With gas prices expecting to break records, from BEST, we want to let you know that there are some options that you might try to help you through this.
Walkable New Westminster - A short walking tour of the Agnes Street Greenway
Always excited about new infrastructure advancements promoting walkability, we could not wait to experience it ourselves and virtually take you on a tour. As a part of the engagement process, the City of New Westminster has been installing an interim greenway using temporary materials along a portion of the designated route.
Living Streets on the Amazing Places podcast
Earlier this month, 3-term former Saanich councillor Dean Murdock spoke to Alix Tier from our Living Streets team on his new Amazing Places podcast.
Dean and Alix spoke about how walking should always be a consideration in our communities, and how especially now — in this time of living, working and playing locally — we might be able to encourage communities to make changes to facilitate better walking environments.
Click the image to go to Amazing Places: Episode 4.
Dean asked all the right questions, such as the big one: why focus on walking? As Alix points out, walking is great for our physical health, but especially when the pandemic has led to a work-from-home boom, it's been an important way to maintain mental health and social connections. Staying inside, feeling the COVID-19-related uncertainty, and having to maintain physical distance was challenging for all of us, and continues to place limits on how and where we move about. It has also has allowed walking (or rolling, depending on your mobility challenges) to serve as common ground for all — a democratizing activity, if you will.
How about walking without a purpose? Dean and Alix delve into the many ways we have changed our approach to walking. And not just from the perspective of the ‘average citizen’. Thanks to the creativity of cities and towns across BC, we now see ‘slow streets’ — low-tech engineering measures, like speed humps, raised intersections, or narrowing of roadways, aimed at reducing motor vehicle speeds and congestion in local communities, to make more space and safer walking conditions for people.
As Dean notes, it sometimes also takes political will for local governments to make decisions around transportation changes, even those that are common sense for all the right health and environmental reasons. And as Alix notes, changes that make streets in our communities more conducive to local trips “challenges our thinking, and why we used to make certain decisions and choices about where we shop, where we recreate, and how we interact with the urban realm.”
Take a listen to this episode of Amazing Places.
Seniors' Mobility: Getting Around During a Pandemic
Mobility for senior citizens is important - for shopping, medical appointments, social occasions and continued participation in community life. In the short-term, having older adults drive themselves to avoid COVID risk makes sense. In the longer-term, the liveability and vibrancy of our communities depends on a public transit system to reduce traffic congestion and provide a healthy alternative to driving.
Vancouver’s Patiotown and Murals of Gratitude Bring New Life to Historic Gastown
Back in 2017, Vancouver began working on Gastown Complete Streets, a transportation plan for the city's historic Gastown neighbourhood, which included the concept of Vancouver’s first car-light area, transit and cycling improvements, celebrating the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations on whose territory it was founded, and acknowledging the area’s complex history in relation to indigenous people. Then COVID-19 arrived.
Walking for Social Connection and Mental Well-being
The COVID19 pandemic has led British Columbians to rethink the way we move around our communities and how we inhabit the space within them. With the rise of this ‘new normal’ and Dr.Bonnie Henry’s plea to ‘please go outside’, many municipalities are changing how space is allocated to allow for more accessible opportunities for active transportation -- walking included.
Local Governments Make More Room for Walking, Biking & Rolling
New spaces for walking and queuing. Re-allocated travel lanes for cycling and rolling. Expanded patios on streets to support the restaurant sector. These are just a few examples of initiatives being introduced by local governments over the past few weeks to support British Columbians, as we all look for ways to get back to commuting, shopping, dining out and recreation…while also aiming to maintain our distance.
Vancouver Sets Climate Targets for 'How We Move'
The Climate Emergency Action Plan — announced just months after City Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 — proposes to mitigate some of the causes and effects of climate change by focusing on providing services and amenities close to where people live. Sustainable transportation plays an integral part of the plan, which is why calls one of its strategic pillars How We Move.
The State of Cycling in Metro Vancouver
On February 28, 2020, HUB Cycling released Benchmarking the State of Cycling in Metro Vancouver, an in-depth report developed in partnership with all Metro Vancouver municipalities and TransLink, the regional transit authority, to provide a snapshot of the extent and quality of the region's bikeway network.
