Here’s a post on WorldChanging that introduces the concept of city planning that’s inclusive of bicycle traffic.
Alex Steffen quotes Dave Neiwert:
“Some of this has to do with an entrenched transportation bureaucracy that is often skeptical about the costs and benefits of accommodating bicycles, and that translates into reluctance on the part of policy-makers to make the kinds of changes that might make the network [function well].“
Agreed, agreed. That being said, Winnipeg has made strides towards becoming bicycle friendly (withness bike paths along Fermor and Bishop Grandin), but as noted (in relation to Seattle) in the Worldchanging article, the peices don’t fit together into a coherent, functional whole – i.e.: few people want to travel via bike from one part of Bishop Grandin to another; what they’d like is to be able to go from their St. Vital neighborhood to downtown, or the U of M, etc. Unfortunately, this network is not (yet) in place – cyclists end up on high traffic routes with narrow lanes, or on the sidewalks.
Anyway – I can accept that expanding the network will take time. No problem. What does bother me, however, is when zero-cost options are lost, seemingly on the basis of oversight. The best example I’ve seen so far is the Gisele’s Day Spa parking lot near the Kenaston/Grant intersection. When the rail line was pulled out from beind the area, it left a perfect green corridor that ran a good deal of the length of Route 90. Now that path is interrupted by a fenced parking lot.
Was this the best way to put this suddenly available land to use? How was this land sold anyway? Is it direct from the rail co.’s to the strip mall owner? Surely zoning must have played a role here, alerting the city to what was going on.
Anyway, to bring it all back together – the city is slowly working on making bike transportation feasible, but needs to incorporate it more fully as a mandate when considering infrastructure projects (lane width) and zoning changes.
