It has been a long time since 1910 when planes first took off at Lansdowne Field, which went on to become the first commercially licensed airfield in BC in 1928. Victoria actually has a rich aviation history, with the first Canadian-built plane built by William Wallace Gibson, the formation of the Victoria Aero Club (now the Victoria Flying Club) in 1928, and the training of pilots at the Pat Bay airport (now Victoria International Airport ) in the Second World War. Most UVic students would probably be shocked to learn that what is now the UVic campus might have become an airport in 1946. For more information, the Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley has a great page dedicated to the history of flight in BC.
Last night the Friends of Bowker Creek Society and the Oak Bay Green Committee co-hosted a well-attended forum on urban watersheds and urban forests. The forum was an outgrowth of an internal effort by the Green Committee to get arborist Jeremy Gye to speak to them but ended up growing into the public forum with both Jeremy and Ian Graeme of the Friends of Bowker Creek speaking.
Jeremy’s talk was an excellent introduction to the values and challenges of trees in the urban context. He recently finished doing work for the City of Victoria looking at their urban forest and the massive challenge they face in the near future due to their mostly uniform age trees. This is also a problem that Oak Bay faces and given most of these trees are reaching the end of their life, both municipalities are going to need to spend a lot of time and money not only replacing those trees but also working with the public to understand the process and get them involved with it.
Ian’s talk on Bowker Creek was shorter and covered the watershed aspects of the evening. Aside from a basic introduction to what a watershed is, he gave us a tour down Bowker Creek by canoe. Given all the culverts, this involved a great deal of portaging down streets like Shelbourne. I would love to see a canoe race down Bowker Creek as a way to fundraise for the Society and raise awareness of Bowker Creek in general. One of the more serious ideas presented was the idea of a Bowker Creek Greenway (PDF). Ian made the point that the new Baptist Housing lacks easy access to Bowker Creek Park, as the section right by the Rec. Centre is bounded on either side by parking lots, a sad waste of an opportunity if I have ever seen one.
There were also excellent tasty treats and coffee, a must for any public event. Half the time I think that people show up just to get some free food. Speaking of people, I was pleased to see both Councillors Tara Ney and John Herbert come out. I have said this in the past and I will say it again: Tara’s election has been a major boon for Oak Bay and she has made an excellent councillor even in the few short months since she has been elected. I am continuely disappointed at how few community events our elected representatives come out to.
After the two talks and a bit of eating, there was a short discussion period, which raised several excellent points about education, especially to the young. One suggestion made was to have a package of information to new home-owners to tell them about what sorts of native trees and habitat are already on their propety, in the hopes that they preserve it. One commentor also lamented the lack of native flowers at Buchart Gardens, noting that there were only native trees.
With the challenges of getting preserving and increasing the size of the urban forest, Jeremy noted that an excellent source of Garry Oak seedlings are uncut lawns. Lots of yards with mature Oak trees, if left uncut would yield dozens of seedlings. Maybe Oak Bay Tourism could sell these native trees instead of palm trees. I am not holding my breath.
In the next month or so there will be a bunch of events surrounding Bowker Creek. On the 30th of this month there is a cleanup and rubber ducky race. The cleanup starts at 10am behind Oak Bay High and the race at noon near the fire hall. On June 13th there will be a Bowker Creek Celebration Walk starting at 1pm in the upper parking lot of the Oak Bay Recreation Centre.
Overall, it was an excellent event. I am glad that the Oak Bay Green Committee and the Friends of Bowker Creek Society were able to put it on and like several people mentioned, there is sense that maybe change is in the air. Maybe in the next few years, we will get critical mass on getting a greenway built along Bowker Creek, connecting Oak Bay into the Lochside Trail and beyond.
As a final note, this coming Monday, the 25th, Council will be debating their continued support of the multi-municipality Bowker Creek Initiative. It is vital that the funding for this continue, so come out at 7:30pm at the Municipal Hall and tell council to support Bowker Creek and fund the BCI.
The world keeps turning, even if I have been crazy busy with various non-bike relating things. So I present a grab-bag of fun links and commentary on news stories:
Packed in like sardines. It is a cliche and yet our buses (and public transit across the world) often feel more like a can of fish than a pleasant way to travel. To drum up political support for fixing the problem, a couple of Swiss decided to ride around dressed literally as sardines.
After dropping off my grandmother at a ferry today I got caught by this accident on Cordova Bay Rd. Apparently the cause was an 82 year old man having a heart attack. Why are we still building cities that require 80+ year old people to drive?
Speaking of my grandmother, two Saanich workers scared the crap out of her the other morning by walking into her back yard, looking for a storm drain cover. Turns out they were looking for the source of this oil leak into Douglas Creek, a salmon-bearing stream which runs through Mount Doug Park right behind her house.
Engaging citizens also is a two way street, something Vancouver might be discovering as they potentially embark on the open data bandwagon. The motion (PDF), put forward by Vision Vancouver’s Andrea Reimer, has been read into the record (YouTube video) and is up for debate tomorrow night. For a good idea what freeing the city’s data might allow, the Vancouver Freebase page might enlighten you.
I saw in a notice in the Saanich News that Saanich is also looking at expanding its Local Bike Connector Routes and is seeking community input, as it requires an amendment to the Official Community Plan, but I cannot find the notice on the municipality’s website. I will keep digging but in the meantime, a quick look at the minutes of Saanich’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Mobility Advisory Committee shows just how quickly a well organized government can move.
And lastly,Transportation Alternatives, a bike and ped advocacy group in New York City that has gone from guerilla activism to advising the city’s Department of Transportation, has launched “Biking Rules: A new street code for NYC Bicyclists” campaign that is coupled with a slick website that also allows users to show safe biking routes they have found (via Streetsblog). The map is driven by data from OpenStreetMap. More of that free data empowering people and communities again.
This week the biking community “won” a pair of battles to add bike infrastructure in a pair of cities. But what did they really win? First, let’s look at Toronto:
Jarvis Street - Photo Credit: Marc Lostracco/Torontoist
The 5-lane Jarvis Street is being redeveloped to make it more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. Sadly, rather than do the right thing and remove two car lanes to both expand the sidewalk and add bike lanes, the council decided to remove only one lane, which means they forgo widening the sidewalks in favour of bike lanes.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Vancouver City Council went far beyond that. They actually took away space from pedestrians to give it to bikes. They are closing the eastern (northbound) sidewalk to make it bike-only, while southbound cyclists will have use of a car lane. This means all pedestrians will now have to use the western (southbound) side of the bridge. This image below explains it better:
Source: City of Vancouver page - click on image to view
And in Portland, a recent crash and general pedestrian and bicycle congestion issues on the Hawthorne Bridge has created a suggestion to do that bridge what they are planning on the Burrard Street Bridge, save that they would dedicate one sidewalk to each mode.
Let me very clear: These are not wins for bicyclists, the larger community or of sustainable transportation in the longer term. All they will do is pit cyclists against pedestrians while drivers laugh all the way to their hit and run. Streets must be designed to protect the most vulnerable users first. This means that pedestrians trump bikes everytime (and bikes trump cars…). This is why we have crosswalks with lights and curb bulge outs. This is why we widen sidewalks and have ramps to allow wheelchairs and strollers to pass easily.
RJH celebration station tentsToday was the last 6 am morning for me this week and it was a cold one. The celebration station at the Royal Jubilee Hospital was shadowed by one of the buildings, which made standing around a little chilly. The good weather today certainly helped get people out, especially after yesterday. Seeing the near steady stream of riders come by wasn’t a huge surprise because the Vancouver Island Health Authority, that runs RJH, has over 600 cyclists registered, almost 10% of the total registrations.
Preparing to engrave bike
Leona Gibbs came out again this morning, which was a great boon. She has done an amazing amount of work these past two mornings, getting up early and talking with dozens of people about Safer Cycling Oak Bay and Oak Bay Bicycle Master Plan. Between us we collected about another 20 maps of people’s bike routes, bringing the total to nearly 80.
I also had a great conversation with Ian Graeme of the Bowker Creek Initiative about a Bowker Creek Greenway (there is a map of the Richmond/Oak Bay Rec Centre section) crossing all three municipalities. A trail like this would be a great path for cyclists and walkers to travel north-west/south-east and would allow easier linkage in with the Lochside and Galloping Goose trails, a connection which is currently very difficult.
This afternoon is the last celebration station I will attending, at the UVic fountain again, which runs from 3:30 to 5:30pm. I also plan on attending the final BBQ at the north end of the Selkirk Trestle tomorrow, which starts at 3pm.
The Tri-City News, covering Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam and Maple Ridge and part of the Black Press stable of regional newspapers that includes Oak Bay News, has published an editorial calling for governments and business to do more to support biking. They start:
Those road warriors who are taking to the streets in rain gear and helmets to take part in Bike to Work Week deserve congratulations. The roads are not yet safe, despite some efforts to install bike lanes and bike-friendly policies, and those folks who put their lives on the line to keep their greenhouse gas emissions down and heart rates up to get to work on two wheels deserve our respect.
The Tri-City News seems to be strongly in favour of many green initiatives, judging from their past editorials. Interestingly, the article they published on STV going down to defeat includes an image of a cyclist promoting STV on their bike. Guess somebody in the Tri-City News loves bikes…
This morning’s celebration station on the front lawn was a busy time for me and my fellow Safer Cycling OB volunteers, Jane and Leona. We managed to get nearly everybody that came by to tell us where they bicycled by highlighting those roads on a map. Adding the 37 collected today, we have almost 60 responses already. Entering in all these data and then making sense of it is going to be a big job.
Tara Ney talking with Jane van Hoorn
I was surprised and disappointed that the only member of council that came by today was Tara Ney, who dropped in and chatted with us for a good half an hour. She reiterated her support for what we are doing, which is always heartening, given the scale of the project. Roy Thomassen, the Director of Planning, also made a quick appearance. He clarified that there is a slight change of plans with the covered bike shelter and it is being moved to right against the building.
Tomorrow morning Leona and I are off to the Royal Jubilee Hospital, which I learned today will be by the old entrance to the hospital on the south side (map).
Montreal’s pioneer bike sharing program, the first in Canada, has just launched with 3,000 bikes spread across 300 stations. This is only a small part of a very ambitious plan of stations across Montreal. Just take a look at the map of stations to get an idea. Like it’s inspiration Velib,the first 30 minutes are free, the rest of the day is $5 and frequent users can get monthly or yearly rates. They both also share cute contractions for names, bike + taxi in the case of Montreal and velo + liberte for Paris. Lastly, Velib is also not “dying”, so ignore all the hysteria.
In other good yet tragic news, Daniel Marc Akerley has been sentenced to just over a year and half of jail time for his hit-and-run of Byron Harris in Port Alberni. Sadly he only got convicted of one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Sorry, but this was attempted murder or at a very least, assault with a deadly weapon. Why, when they charged him with attempted murder, did they let him plead guilty to such a minor offence? And more importantly, will this guy ever be let back behind the wheel? I am not exactly holding my breath for that. But I have beat this drum in the past.
On this, the second day of Bike to Work Week 2009, I dragged myself out of bed at a very early hour of 6 am to attend the morning celebration station at UVic’s main fountain. As UVic is the single largest destination for bicyclists in the CRD, this has been a well attended station in the past and it was certainly no different today. The good weather this morning undoubtedly helped, although most of the people today looked like long-time commuter bikers.
Long shot of celebration station
Beyond just having fun early in the morning, I was also there to find out where people are biking in Oak Bay. So armed with a clipboard, lots of maps and highlighters, I managed convince almost 20 people to colour on the lines. After the week is done, I get the unenviable task of collating all that data and posting a map of popular biking routes.
To celebrate the first day of this years Bike to Work Week, I made the trek up to the most northerly celebration station in south Sidney. Today’s big story ended up being the weather, with a little bit of rain, sun and just about everything in between. We were right along the water near the Anacortes ferry terminal. This meant there was a very stiff breeze from the south, so much so that at several points the half dozen of us all had to hold down the tent to literally keep it from blowing away.
I ended up staying just over an hour and in that time we saw about a half dozen bicyclists. Amongst that group was a recumbent, who along with his partner, were on their way to Tijuana and a tandem heading south. I am not certain if it was the distance or the cold weather but every cyclist we had come was seriously equipped. Hopefully we get some better weather over the next few days to get those occasional riders out.
See you all tomorrow at the UVic fountain between 6:45 am and 8:45am.
Tent of the celebration station in SidneyTandem riders leaving celebration stationPumping up the tires on a recumbent
