Cycling in Saskatoon a fast, cheap fix By Paul Hanley, The Starphoenix Our son enrolled in an excellent program called Outdoor School this semester (odsprogram.blinkweb). For those who get bored sitting in a desk and would rather be outdoors, it is a great alternative to conventional schools. Hey, would you rather study forest ecology in a classroom or during a break from whitewater canoeing on the Churchill River? One element of the program is that students cycle to Marion Graham School and other locations around the city every day, which raises concerns about safety. We were quite surprised at the number of cycling trails, lanes and bike friendly roads that are now searchable on Google maps by clicking the bicycle button. Our son can take bike trails almost all the way from our house on the south end of the city to Marion Graham in the north end. Almost is the key word. If you look at the Saskatoon bike trail map on Google, you will see mostly disconnected segments of trail. Between segments, the roads remain the domain of the automobile and the cyclist is a second-class commuter. Particularly challenging are intersections with major roads, getting on and off the older bridges, and heavy traffic corridors. Cyclists deserve more respect. Those who cycle to school and work are doing everyone a favour by reducing traffic and pollution. Just last week, the World Health Organizations International Agency for Research on Cancer (iarc.fr) officially labelled outdoor air pollution a leading cause of cancer after reviewing 1,000 scientific papers on the subject. The IARC says 223,000 people die from lung cancer as a result of air pollution each year. Previously, the agency had labelled individual elements found in air pollution, like diesel exhaust, as carcinogens. This is the first time the organization has labelled outdoor air pollution, as a whole, as a cause of cancer. So, efforts to get people out of cars and onto bicycles reduce pollution, save lives and reduce health care costs. Still, there is reluctance to put serious money into cycling infrastructure, although we celebrate spending hundreds of millions on infrastructure for more and more cars. Some municipalities are finding fast and cheap ways to support cycling. New York City, for instance, has discovered that paint, flowerpots and folding chairs can quickly win back urban space for people - and people love it. A great TED talk by Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner of NYCs Department of Transportation, shows how Saskatoon could reclaim more of its streets for people with minimal money next summer. Instead of doing another set of studies, requiring major, controversial decisions about costly infrastructure, New Yorks solution was cheap, short-term experiments. What would it be like if Times Square was a place for people instead of cars? It turns out there was little opposition to trying low cost alternatives for a few months. So New York painted a piece of the square a nice bright colour, marked it off with flower pots and set up lawn chairs from local stores. People flocked to the square, traffic adapted, and the changes soon became permanent. Interestingly, Times Square changed from a rather seedy part of the city into one of the top retail areas in the world, so local businesses and land owners were delighted. New York has also used this approach to increase cycling lanes. Saskatoon Cycles (saskatooncycles.org) has the right idea with its proposal for an experiment with separate cycling lanes on some of our downtown streets next summer. The organization says Saskatoons system of bicycle sharrows - on-street signage that encourages drivers to share lanes with bikes - was a good first step. However, studies have shown that separated bike lanes are better for cyclists, pedestrians, motorists and businesses in busy downtown cores. The organization is proposing a project called Better Bike Lanes to demonstrate that separated lanes can work in Saskatoon. Bike lanes would be painted on the streets and set apart with movable dividers. If it doesnt work, no harm done. My guess is that drivers will adapt quickly to it and cycling will increase. If you agree, visit betterbikelanes.ca, find out what is being proposed, and consider signing the petition.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 04:55:40 +0000
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