In the shadow of Burlington City Hall, the tall, lanky Dutchman Wim Mulder looks down at the bike helmet as if he doesn't often wear one or hasn't even seen one before.
Yet, the traffic engineer visiting from Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, is here to help Burlington build its cycling infrastructure. He rides. In fact, his job is all about growing his hometown's cycling network.
"We have a policy that we want to make the roads safe enough that it's not necessary," Mulder says of his bike helmet, loaned to him before a group ride to see how Burlington measures up on cycling terms.
Mulder was in Burlington as part of an official delegation this week from Apeldoorn, which signed a twinning agreement with Burlington in 2005. That has led to several exchanges of citizens and staff.
Mulder shared his bike-planning expertise with city staff, consultants helping with the city's new cycling master plan, the Burlington Cycling Committee and others.
Apeldoorn is a city of 155,000 people -- similar to Burlington -- about 100 km east of Amsterdam, a flat area with a tourist trade.
Mulder said that, like most of Holland, cycling caught on in the 1970s as an antidote to car-dominated land use planning. It was cheap, healthy, eco-friendly and is now part of the Dutch identity.
After his visit to Apeldoorn last year, Burlington Cycling Committee's Gary Murphy came away with an overwhelming impression: "We have a lot of work to do, but they have been working at it for 50 years. We are in our infancy."
Mulder's arrival came at a time when Burlington is considering everything from bike-only traffic signals to bylaws requiring bike parking in a new cycling master plan. The focus is on connectivity, and safety, around areas like the QEW and 403 interchanges.
Census information suggests just 0.8 per cent of Burlingtonians commute by bike to work; 79.7 per cent drive a car; more than half of all commutes are less than 10 kilometres.
In Apeldoorn, the split for trips of less than 8 kilometres is: 44 per cent by car, 6 per cent by bus, and a staggering 50 per cent by bicycle. Mulder says it didn't come easily, and still involves fights to get money for new bike lanes, lights and paths.
On the bike tour, Mulder's mood was upbeat if flabbergasted: the painted-on bike lanes on Maple were so skinny, the asphalt bike laneways near Optimist Park unsigned, the crossing to the Burlington GO station disconnected from what should be the easiest, straight line to the trains.
"You don't charge for parking!" he exclaimed, amid the sea of cars parked by all-day commuters at the GO station.
In Apeldoorn's train station it's $10 a day for parking. It also has 5,000 bike parking spaces.
"Potential" was a word Mulder used often. Think about the extra space North American roads already have, compared to Europe. Or how Burlington's grid layout is an easy navigation tool.
Norma Moores, of urban development consulting firm IBI Group, said that working on the City of Burlington's cycling master plan raised concerns and possibilities.
Burlington may put some roads on a "diet," devoting space to bikes at the expense of cars; it has to deal with the risk of freeway crossings; the waterfront needs links to other areas.
Even in Apeldoorn, cycling didn't happen by accident. Dutch laws allow cyclists a right of way in many situations, and in an accident the motorist is assumed to be at fault, unless proven otherwise.
Learn more: http://fietsberaad.nl/index.cfm?lang=en
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Hamilton is about to update the "modest" 1999 Shifting Gears plan for cycling in the city, to inject new life on two wheels.
Daryl Bender, city project manager handling cycling, said the months ahead will collect public input on how to improve routes, signage, promotion and more.
"Shifting Gears is modest by today's standards," said Bender. "The past 10 years have seen a big increase in the interest paid to active transportation." The sessions for input are not yet scheduled.
The new cycling master plan, to be done by spring, grows out of studies such as the 2007 Transportation Master Plan and 2006 West Hamilton Bicycle Network Review.
The Transportation Master Plan's near-term goal was to make bikes a choice for 10 per cent of trips (from 6 per cent currently); long term, the goal is 15 per cent, with better routes, shorter home/work distances, education and better urban planning.
Bender said the new plan will also satisfy some environmental assessment rules for a list of projects, so they don't spend years each in separate assessment processes.
Coming soon, Bender says, are improvements at Aberdeen and Longwood, King from Nash to Centennial, and the trickier CP Rail-Main Street West connection, where the city is about to submit an offer to purchase so it can negotiate cyclists across the 403 rail bridge.
It comes as regional transportation agency Metrolinx is also plotting an ambitious course for the future of Toronto and Hamilton.
In the region, Metrolinx estimates 17 per cent of all trips are walkable (less than two kilometres) and 40 per cent are bikable (less than five kilometres). But walking and cycling make up just 5 per cent of work trips and 32 per cent of school trips in the region.
Fifteen years into the Metrolinx transportation plan, the agency plans to invest up to $300 million in new walking and cycling infrastructure in the region, creating up to 4,500 kilometres of dedicated on- and off-road facilities.
From 16 to 25 years from now, a further $200 million will be invested in walking and cycling for an additional 3,000 kilometres.
Jill Stephen, city manager of strategic planning, said Metrolinx already sent $190,000 to Hamilton for bike racks on buses and secure storage at the York Boulevard parkade.She said the city will study its nodes and corridors -- major stops and lines in its network -- to see where more storage makes sense, possibly at GO stations, for example.
The city plans to open the next secure bike locker at the Hamilton Convention Centre in spring 2009. Without Metrolinx help, the city's annual budget for cycling initiatives is $300,000.
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For more information see:
hamilton.ca/cycling
metrolinx.com
