Active transportation priorities for Oak Bay

On Monday, November 19th (2012) the Active Transportation Advisory Committee (http://oakbay.ca/municipal-hall/committees/active-transportation-advisory-committee) recommended four priority active transportation projects to Oak Bay Municipal Council.  The priority projects are consistent with recommendations from previous seminal reports -  the CRD Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan (2011), the Active Transportation Strategy Report completed for Oak Bay in 2011, and the Accessibility Committee Report on Oak Bay Ave. They are entirely consistent with the Complete Streets Policy adopted by Oak Bay Council earlier this year.

All four projects meet the following criteria established by the Committee: 

• Can take advantage of external funding
• Maximum impact
• Support regional priorities
• Urgent and feasible

The four projects - two that we considered strategic in the sense that they are large and require additional expertise and funding and two that we saw as operational in that they can be done with the existing resources and expertise are listed here:

Operational
Haultain East-West Connector
UVIC/Lansdowne North South Pathway

Strategic
Oak Bay Ave
Oak Bay High School Redevlopment

The full presentation that we made to Council can be found at this link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6mb3qm1mYxkbEhLUVhLRFNjWXM/edit

Members of the Active Transportation Advisory Committee were gratified by the overwhelming support Council demonstrated in their unanimous vote in support of the recommended priorities. Moreover, they followed up with five key motions directing staff to report back on feasibility/cost for all four projects. Oak Bay is off to a promising start! 

Perception vs Reality: how to make cycling safer

Much has been made of figuring out what motivates people to ride a bike and to use a bike as a means of transportation. Studies conducted by UBC researchers identified the top 10 reasons for choosing not to ride.  Apart from weather (snow, rain) or street conditions (icy, wet, debris on the road), cycling can be encouraged or discouraged by the presence (or lack thereof) of route design and urban infrastructure. In other words, good cycling facilities are important, including good signage and biking networks. 

Environmental factors important to cyclists are cycling infrastructure and road connectivity. 
Cyclists perceive major streets with shared lanes and no parked cars as having the greatest risk. I am not surprised. Recently, while attending the BC Summer Games, I decided to go for a bike ride. Having scoped out the area in which we were staying, I saw that there was a bike lane. Unfortunately, it was part of a very busy major roadway. While someone in the engineering department may have seen that as an obvious route, to me it screamed "unpleasant, noisy, and hazardous". I chose a different route that was more residential and visually pleasing. 

Not surprisingly, cyclists perceive residential streets as far less risky. In fact, one UBC study noted one of the top three preferred routes for riders is residential streets that are part of a designated bike route and have traffic calming routes.  Are these just perceptions or are there real benefits? The study shows that perception and reality are "aligned"—i.e. such streets are indeed safer for cyclists. No wonder then that cyclists will go out of their way to use designated bicycle routes, so long as they are well marked in terms of signage and pavement markings and have bike activated signals. (See link.)

ATAC has drawn up a list of  potential priorities to take to Oak Bay Municipal Council in the fall. On my list is improved cycling networks and pathways—signage and access. Of particular interest is addressing the gap in east/west cycling routes between (north) Oak Bay and Victoria by creating an east-west bikeway that connects Willows Beach, Estevan Village and Haultain Road with the greenway priority route on Haultain Road in the City of Victoria. Two issues exist: lack of signage for this route and crossing safety at the intersection of Haultain & Foul Bay Roads due to lack of a controlled access option for cyclists. These are both issues that we hope to bring to Council's attention.