new homes and roads, any new development is going to be low-density sprawl, furthering car use and unsustainable living. The best part is that because these developments cannot pay for themselves due to low tax base, we, the residents of the core municipalities are going to be subsidizing them while watching our roads, schools and sewers crumble.
Saltspring Island Coffee Roastery runs into difficultly getting a new factory zoned (Times Colonist). I am deeply suspicious of statements by the proponents that appear to be ultimatums, such as Mickey McLeod who said that “the operation might move off-island”. However, given Saltspring Coffee’s track record, I am inclined to believe them. Hopefully a compromise can be reached.
Every single time the cops do a sweep of trucks on the road, they pull a lot off. Victoria Police found exactly the same a few days ago (Times Colonist). Until such time as they start cracking down on the companies that own these trucks, don’t expect the story to change. Also expect more people to die, like those poor farm workers in the Lower Mainland who died when their van rolled over (CBC) a few years back.
The TLC’s little internal feud will hopefully be over with a vote tonight, although I doubt it. Infighting of this size usually either takes a split in the organization or many years to heal.
Lastly, on a lighter note, a look at “Art for Urban Planners” (Planetizen), including the work of the almost-surreal Josh Keyes, whose work is shown on the right.
One motorist was upset at having to brake for uniformed officers jaywalking across Vernon Avenue from the Saanich police headquarters to go for coffee.
As the photo shows, the police HQ is actually quite a pedestrian unfriendly place. There is no crosswalk on Vernon Ave north of Saanich Rd. But the real irony is that the police HQ is right on Lochside Trail, which runs directly under Vernon.
I am not blaming the cops for jaywalking, because they are merely trying to save time. It is another merely amusing and sad example of how not to build for people.
Given we live in an earthquake-prone part of the world and have recently approved the construction of six story wood buildings, you would think it might be good to test whether or not these shiny new buildings, designed to make apartment buildings cheaper and thus more attractive to build, are going to survive the big one.
Thankfully, we are not the only people in the world with a hankering to learn this information. A team from NEESWood Project out of Colorado State University decided to build a six-story wood structure on a shake table in Japan and have a go. Take a peek:
More videos on the project site, including that of the big test. Of course, these little shakes, estimated to be a 7.5 magnitude, are a far cry from the Big One, estimated at 8 to 9 with shaking lasting into the minutes.
…and not soon enough. For the past several decades crosswalks have been scraped up under the misguided assumption that it causes “pedestrians to act recklessly“. Even the US DOT Federal Highway Administration has changed its tune:
Pedestrians are legitimate users of the transportation system, and they should, therefore, be able to use this system safely and without unreasonable delay.
This change in thinking is hitting close to home, with the addition of two new crosswalks with a curb cut for wheelchairs at Bowker and Hampshire. This is immediately to the east of the dangerous Cadboro Bay Rd and Bowker Ave intersection that may get a traffic circle.
Will we get any more of this in 2009? I haven’t had a chance to ask David Marshall, head of Oak Bay Engineering yet and the 2008 Municipal Report (PDF), which just came out, makes no mention of any crossswalk or sidewalk works in 2009. Guess we will have to enjoy at least this victory.
It has been a long time since I last posted, but I haven’t been any less busy. Today was case in point, as I helped out with the Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition‘s “booth” at the MEC Bikefest in Market Square, one of many that MEC plans to hold across the country. Aside from the GVCC, on hand were the Pedal to Petal composting people, Moksana Yoga, South Island Mountain Bike Society (SIMBS) and bunch of smaller outfits.
Like any good bike event, free tuneups were had, this time by no less than three different groups, including MEC itself. This begs the question whether MEC will get into selling bikes, to which the answer is “it depends”. Speaking with an MEC staffer, here in Victoria we are unlikely to see MEC enter the market anytime soon, due to lack of staff and space, not to mention the massive amounts of competition already here. However, you can already buy bikes from their Vancouver & Toronto stores, with more on the way.
If you are looking for something interesting to do this summer, why not volunteer? There are a lot of places that you can do it, but here are a couple that might strike your fancy:
The GVCC is looking for people to help at their mobile information booth, otherwise known as “the whale”, probably because it handles something like one. At least 4 volunteers are needed, although the more the merrier.
July 4th – MEC BikeFest in Market Square with the GVCC – 10:00pm – 3:00pm
As with the Canada Day event, they are looking for people to help out at with “the whale”. This is MEC’s first event of its type and is designed to attract the bicycling members of MEC. This is a great opportunity to connect with this potential membership base. At least 4 volunteers are needed, although the more the merrier.
If you are interested in helping out with either of these events, contact Darren Marr at dkmarr@shaw.ca by Saturday the 28th.
The Luminara people are looking for more volunteers to help out with setting up and taking down the lanterns as well as other work. If you can’t volunteer on the 25th, there might be spot still available in the days before. Contact Audrey Deutschmann at volunteer@luminaravictoria.com or 250.388.4728 ext. 130.
They are looking for people to marshall foot and bike races. You need to be there by 7am, so this is one for early birds. Email info@scmt.ca or call 250.592.6211 for more information.
If these events don’t do it for you, Volunteer Victoria’sVolunteer Database is the clearinghouse for all sorts of interesting volunteer jobs, both this summer and ongoing. Have fun and happy volunteering!
Spacing Toronto, an excellent blog by the equally excellent people who create Spacing magazine, is running a well written piece on new approaches to street design. The key point made is that what we have done in the past, both being car-centric and using cookie-cutter designs isn’t going to cut it anymore. They use the example of Annette St. in Toronto, which was to get bike lanes but then was downgraded to sharrows instead. Very much the Monterey Ave. controversy last summer (Committe of the Whole minutes: Aug 11 & Oct 6).
Complete streets are something I have mentioned here before and I truly hope they are catching on around here as well. San Juan Ave isn’t the only street that Saanich is working on and the CRD is working on their new Bike/Pedestrian Master Plan. Here in Oak Bay the Bike Master Plan a group of us are building is ticking along quite nicely, but we are always looking for more people. Email the projectteam if you want to help out with bike counts, mapping or anything else.
