cyclists to city council

Help distribute a leaflet encouraging cyclists to contact their councillors, and to attend the next City Council Meeting where the voting will take place to fund the Shifting Gears Cycling Plan for Hamilton, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, at 7PM Hamilton Convention Centre, 1 Summers Lane.

If cyclists attend one city council meeting, this is the one! Come out and bring your friends!

calling all cyclists!

CYCLISTS! ACT NOW TO ENSURE HAMILTON’S CYCLING FUTURE!
Contact Your City Councillor

If you cycle, or know someone who does, we need you to let your local politician know that you support an integrated cycling network of bike lanes and paths.

Council will be voting on how much they will fund the Shifting Gears Cycling Plan Wednesday, June 24, 2009!

7pm, Hamilton Convention Centre, 1 Summers Lane

If cyclists attend one city council meeting, this is the one!
Come out and bring your friends!

A full list of councillors, contact info and ward boundaries can be found here:

http://www.myhamilton.ca/myhamilton/CityandGovernment/YourElectedOfficials/CityCouncillors/

The best case scenario: City councillors approve $2.5 million in funding each year , which would see the urban cycling network completed in 10 years and the rural web of bike paths completed in 20 years

AGAINST:
“Councillor Tom Jackson frequently hears from residents who want more recreational trails.
He’s not sure if those same people want to bike to work on city streets. ‘I’m not detecting a huge clamouring for commuter lanes. ’”

Flamborough’s Councillor “Margaret McCarthy is sceptical additional bike lanes would be well used given the escarpment, weather, transit improvements and heavy traffic. ‘It seems to me an unsafe practice, ’ she said. ‘For my money, this wouldn’t go forward. ’”

Terry Whitehead: "Convince me that investing over fifty million dollars on a seasonal activity would be better than making this investment into public transit."

FOR:
Councillor Bob Bratina “If you’ve been to Europe and seen it, you believe it,” he said. “We need to evolve a little more.”

HOW?:
“The key to achieving high levels of cycling appears to be the provision of separate cycling facilities along heavily travelled roads and at intersections, combined with traffic calming of most residential neighbourhoods. Extensive cycling rights of way...are complemented by ample bike parking, full integration with public transport, comprehensive traffic education and training of both cyclists and motorists, and a wide range of promotional events intended to generate enthusiasm and wide public support for cycling.”

– from Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany by JOHN PUCHER and RALPH BUEHLER

COMPARE:
Annual Cost of Operating the Red Hill Parkway (8km total): $2.65 million
Annual Cost to Implement the Cycling Plan over 20 years : $2.5 million for a total of 566km of bike lanes

TRANSPORTATION FOR LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES HAMILTON @ tlchamilton.org
A working group of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) McMaster

Racing Away with the Cycling Money

WORLD CYCLING RACE - HAMILTON 2003 - "Cycling is not just a sport"

Cycling Is Not Just A Sport: It's Also Transportation!
 
City Council will have a difficult time ignoring the concerns of city cyclists when bike advocates show up to the 2nd floor council chambers with their vehicles.

On Thursday, Hamilton City Council's Committee of the Whole will be voting to "fast track" almost $12 million worth of road improvements so the city can host the 2003 World Cycling Championships.


The work being done for the World Championships will do nothing to make the streets safer for cyclists who live and ride in Hamilton all the time, even though three cyclists have already been killed by motor vehicles on Hamilton's roads this year, and many more injured.

Transportation for Liveable Communities (TLC) is demanding that the city recognize that cycling is not just a sport but also a sustainable means of transportation, and fast track plans to make it a safer option in Hamilton.

Roads made up 46% of the city's 2001 capital budget. Approximately $29.3 million will be going towards expressways, particularly the Lincoln Alexander Expressway, and another $33.5 million will be going towards other road projects. The capital budget for cycling projects is only $300,000.

In a city where 20% of households lack cars, and 40% of residents say they cycle regularly or occasionally (Hamilton-Wentworth Community Cycling Survey, 1997), spending $209 on car-centric capital improvements for every $1 on cycling is not acceptable.

The city already has plans that, though imperfect, could make the roads safer for cyclists, and might prevent future deaths. TLC demands that the city immediately implement "Shifting Gears: A New Cycling Plan For The Hamilton-Wentworth" as well as the traffic calming measures for downtown as suggested in "Putting People First: Downtown Transportation Plan."

Transportation for Liveable Communities is a group of Hamilton citizens and McMaster university students committed to promoting sustainable means of transportation--walking, running, cycling, and public transit. We will be attending the Committee of the Whole meeting (Thursday, August 9, 2 pm, Hamilton City Hall's council chambers), along with our helmets, our reflective gear, and our bikes, to demand that City Council make it a priority to support cycling-as-transportation by fast tracking the money to make substantial, immediate capital improvements, just as it will be doing for cycling-as-sport.

SOD IT!

PARK IT!

First PMP in Hamilton drew a crowd (King W at MacNab) 

Hamilton. Ontario. Monday, July 16, 2001

More than one motorist did a double take while driving downtown Hamilton during the lunch hour: where they expected the usual grey concrete and asphalt they were treated to some impromptu green space and a parking meter party.

The parking meter party was thrown together by local transportation activists, members of Transportation for Liveable Communities (a working group of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group at McMaster) who hope to make this a frequent event for lovers of clean air, and safe, quiet streets.

Parking meters provide cheap party rental space (50 cents an hour in downtown Hamilton) and are readily available on city streets all over North America. Unroll a bit of sod for texture and some green and crank up the boom box. Pull up a chair, play a game of chess, have a glass of lemonade. Enjoy the streets!

At about 11:00 am a few people started handing out flyers at King and James Streets; by noon, a full blown street party was underway.

As people unrolled fresh sod, others strung banners and colourful flags. Chairs and table were set up and the cassette dropped into the boom box. A quarter was placed into the parking meter, the dial turned and then, nothing could stop the celebration.

As the steady stream of mobile smog producing factories (AKA automobiles) rumbled past, about 40 citizens partied on the grass. People held signs that read "End the Automobile Age" and "Cars Kill Community."

Over the strains of music (the Clash "Car Jam;" Rancid "Avenues and Alleyways;" Patti Smith "Dancing Barefoot") members of TLC encouraged citizens to call their councillors, going so far as to provide a cell phone and a list of council phone numbers; some people invited their councillors to the party; a couple actually made it down to check out the action.

Artists used chalk to enhance the dull sidewalks with artful renderings of flowers, as others blew soap bubbles which gently floated out over the traffic.

A bike repair workshop materialized and lucky cyclists got free tune-ups from Mark and Chris of Spin Cycles.

Eric Ferguson brought down several orange bicycles (modelled on the white bikes of Amsterdam, the bikes are free for anyone to use, as long as they leave it for others when their trip is done) and bicycle couriers stopped by to have a glass of lemonade and chat.

People concentrated on two chess games that were sharing prime real estate while people danced beside them. Some people just laid down and stretched out, enjoying the only green space within sight.
Passer-by gave thumbs up, and some joined in the fun.

One elderly pedestrian promised to quit smoking if we could get rid of the cars downtown, a promise he repeated for the benefit of all through the bullhorn.

TLC demands include a push for long awaited bike lanes on downtown streets, support for municipal public transit and for Hamilton to take part in World Car Free Day by closing streets to cars on September 20.

The celebration was offset by the dark side of life in North American cities: car-nage.

Hamilton drivers have, through years of official encouragement and traffic design aimed at "efficiency", become a serious menace.

Cameras installed to catch red light runners in Hamilton reveal the depth of the problem: compared to Toronto where cameras captured an average of 53 motorists running red lights in May, Hamilton captured an average of 198 motorists for the month.

Recently in Hamilton, 36-year-old Tim Ekelman was killed as a speeding car (racing with another car) slammed into his bicycle from behind. As the Hamilton Spectator reported "A black baseball cap lay half a block away at the point of collision and a man's contorted body lay twisted and bleeding heavily at the intersection." The driver has been charged with criminal negligence causing death. Police are searching for the other car, which left the scene of the "accident".

The man's sister in law works as a parking-meter attendant and happened upon the parking meter party. She instantly understood TLC's message:

It is past time to curb the car.

Between 1990 and 1998 motor vehicle accidents killed 289 people in Hamilton Wentworth and injured 34,220 more. Worldwide cars kill 500,000 people, two thirds of whom are pedestrians, of which one third are children.

According to the Canadian Automobile Association, there are now more than 2.78 million vehicles on highways per day in the Hamilton and Toronto region.

One full transit bus could replace up to 40 single occupant vehicles, thereby saving 70,000 litres of fuel and avoiding nine tonnes of air pollutants a year!

The same day that climate change talks resumed in Bonn, TLC activists reminded people that motor vehicles are the leading cause of smog, and contribute 65% of all carbon monoxide emitted into the environment, a primary element contributing to global warming.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to Hamiltonians, who are experiencing the worst year ever for poisonous smog. Last summer's total of nine smog days were matched as early as June this year. This year also ushered in the earliest smog alert ever issued (April)

Activists vow to keep pressure on politicians at all levels to fund and implement transportation strategies that encourage non-fossil fuel alternatives and support integrated public transit systems.
Canada currently has no sustained federal support for transit and Ontario has made no commitment to transit investments. Ontario has, though, recently announced their intention to build a super "mid peninsula" highway, which will only exacerbate suburban sprawl, highway gridlock, smog and global warming.

A light rain which began just as our two hour limit ran out on the meter signalled the end of the party. As people rolled up the lush green sod to reveal the oil stained pavement beneath, the main question on people's minds was "when is the next parking meter party?"

The answer is: "Soon."