With winter finally seeming to have been beaten, it’s time to take this blog out of its seasonal (albeit never planned) hibernation.

There’s been a lot of attention paid in the past few weeks to a pilot project that would see the city create a segregated cycling route through centretown on a trial basis. The Sun was the first to report on it on March 15th (though doesn’t have most of the details exactly right and is pretty slanted against), Centretown News followed up on the 26th (their details are right, but they managed to get some names wrong), and the Citizen has something published today. Note all stories talk about different events: the Sun followed the original presentation to the Roads and Cycling Advisory Committee (full disclosure: I’m chair of RCAC. I  write here as an individual), the latter follow Councillor Holmes’ stepping in to propose the creation of a different consultation mechanism.

I think that there’s lots to be optimistic about in this. Given that this will be a bit of a first for Ottawa (at least in the core). My impression, at least based on what RCAC was told, was that the plan was to begin meeting with other community and business groups. What is being proposed here is to make the consultation process more formal. That might slow things down a bit, but I’m not sure that we would have seen any changes this cycling season in any case. It’s more important that we do what is needed to make sure that everyone is comfortable with the process and is able to contribute as much as is possible: it’ll produce a better result, and it will help avoid infighting amongst various road users/business groups/residents.

Now, in The Citizen Holmes’ suggests that downtown was listed as an option, but the cycling plan calls for considerations of larger east-west routes, which is true. I think that the idea of a downtown route for the pilot has more to do with it being an area where there is a good concentration of places to go, local residents, and people commuting in. There’s also already a lot of bicycles. That’s a good mix for a first project, and is probably different than if it were farther from the core.

Doucet, quoted in the CBC:

“I hope to see Ottawa becoming much safer,” Doucet said Wednesday. “We’ll hopefully have an east-west dedicated lane through the centre of the city, which we don’t have now. I mean talk to my staff, who come to work down Gladstone and have to share the lane with a bus — pretty scary.”

Now, I bike down Gladstone all the time and have never really felt unsafe given the volume of traffic. But I also bike 9 months of the year and contribute to a cycling blog, so I’m probably not the best judge of average. A full set of city-wide cycling lanes designed for commuting would certainly be nice, and would probably help to get more people onto bikes. I know I’d certainly appreciate something a bit more dedicated in the downtown core, given that Queen St., and the risk of door prizes and people making blind right turns, represents that most dangerous couple minutes of my day.

These lanes require dedicated funding for cycling projects, which have been something that the city has not always been great about finding. Also, while it doesn’t seem to be in either of the links above, I seem to recall staff mentioning somewhere else that in most of the areas where we’ve seen accidents segregated lanes are not really feasible.

These now go onto full council for further discussion, so emailing your councilor support would be handy.

This blog, ofcourse, is paying particular attention to the budgets cycling commitments. I’m still working through the budget, but Citizens for Safe Cycling has prepared a useful breakdown of the budgets cycling commitments (PDF). The focus is, ofcourse, the Ottawa Cycling Plan. To implement it in 5 years as the city has committed would mean a commitment of around $5 million from the city this year;there is actually about $700,000. As we said at the time, the real test of commitment will be how much funding they are willing to designate.

The Citizen has a story today highlighting the results of contract arbitration between the city and the firefighters union. I won’t comment on the merits of it because I don’t really have any point of comparison as to whether or not it is reasonable (nor do I think that is really an relevant issue within the contexts of this site), but do think that it is worth pointing out that the $5 million annual cost of the “recognition” awards roughly corresponds to the annual implementation cost of the first stage of the cycling plan.

Now, obviously the introduction of one does not mean the death of another, but this arbitration agreement does mean that the city will be facing an even deeper budget shortfall, and this is one that council is not able to move away from. Moreover, this isn’t likely to be the last unexpected expense as the budget process moves forward (even if it is, hopefully, going to be the largest.) What it reinforces is that the cycling community needs to continue to be on the ball to make sure that the cycling plan remains fully funded in the budget process – remember that it is only 1% of the city’s annual capital budget – and that the inevitable distractions don’t hold back its implementation any further.

(I’ve been travelling overseas for the past few weeks, by the way, and do have stories to tell. I’ll start a series of posts on this blog and at mikepowell.ca this weekend.)

In any case, this was the easy part. It’s simple enough to vote to support this plan, it’s another matter to actually fund it come budget time: remember that 26 million and change is more or less what the city’s deficit was last year. Even amortized over 5 years, that figure becomes an attractive cut when proposed alternatives include closing down libraries or raising taxes. The game between now and then is to keep pressure on council to put and keep dollars committed.

Dear Ms. Holmes,

My name is Michael Powell, and I am a resident in your ward. I am also a frequent contributor to www.cyclinginottawa.ca, a site dedicated to discussing cycling and other urban issues in Ottawa and elsewhere.

I am writing to you in support of the proposed Ottawa Cycling Plan, which goes before Council tomorrow, and particularly the Transportation Committee’s recommendation to accelerate the implementation of the plans first phase to 5 years from 10 years.

I believe that, by and large, Ottawa is already a cycling friendly city, but would be made a much friendlier city under the proposed cycling plan. The plan’s network concept ensures that future cycling resources will be placed in such a way so as to ensure the maximum functionality for riders; considerations of cyclists when expanding or upgrading roads will mean that on roads without a bike path cyclists have more space from cars. Increases in the number of cycling lanes will be even safer. These two factors, convenience and increased safety, are critical factors in encouraging cycling amongst residents, both for functional (e.g. commuting) and recreational purposes.

I think it also goes without saying that an increase in cycling provides benefits to the city. Bicycles, as compared to other vehicles, use less space on the road and require less space to park. Less congestion means that roads can last longer before needing to be resurfaced or expanded; less demand for parking means that land otherwise used as a lot can be freed for development, expanding the cities tax base. Even when a commuter opts to bike rather than take the bus, the city saves, as fares account for only a little more than half of transit operating funds.

These are, admittedly, difficult elements to quantify in dollars saved, especially as compared to the very clear price of the cycling plan. But they are real. I think that it is also important to emphasize that the costs of the first stage of the plan are modest. Even over 5 years, the annual cost of the cycling plan would amount to a little more than 1% of the city’s capital budget, and would cost each resident of the city less money than they lose in their sofa.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly at (redacted).

Cheers,
Michael Powell
www.cyclinginottawa.ca

What follows is my entry and I’d encourage anyone reading to head over to Greater Ottawa and post your thoughts. There are already some interesting comments, such a one pointing out the dangers of the Eagleson overpass at the 417. As someone who grew up in Kanata I can testify that this one is hell to cycle. While a cycling plan certainly has to focus on urban issues, I think it is important to fix other problem areas outside the core. Especially with questionable local bus service being availalbe, cycling is certainly a cost effective part of the solution to community traffic problems facing areas like Kanata. Yet if you want to encoruage people to ride their bike when they go to Future Shop to buy a DVD, they need to feel safe while doing it. Currently this simply isn’t the case.

Adam Wrote:

“Bank Street south of the Canal is problematic. While at least in Old Ottawa South parked cars in the right-hand lane create a defacto cycling lane its still a problem as you have to watch out for people opening car doors or just pulling out when they don’t see any cars coming.

However I would say it gets worse once you reach Billings Bridge. As a previous commenter noted, the bridge is narrow and cars don’t/can’t move over for a cyclist. When there are bike lanes on Bank they are poorly maintained and frequently disappear. This is especially problematic on the Bank street overpass right before the Greenborough O-Train station/South Keys shopping complex. “

The Ottawa Cycling Plan was approved by the city Transportation Committee earlier in the week, and is now off to full Council for approval. The Citizen has a story, and you can read the full plan online.  Be warned: it’s a couple of hundred pages long, but the executive summary is pretty thorough. I’ll try to say some more on the weekend (which, admittedly, I’ve promised before), but it is really good news that committee has opted to accelerate the plan first phase of the plan to be completed in 5 years. The city might be short on cash, but these are the sorts of projects that pay off in the long run. The real test will come at budget time, when cyclists will have to fight not to get squeezed out in the annual budget blood letting.

Reevely, in light of the plan, is looking for comments as to where the early-priority improvements are. My biggest pet peeve is the terrible state of some road’s curbside – Queen St. and Lyon can be especially brutal; I inadvertantly ended up in a 2 foot square, 3 inch deep pothole on Bronson last week (I was fine).

Secondly, PEI Liberal Shawn Murphy has introduced a Private Members Bill to remove the GST from Bicycles. I’m pretty sure that Joyce Murray (another Liberal, from Vancouver) had a similar bill on the notice paper yesterday, but it must have been withdrawn. Or I’m nuts. In any case, PMB’s almost always go nowhere: you can introduce as many as you want, more or less, but a lottery determines which bill’s get considered further. In most cases, even if considered, the legislation (often rightfully) won’t go anywhere, and an election would kill all legislation waiting on the order paper.

However, this is still probably worth a letter or call to your MP: the idea is simple enough that it could easily be incorporated into a future budget or integrated into a larger part of an election campaign. By making it clear that people care, that’s more likely to happen. Removing the GST won’t make a giant difference in anyone’s pocket and smacks a bit of tokenism (as Ben pointed out last year), but saving money is saving money and anything that helps people afford bicycles is a good step.

One reason for some of the failing grades: lack of funding for cycling. From the Ottawa Citizen:

[F]our years ago, funding for cycling came in at $400,000 per year and out of all commuters, two per cent rode bikes. Funding for cycling is now zero, and Mr. Doucet said it’s no surprise that cycling rates are stagnant “while other cities have caught up to Ottawa and are passing us.”

You can take a look at how your councillor is doing here.