Transportation: Where to go, and how to get there in #YQR

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Most of my speech as heard in the video above, and posted to my Regina politics blog:

I’m very pleased to have been asked to speak at Campion College about transportation issues. I got my Computer Science – co-op degree from here a decade ago, and I never imagined at the time that I’d wind up the President of a different sort of “co-op”, the Regina Car Share Co-operative. At the time, I had no idea that “car sharing” was even a thing. I’d heard of car pooling of course, but they are different. It wasn’t until I returned to work at the UofR, that I got an email about a group of people holding a pot luck supper in Regina to discuss forming a “car share”, and I thought that sounded like maybe a good way to use a car without the unpleasantries of maintaining one. A few years later, I was chosen to help guide a remarkable group of volunteers who make organized car sharing possible in our city, as it is in almost every other major Canadian and American city today.

Why am I interested in transportation? Well, I’m interested in nearly everything, but where curiosity meets reality is on the streets. Nearly everyone in the world has a daily need to move about the farm, town, or city they live at, and so modes of transportation are essential to how and where we live. If transportation isn’t timely or fun, people don’t enjoy where they live as much as they should. I don’t think car repair is fun, and feel dealing with SGI is about the worst thing that could administratively happen to someone (short of being charged with a crime). So I’ve set out to make transportation both timely and fun for myself, and it just so happens that I need to make it that way for the people around me too, in order to be successful.

Another big reason I’m interested in transportation improvement, is that it’s a major contributor to air pollution and climate change. These are not small, or easy problems to solve, but our little daily actions collectively point our society in either the right or wrong direction. Right now, Regina is unquestionably pointed in the wrong direction, and among our collective actions pointing us there is how we get around every day. Since public talks are always more fun with interaction (I think so anyway, because otherwise I tend to get sleepy especially if the speaker has a mono-tone voice like mine,): How many people got to University today by themselves in a motor vehicle? How many car pooled? How many took the bus? How many biked or walked?

Not A Lot

Not much to say tonight, except it was a busy and fulfilling weekend, with lots of community gathering, and plenty of optimism for the Spring, gardens, cycling, busing, and all sorts of improvements ahead.

How very much I look forward to being able to catch buses more easily on Sundays, or just skip them by being able to comfortably cycle to my destinations instead. Spring can’t come soon enough, but I’ll wait; The downside to wishing for time to fly by, is lamenting later on that the years passed by too quickly.

Thinking Is Not Hard

Thinking is not hard to do, but some people treat it like others should do it for them. Clicking that link may be painful, as it has details of a state representative saying cyclists pollute worse than car drivers because they are exercising and breathing out more CO(2) in doing so. I guess the worst thing you could do is get in a car, go to the gym, and get on a stationary bike, eh?

Idiots are all around us, and sometimes they are elected as government representatives. Because this story casts cyclists in a negative light, I suppose you’ll be hearing about it on Gormley’s radio show later on. You can then expect the usual cast of zombie callers recounting the last time they were irritated by a cyclist on a street they owned.

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There’s nothing more polluting, in every sense of the word, than a Republican on a high horse.

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Yesterday I noted on Twitter that there are many easy changes someone can make in their weekly routine, to make a dent in how much climate change (air pollution) they directly and indirectly create. For instance, someone can cut meat out of one of their days in the week, to have at least a 1/7th impact immediately on their demand for meat. If the demand falls enough, fewer animals will need to be raised to make farmers the same amount of money. More importantly, meat requires much more water and energy input for the same amount of food energy plants can directly provide to humans.

Some (intentionally) hard of understanding trolls came by to mock the information. It’s hard not to laugh at someone who thinks its hard to point out a time when Saskatchewan has faced a water crisis. Although the title is worded in a clumsy way, Forbes helps explain why basing so much of the world’s food supply on meat, is a folly.

This information didn’t slow down the trolls though, who went on to suggest that I’m a damned dirty easterner, never grew up on a farm, and couldn’t have the faintest idea of what it takes to understand the food system. Besides all that, I apparently want all people to stop eating all meat, and starve. It’s hard to argue with iron-clad logic like that, eh?

Some of these comments come from people who earlier chided me for thinking of solutions to our oil dependence. When did conservatives start subscribing to pre-Copernicus thinking? There are centuries of tradition after that sort of anti-science, anti-discovery thinking to “conserve” with their defence of the status quo. There’s no need to be so anti-intellectual and anti-solution.

SGI Bike Uprising

Doesn’t SGI know it’s not cool to cause an uprising amongst those most likely to ride motorcycles up and down the streets of SGI brass?

The increase in motorcycle insurance rates cannot be to just break even, since the value of the insurance is past the value of the object it is insuring in some cases! A car’s insurance starts out being 1/25th of the total vehicle at times in its life. Toward the end of the vehicles’ mechanical life, it’s still less than 1/2 (annually) in most cases.

SGI should be fair, and any case where the insurance is more than 50% of the bike, knock it down to that if it’s not lower than the rate being charged already. Even then, after two years, they could afford to buy the motorcyclist a new bike of the same age/quality, and still make money! Could you envision paying $4000/year to insure your $8000 car? It’s absurd.

Some rates will go up and others will go down, but the most dramatic change will be sport bikes and bikes with engines over 400 cubic centimetres.

Saskatoon’s Colby Guldie just bought a new motorcycle and found out his rate could go from $180 a month to $368 month. He says that’s not fair.

“You know, if I’m at fault for an incident I think, yeah, I should be paying more, that makes sense to me,” he said. “But I’m five years running now with a clean motorcycle record. I don’t think I should be having my rates doubled, bam, just like that.”

Guldie says it’s unfair that SGI is lumping smaller bikes with much faster ones. He’s already written to politicians and to SGI and says he’ll attend public hearings to fight the proposed increase.

While almost all motorcycle users will pay double-digit increases, some will pay even more.

To look at an extreme case, someone with an old sport bike (1982 and older) with a 1200-cc engine who used to pay $1,001 a year might have to pay $4,309 in future — a 331 per cent increase.

Explaining the proposed hikes, SGI president Andrew Cartmell said motorcycle users have relatively high injury claim costs. The proposed increase is “significant”, but with the rates as they currently are, motorcycle users are essentially being subsidized by all the other drivers, he said.

(emphasis mine)

They need to use the SGI points system to fix this problem. If someone has a perfect driving record, they should get a discount to close to the amount they’ve been paying now. Even so, it feels like a “bait and switch” scam to those who’ve bought bikes thinking they had affordable insurance rates. In Saskatchewan, every motor vehicle must be insured to be driven, yet there is only one insurance provider: SGI. Traditionally they have the best rates in the country, but this motorcycle-boondoggle is an example of why they need competition here.

Stolen Bike Alert

My Giant Boulder SE, men’s frame, silver colour bike was stolen from 15th Ave and McTavish St. (Regina) at 2:45pm Saturday; please watch for it.

It had a yellow round reflector hanging loosely from back of seat, rear black plastic fender (but not front fender), and a black headlight, and silver computer/odometer. Says GIANT in blue on the black seat post too. If you see it, please give a description of rider and heading to Regina Police who have a file open for it. Much thanks.

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No idea if CAA will honour the $200 theft reward if it’s recovered by you, but I’d try to make them.
My sticker’s message was not heeded by the thief, nor the earlier thieves who took my seat and front wheel in previous months and years.

How far I’d been with this bike in the last year or so since I installed a new odometer ($35)?

At least that far, plus 10km more. It’s a tough $500 lesson to learn — always lock even the back wheel so they can’t just ride it off, if it’s out of your sight for even a few minutes out your window (as you’re distracted by the Riders kicking the BC Lions to the curb). My cavalier, brazen attitude to locking it this afternoon while it sat in front of a picture window where me and my aunt were sitting, was only exceeded by the #$*# thief who was more brazen than I, and now has my bike. C’est la vie; doing my part to stimulate Regina’s local economy (and black market, if the thief goes to sell it instead of uses it to travel to and from gainful employment).

RoboCon: Adversaries and Enemies

Robocalls critics: At least Tories aren't calling us Nazis or chld pornographrs huff.to/KeEbpt via @HuffPostCanada #cdnpoli #elxnfraud—
Reclaim Democracy (@Colettestweeter) May 25, 2012

The Conservative Party’s latest salvo in response accuses the council of having “an improper motive” to “damage the Conservative brand through unfounded assertions.”

“The applications have been brought solely to provide the Council with a platform to criticize Conservatives, who the Council views as its enemy,” the motion says.

Gee, why would the Council of Canadians get the impression that the Conservative Party is its enemy?

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has labelled aboriginal groups and environmentalists as “adversaries,”

Also, the PMO calls environmentalists “enemies of the state”.

Oh, that? That’s probably just taken out of context. Unsubstantiated smears… of environmentalists.

“I only wish the Conservatives had put as much time and effort into their investigation of the robocalls scandal as they’ve put into chastising the Council of Canadians,” said Neil.

The Conservatives are sometimes baffling, eh?

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(http://canadaconservative.blogspot.ca/2012/05/my-official-statement.html)
The man at the center of the investigation into the Guelph robocalls, has broken his blog silence. He started tweeting again several weeks ago. I’m baffled. I can’t imagine why his lawyer would advise him to return to his blog now, so he may be acting out on his own accord. A train wreck to watch, anyway.

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Lost bike? Oh, Daily Mail, at least you’re good for laugh.

Bye Bye Bixi

What a disgrace. Quebec has ordered Bixi to sell off its British bike share spinoff because Montreal didn’t have the authority to send money to a business that created a product and service that is marketable outside of Canada! How strange, and counterproductive. If Bixi had failed, everything would have been fine, according to the Auditor General?

UPDATE: Chris in the comments provides a bit of an update.

Improve Your Mood

Biking to work improves your mood. It also gives you a better perspective on life, and helps you get enough daily exercise to avoid some of life’s more terrible ailments. You could also skateboard to work, since the mood improving properties are directly attributable to physical activity, and travel at a more human pace.

If you wondered why certain radio jockeys are so cranky (about cyclists) all of the time, it’s because they aren’t biking to work and are missing out on the benefits they begrudge their neighbours for taking.

Instead of the Green Party Leader John Gormley who:

…introduced a “Bike Scheme” in January 2009 which promoted cycling to work by offering tax incentives to employees and employers who purchased bicycles and switched to cycling. The scheme is part of a strategy to double the number of journeys made by bike by 2020, and also includes a multi-million euro cycle-path upgrade plan.[14]

We’re subjected to fear and grouchiness:

Biking in the winter. Is this safe? Should bikes be allowed on our roads in the winter?

Is it safe… to let people exercise and be happy while going to work the way they want? The whole effin’ system might collapse if tax payers are allowed to use roads using human powered vehicles!

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I’ve cycled in every month so far in 2012. I’ve gone about 15km on 5 round trips to the south end of the city from home. All of the times I was out, it was warmer than 0 degrees C. at least one direction of the trip. Only twice was my destination work (the rest of the time I’ve walked, and left work by bus or car a couple times each).

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Rick Hansen, the Man in Motion, was at the University of Regina and I stopped by to see his presentation. Here’s a clip:

Design Regina – Adapt Early

Our competitive advantage is that we’ve not yet adapted to large urban growth, but we have that opportunity now. Or we can be “a mid-size city with big city problems.”
Traffic congestion is about to explode in Regina. We are only 11km from top to bottom, or west to east. Sprawl will make commute times worse. We’ll get Calgary’s problems.

Portland is a better example of what to do. Infill, transit, pedestrianism and cycling. Stretch out sidewalk, and narrow the roads.

Plan for cars- you get car oriented streets, signs, buildings, city, greater distances, so you then NEED a car! Cycle.

Plan for PEOPLE! People streets, buildings, city, shorter distance, less infrastructure.

16% in SK spent on transportation of total household expenditure (2008 StatsCan)

People value going home for supper with their kids. Some go home for lunch, and that will be lost in a bigger city that is not mixed use in its neighborhoods.

Walkscore.com
Check out neighborhood amenities if you buy real estate. Walkable neighborhoods are worth more in a world with increasing gas prices.

Zoned Out by Jonathan Levine.

Jennifer Keesmat continues with her presentation. She urges those with different political views to look at this mound of evidence.
The market is producing what regulations in planning allows for. Regulations have to change to get a better product to market. The market is not demanding badly planned homes and cities, but that’s what is available to consumers.

Our nice wide streets lets us infill with Urban Repair. Complete streets.
Plan for nearness.
Living within your means
Quality of life
Prosperity

Have a high level of transit service on Albert St. and Broad St. to provide fast service that is in demand.

Affordable housing. Integrate with other housing. Immigration.
Chris Szarka, City Councilor:
Mixed use isn’t here, and makes for empty buses at many times of the day. It makes an infrastructure deficit. Minus forty isn’t walkable he says, it builds a mentality of commuting in a car. No nightlife in downtown, how do we change that?

Dr. Thomas Chase: how can we build on vision of the founders of the city?
Campus sustainability is in the Master Plan for the UofR.

Honourable Dr. Lynda Haverstock, Tourism Sask:
Thrilled to be here, Jennifer is preaching to the converted in this room. For generations we’ve taken for granted the wonders around us. Some are in ill repair now.
Older generations gave more than we have so far.
Taxation is unpopular, but why are we complaining? Spend money creatively, for the greater, long term good.
Weeds theme song, little boxes, and Paved Paradise came to her mind when looking at suburbia photos during presentation. Yes, the former Liutentant Governor watches TV about pot dealing Nancy.

Dustin Browne, Youth Peer Homes: even if it’s minus forty, poor youth still need to get around and walk or take transit. They have bus passes.
It’s not safe to get by bike from North Central to downtown though, the bike paths don’t work for that. Can’t even dream about buying a house right now as a poor young person. Affordable single person dwellings downtown, is impossible right now. Have to focus on aboriginal youth, or our planning is dead in the water. Take it into account in everything Design Regina does.

Jennifer says you can extend the walkable season by building better, and thinking in a different way. Don’t orient on the automobile.
Small group in Portland thirty years ago stopped an expressway, and got bike lanes and bike to work weeks.
Plan differently, or become intentional about change.

Questions:
No geographical barriers to stop sprawl.

Transit, how can we link Albert St. and Broad St., and could we make another downtown neighbourhood, mixed use, and build up

Value is infrastructure multiplied by time. Infrastrcture is most efficient if it is used all the time, by lots of people.
Stupid to build out, and go to Feds for money, after causing a problem.

Urban farming, mixed use. Unfortunately Mike O’Donnell has staked his position on the opposite of this.

Curt wants sidewalks fixed and cleared for year round use. Encourage kids to walk.

Motorbikes are a dense form of transportation, we need more. Vietnam has millions of motorbikes.

Mike, from here, but lived in Victoria, young person, moved back here, misses Victoria only for not needing a car.

Urban planner, here for 120 days. Walks to work downtown. Not so vibrant at 8pm.
20,000 downtown office workers.
8 to 80, planning. Downtown plan is called Walk to Work.

Susan Burley, she walks to work from Cathedral. Integrate North Central with other neighborhoods. It should cost less to turn parking lots into housing or useful spaces downtown. Knows the public warm spots.
Put transit near warm public spaces. The main library is one. YMCA is another. Victoria Park, don’t cut down trees.

Parking at UofR

In 15 minutes, at 1:30, be at the Ad Hum Pit to hear concerns and solutions to the limited parking available at the UofR.

Many people are displeased by the amount of parking sold at the main campus. People who must drive, and those who want to drive, are saying they can’t easily find a spot they pay for. The UofR is building more parking lots, but they won’t be ready for months. There’s a solution available that could be working by next month, if not Monday.

I have a quick fix available for each sort of commuter.
People who must drive:
Parking at Conexus.
Add a shuttle.

Cycling: paint lines on Uni Drive
Add more bike locks, and showers.
Transit: don’t defeat a Upass.
Offer the Regina Car Share Co-op free parking, or even a free car.

Car pooling mentioned by Paige, VP External.
Jen at RPIRG next regarding parkade.
Vianne suggests UofR would subsidize a Upass.
Kent suggests focus on carpooling staff over students.

Students and staff and faculty have cars and no where to put them, and the Centre of the Arts has lots of empty lots and no cars most weekday business hours.
It’s the same walking distance from the southern Conexus Arts Centre parking lot to the Classroom building, as it is from Hillsdale St. to the Education Building. And it’s that same distance from First Nations University of Canada, to the middle of Lot 15, to give you an idea of the scale.

And at http://www2.uregina.ca/yourblog/?p=3426