Cancellation of the Winnipeg Bicycle Strategy Contract
Last July, without any warning or public consultation, the City of Winnipeg announced that it had cancelled the contract to develop pedestrian and cycling strategies that were meant to define and direct the future growth of our city’s pedestrian and cycling networks.
Bike Winnipeg urges the City to reverse the decision by the public works department to abandon the pedestrian and cycling strategy and immediately recommit to the creation of pedestrian and cycling strategies as recommended in the City of Winnipeg’s Transportation Master Plan, adopted in November 2011.
The Winnipeg Transportation Master Plan, adopted in 2011, calls for the creation of a Winnipeg Bicycle Strategy
Help Get the Bicycle Strategy back on track
City of Winnipeg Councillors Jenny Gerbasi and John Orlikow have put forward a motion asking that the City revisit its decision to cancel the bicycle and pedestrian strategies that will be heard at the public works committee meeting scheduled for September 10, 2013. Bike Winnipeg will be presenting before this committee in arguing for the city to overturn its previous decision and restart the development of pedestrian and cycling strategies for the City of Winnipeg.
We ask that Bike Winnipeg members and all other concerned members of the public reach out to their city Councillors and demand that they City of Winnipeg immediately recommit to the creation of pedestrian and cycling strategies as recommended in the City of Winnipeg’s Transportation Master Plan, adopted in November 2011.
Contacting your Councillor can be as simple as picking up the phone, or sending en email, and if enough people speak up, we can change this unfortunate decision.
You can view a listing of current city Councillors and their contact information here.
Better yet, if you can spare some extra time, you can register to address the committee in person and present your views on the decision to cancel the contract that was awarded to create a comprehensive Active Transportation (AT) Strategy. If you can’t be there in person, you can also send in submissions.
When: Tuesday, September 10th at 9:00 AM
Where: Council Building, 510 Main Street, 2nd Floor
Register/info: Visa Hutter, vhutter@winnipeg.ca
We will be updating this page as we continue our efforts to restart the bicycle and pedestrian strategy process. Please revisit this site for further resources and information to help you advocate for the creation of a Winnipeg bicycle strategy.
The Need for a Winnipeg Bicycle Strategy
The creation of a Winnipeg Bicycle Strategy would accomplish the following:
- Articulate the need for a safe, cohesive, direct and comfortable bicycle network and quantify the benefits (health, economic, and environmental) attainable if the city agrees to devote the resources needed to provide such a network and compliment it with appropriate education, encouragement and enforcement programming;
- Define a desired network of of bicycle infrastructure that ensures all housing, education, employment, shopping and recreation centers can be accessed safely and comfortably by bicycle without the need for excessive detour or delay;
- Set guidelines to ensure that bicycle infrastructure meets present and future demand, and that the particular treatment selected for a given route or segment of the network (such as a separated cycle track, a bicycle lane or a mixed use low speed/low volume roadway) is appropriate for the environment it is placed into and the network role it is meant to meet;
- Identify educational and encouragement programs to maximize the benefit of new or improved cycling infrastructure by ensuring all users of the transportation network (pedestrians, cyclists, transit, freight and private vehicles) know where they will find cycling infrastructure and know what to expect of each other when they encounter it.
- Set time frames for completion of the defined bicycle network and provide estimates for the cost of doing so;
- Identify property easements needed to extend the network into future developments or to remove gaps and barriers in existing neighbourhoods;
- Provide a consistent and transparent methodology to prioritize from amongst various desired projects based on qualifiers such as current and latent demand, improvements to safety, removal of gaps or barriers, cost, or opportunity to tie in with other city projects; and
- Define policy, regulations and procedures that will ensure that the need for safe, cohesive, direct and comfortable pedestrian and bicycle access is reflected in all business conducted by the city and those it contracts out to;
Dead end bicycle lane on the Osborne Bridge
Lack of a Winnipeg Bicycle Strategy has led to disconnected, uncomfortable and unsafe cycling infrastructure throughout Winnipeg.