Montreal BIXI bikes

As heard April 20th, 2013 on The Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean [Podcast]
Originally aired: May 14th, 2010
Not to be used without permission

The great British Science fiction writer, H.G. Wells, who wrote The Time Machine, and The First Men on the Moon, and The War of the Worlds, and spent virtually his entire life peering into the future, and when he wasn’t doing that, dreaming about perfect worlds, wrote, that every time he saw, an adult on a bicycle, he no longer “despaired of the human race”.

H.G. Wells would be happy to find himself in Montreal this spring.

Because seemingly, overnight, for those of us not paying attention anyway, seemingly overnight, like one of those spring flower s nudging its yellow head through a snow bank, Montreal has become the greatest bicycle city in North America.

Okay.

I know, that’s a big statement.

And I have no scientific proof. These things are a matter of opinion. But that is my opinion. And I am prepared to take it a step further. I am prepared to say that Montreal can suddenly be ranked among the great bike cities of the world.

You don’t have to take my word. Last year Time Magazine rated urban bike rides, and ranked the 24 km loop along the Lachine canal and rapids, as the third greatest urban cycle, in the world.

Montreal has gone Bike Crazy.

Probably the biggest thing that happened in Montreal last year, was the arrival of the BIXI bikes. These are the community-owned bicycles that anyone can rent. 24 hours a day. The bikes are locked, unsupervised, at corners around the city. They began last spring with 3,000 bikes at 300 stations. They were so wildly popular they added 2,000 bikes and another 100 stations before the biking season was over. Let me do the math for you. That is a total of 5,000 bikes, at 400 stations.

An annual BIXI membership costs about 70 bucks. And with a membership you have unlimited right to the use of the bikes … anytime you want. Here is how it works. You simply walk up to one of the bike racks, and they are everywhere you look, you swipe your pass, and you pull out a bike. And there is no charge for the first 30 minutes. You can ride anywhere in the city. And you don’t have to bring the bike back to where you got it. You can leave it at any of the other 400 racks around town.

SO you take a bike, drive to lunch, lock it up, and you have finished eating take another bike and drive it home.

If you are a tourist, and tourists love the bikes. It costs you $5 for a 24 hour membership.

The BIXI system was designed, built and developed here in Quebec. They took money from the cities parking revenues and from the major sponsor, the aluminum producer Rio Tinto Alcan … and it is so successful they have already sold the technology and concept to Minneapolis, Melbourne, and London. England. And there are at least another 10 cities around the world who have shown interest. It is a staggering success story.

I could go on and on. The twelve technicians trained to service the bikes were at risk high school students. After a year in the program all 12 have decided to go back to school. Melbourne and Minneapolis are thinking about incorporating using that part of the idea too.

But it’s not only the BIXI bikes that make Montreal so cycle-friendly… there are also the bike lanes and bike paths.

There are 500 kilometers of bike paths and lanes in the city of Montreal. 700 kilometers on Montreal island. The most impressive of them all, I would put forward, is the Claire Morissette bike path. Morissette was a passionate bicycle activist who, along with “Bicycle Bob” Silverman, founded le monde a bicyclette and fought with Montreal City hall for thirty years.

She was once arrested, it is worth pointing out, for painting her own bike lanes on city streets. Well, times change. And sometimes prophets get their due. The idea to name the bike lane in Claire’s honor was endorsed unanimously by Montreal City council. She died just before it opened.

She would have loved it. It the only bike path in North America, that I know of, that goes right through the heart of a major city. That is the point of what is happening here in Montreal. They aren’t just building bike paths where it is easy to build them.

Claire Morissette’s bike path runs along de Maisoneuve avenue … which is a major street … and it runs from one side of the city to the other … an entire lane, reserved for bikes, and set apart from cars by concrete barriers.

And in the mornings, and the afternoons, you can see 10, 20, 25, people on bikes waiting at a stop light … Sometimes, at some corners, it is so c crowded there are bike jams, there are so many bikes that everyone doesn’t make it through the light.

It seems everyone is on a bike in Montreal these days … It is intergenerational, and intercultural , and inter class. There is no sense that the people in the cars represent a ruling class that is being confronted by rebels on their bikes. Everyone is on a bike.

Though. I don’t want to give you the impression that everything is perfect. If its perfection you want, you can go to Holland, where bikes coast up to intersections as if they were choreographed by a Tai Chi Master. In Montreal people scream up to intersections as if they are auditioning for the Cirque de Soleil. And they are driving on sidewalks, and going the wrong way up one way streets. They ride bikes here the way they do everything else, as if they are the offspring of a Swiss clockmaker and Italian mobster. And you watch in horrified wonder, until you spot a guy biking towards you in a helmet … and you think, okay there’s one sensible rider in the lot … and then he rides his helmeted head right through a red light … and as he passes you, you notice he has a cigarette in his mouth.

Listen. I know there are problems. I know this isn’t some perfect bicycle world that H.G. Wells has imagined into existence.

I know to belong to the BIXI program you need a credit card and that excludes a certain part of the population. And I know the bike paths drive people crazy in the winter when snow clearing becomes an issue. And that if you happen to be driving your car along de Maisonneuve, and you want to turn right, you can wait for ever to find a clearing in the stream of cyclists. I know you sit in your cars fuming. But the next time you find yourself sitting there thinking bad thoughts about bikes …. and now, probably, me … remember this … you are a citizen of the best bike city on the continent.

And know this too. When we come here from Toronto, and Vancouver, and even Ottawa, and we look around, and see what you are doing, we find ourselves in danger of committing the mortal sin of envy.

And if your contribution is to sit in your car and smolder … that is a contribution.

Am I guilty of hyperbole? I don’t think so.

I haven’t been able to verify this, but I have been told, by more than one person, that the sale of bikes in Quebec makes up for 40% of the bikes that are sold across Canada.

Things are spinning in wonderful ways here in Montreal. The rest of country would do well to pay attention.

Counters, pumps, repair stations and real cycling infrastructure

Vancouver has just installed some bike repair stations. After the (albeit manufactured) furor around the pumps, and notwithstanding the circuitous funding mechanism this time, these repair stations strike me as an odd public-relations choice, either due to naivete or to an unhelpful devil-may-care confidence.

Counters, pumps and repair stations won’t get more people on bikes. Worse, they may reinforce the tribalism (“Woot! 2000 on the counter! One Less Car! One Less Car!”) and techno-fetishism (“Dude, are those DT-Swiss X470 29ers?”) which undermines normalcy in public perception and the desired mass modal shift. 

Getting more people on bikes is a safety issue and a marketing issue, as the city well knows. The people who don’t cycle today, don’t cycle because they don’t feel safe cycling.

Here is how to make them feel safe.

1. Don’t make armour mandatory.

If the government’s international Country Travel Advice page included the note “armour is legally required at all times” for some country, you could be forgiven for interpreting this as “do not travel”. The same reasoning will apply to adult helmet laws. If this cycling thing is so inherently dangerous as to need armour, why the heck is the government promoting it? (Answer, of course: it’s not actually dangerous.)

2. Put the bikelanes on the sidewalk side of the parked car, not the driver-doorzone-and-moving-cars side.

Because a) all cars have drivers, but not all cars have passengers; and b) the parked cars should protect the people, not the other way around.

3. Paint (and later build) ‘dutch islands’ at intersections.

Last May, I suggested painting this at Yukon and 10th and was shot down by the City’s engineers. Here’s an explanatory video, and here’s a recent proposal in Christchurch, New Zealand.

4. Implement public bike share

Putting bicycles at the fingertips of the masses is having a tremendous impact on bicycling culture and mode share. As Pete Stidman, director of the Boston Cyclists Union, suggested: “If cycling is some kind of crazy drug that makes us happier, healthier and better-looking, then bike share is the gateway drug.”

Items 1-3 cost less than the pumps and repair stations. Your own advertising bylaws (and, of course, adult helmet choice) determine whether bikeshare needs to cost you anything.

Not anarchists

I hope it is clear that Sit Up Vancouver are not anti-establishment anarchists. We do not advocate for the repeal of all laws, or hold the police force in unreserved disdain.

We are a very specific advocacy group, with a very specific goal. A goal that is also the stated policy of municipalities across BC, and of the province itself: namely more people using bicycles for normal, every-day transport. While adults can be fined for not wearing a helmet while cycling, this will not be a natural transport mode choice for the majority.

Like soldiers, the police have their mandate circumscribed by politicians. Soldiers only go to war when instructed to do so by our elected officials; the police may only uphold laws that our elected officials have passed.

However, unlike soldiers, the police may exercise discretion and judgement in their application of the law. Obviously it is impossible for the police to uphold ubiquitous laws, like the adult bicycle helmet law. They cannot be everywhere at once, and cannot stop everybody. Therefore they exercise judgement. The law is their tool, to be used to help keep the peace.

When we mock VPD for setting up helmet traps, it is the judgement of those officers (or their superiors, if instructed) to choose to uphold this law - among all the others - and on the safest streets in the city.

Helmet traps are safety theatre. They do not make the streets of Vancouver safer. Wearing a good helmet may make an individual safer, but police never check helmet integrity: you could cruise by a trap in a fake.

We would have more difficulty with our claim of malign intent and/or laziness if the officers ever performed bell checks, or helmet integrity checks, or if they set up on dangerous arterials. We have yet to hear of such efforts.

Sit Up Vancouver wholly endorses the use of such accident-preventing safety measures as lights, bells, height, strict compliance with traffic signals, a leisurely pace and the use of dedicated cycling streets and lanes.

We won’t debate helmet laws for children, Idaho stops, failure to indicate, cycling on the sidewalk or hundreds of other daily infringements. Behavioral scofflaws - often helmeted, note - give us careful sit-up cyclists a bad name. VPD officers can go right ahead and uphold that long list of other laws, safe from our mocking tweets.

But ticketing slow, safe commuters on quiet streets is wasteful, counterproductive, backward foolishness, and will always be called out as such.

Tireless defender of the BC taxpayer Jordan Bateman has commented that there is no difference between seatbelt spot-checks and adult helmet spot checks. We clearly disagree. Here are a couple of ways in which seatbelt laws differ from adult helmet laws:

• Cars have engines and travel quickly (>15kph) making them inherently dangerous.
• Seatbelt laws are nationally and internationally ubiquitous. Adult helmet laws are not. While we shouldn’t unthinkingly copy other jurisdictions, our anomalous law should give pause for thought.
• Seatbelts hold the driver’s body inside a metal roll cage preventing damage to limbs and spine. Helmets do not.
• There is no evidence that seatbelt laws discourage driving. There is some evidence - most notably, the abject failure of Melbourne bikeshare - that adult helmet laws do discourage cycling. For doubters, repealing the adult helmet law in BC on a trial basis would allow useful data to be gathered in this respect.

He has also commented that “the law is the law: deal with it”. Unfortunately the adult bicycle helmet law is a major barrier to the good and important municipal and provincial policy goal of more people on bicycles. Therefore we advocate vocally for its amendment, and encourage civil disobedience in this respect. Like any civil disobedience campaign it is important to maintain focus: to respect all other laws, and to provide a clear solution to problems of the status quo.

As well as advising VPD not to ticket users of safe streets, City of Vancouver council could ensure all official photographs of cyclists depict them dressed as pedestrians, and could strongly advocate for amendment to the law, thus:

Amendment to the Bicycle Safety Helmet Regulation

MOVER:  Mayor

SECONDER:  Councillor

WHEREAS

1. Minister of Justice and Attorney General for British Columbia, Shirley Bond MLA, has jurisdiction over the Motor Vehicle Act;
2. Section 184 of the Motor Vehicle Act makes it illegal to ride a bicycle without wearing a helmet (“the adult helmet law”);
3. Adult helmet laws have led to the failure of Public Bike Systems in Australia;
4. Vancouver wishes to implement a Public Bike System;
5. Vancouver, and the province, have invested in excellent bicycle infrastructure;
6. The adult helmet law does not extend to people on foot or in cars, despite the higher number of head injuries each year (and resulting higher healthcare burden) involving these groups;
7. Accident rates while cycling would be expected to decline as more people, including users of Public Bike Share, choose to cycle (“safety in numbers”);
8. The province leaves adults the responsibility to manage the risks of smoking, drinking, driving, voting, sexual intercourse and gambling;
9. The health and climate benefits of transport cycling are recognised and regularly promoted by the province;
10. The adult helmet law presents a clear barrier to the success of Vancouver Public Bike Share specifically, and to a higher cycling modal share in general.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED

1. THAT the Mayor, on behalf of the City, write to Minister Bond to request that all adults in Vancouver be exempt from the requirement under section 184 of the Motor Vehicle Act to wear a bicycle safety helmet.

Vancouver already boasts Boris’ best bits

A lot of people tell me I should ease up on the helmet thing, and lay off the City of Vancouver. There are good people there, they say, doing good work. I know this is true and I hope it’s obvious I love being able to cycle around Vancouver so easily on my big sit-up bicycle.

In the spirit of VIA-like optimism, and after Mayor Boris Johnson announced big plans for London, I wanted to highlight some of the great infrastructure he wants, that we already have.

London: “The Westway, the ultimate symbol of how the urban motorway tore up our cities, will become the ultimate symbol of how we are claiming central London for the bike.”

Dunsmuir Viaduct and Burrard bridge bike lanes are exactly this kind of freeway retrofit.

London: The first “quietways” – unbroken cycle routes on quiet streets, imitating lines on the tube network – will appear next year

Vancouver’s greenways along 10th and along Yukon follow our rapid transit routes of the 99 b-line and the Canada Line respectively. While these don’t pass directly by the transit stations, our grid makes the routes perfectly legible. The Grandview Greenway does exactly follow the skytrain route, at least as far as I’ve ever taken it: the problem with that route is the land use choices around the skytrain stations, but that’s a topic for another day.

London: A new segregated East-West Superhighway along the Victoria Embankment

You could compare this waterfront route to our false creek Seawall, connecting the Olympic Village to Yaletown the West End in one direction, and to Kitsilano in the other. Or, in terms of segregated East-West connection, to the Hornby bikelane.

London: Mini-hollands outside the town centre

Many Vancouver neighborhoods are heavily traffic-calmed, not only in the West End, but across the water in Kitsilano and Mount Pleasant. Having grown up nodally organically, London benefits from true complete neighborhoods, whereas Vancouver is attempting to fit a neighborhoods model to a streetcar corridor city. Separated lanes on arterials and safer designs for major intersections would help this greatly.

My point is that most of Vancouver’s streets are already safe enough for almost everyone to cycle around. Of course you can’t stroll down the middle of every street, and by no means should the City stop completing and calming streets. But within the City of Vancouver many, many more trips could be made safely by bicycle than actually are. Why that deficit? When asked, people say they feel unsafe. Therefore the city is correct to build separated lanes (although I think they could be done far more quickly and more cheaply with paint and parking: see Chicago for true ambition). But I also don’t think the government mandating armour helps engender a feeling of security. As Mikael says, it’s a marketing problem.

My ranting is born out of frustration at what might be. I get particularly incensed when people like David Hay say we need to keep the adult helmet law until the streets are safe enough. The streets of Vancouver are already safe enough, and they’ll get safer more quickly the more casual “non-cyclists” there are on bikes.

Last week, Boris also announced a 30% increase in bikeshare bikes. Meanwhile, Vancouver’s Transportation Director hopes to get something by the end of the year. Sigh.

Vancouver Bike Share shelved for another year: BC helmet law blamed

UPDATE: @vanmayorsoffice Rumours of #bikeshare 2014 delay untrue. Staff developing program, will report back to Council this spring. Still aiming for 2013 #vanpoli

COMMENT: Launch date still unclear. Winter launch would be unprecedented.

VANCOUVER, BC - Sit Up Vancouver is disappointed to learn that Vancouver public bike share will not launch until at least 2014.

The blame for this new delay lies squarely with the provincial legislature and their adult helmet law, but may be shared with the city council, for failing to amend its own adult helmet legislation, and for failing to make the case for adult helmet choice to the province with enough force.

The benefits of public bikeshare are well documented. They supplement transit, expanding the catchment area of rapid transit routes, and getting short-trip travelers off infrequent or busy routes. They allow one-way trips, for example when it’s raining on the way to work, but dry for the commute home. And they act as a “gateway drug to citizen cycling”, reminding people who don’t think of themselves as cyclists that ‘utility’ cycling is very different, and far more accessible, than ‘sports’ cycling. By flooding the streets with these ‘non-cyclists’, the city is made safer and the political support for improved infrastructure only grows [1].

Planned since at least 2008, the date for Vancouver’s bikeshare launch was finally announced last year as Spring 2013 [2]. Since then, the launch date has slipped to Summer [3] and last week, in an interview with Vancouver Magazine [4], City transportation director Jerry Dobrovolny pushed the date further back: “he still hopes to see some portion of a rollout take shape before the end of 2013.” Since no city would launch a cycling initiative as Winter approaches, this means no Bixi for Vancouver until at least 2014.

With bikeshare a resounding success in over 300 cities world-wide, including many with equally or even less bike-friendly topography, weather and street designs than Vancouver, it is clear that the barrier to the Vancouver bikeshare launch is the adult helmet law. (Specifically the City’s insistence that their preferred vendor - Alta Bike Share - offer a technical ‘solution’, when the problem is clearly a legislative one.)

As well as famous examples like Montreal, Toronto, Washington DC, Paris, Dublin and London, successful public bikeshare schemes have been rolled out in cities as diverse as Chattanooga, Tulsa, Tampa Bay and Kansas City. In every single case, collision, injury, and helmet use rates are all significantly lower for bikeshare users than for non-bikeshare cyclists [5]. Bikeshare is not dangerous.

We have a pro-cycling Mayor who is nevertheless not tackling the key barrier to more cycling. Sit Up Vancouver fully supports the City of Vancouver’s push for more people on bikes through bikeshare; but this is simply not possible while the adult helmet law is in place.

BC’s adult helmet law is an international anomaly, an out-dated, ill-considered and costly piece of legislation. It must be amended without delay.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/bike-blog/2013/mar/07/boris-johnson-future-london-cycling
[2] http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2012/06/vancouver-bike-share-program-to-launch-in-2013/
[3] http://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/public-bike-share-system.aspx
[4] http://www.vanmag.com/News_and_Features/A_Push_for_Cycling_in_Vancouver
[5] http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/06/16/from-london-to-d-c-bike-sharing-is-safer-than-riding-your-own-bike/

###

Actions available to the Provincial Legislature:

• Repeal the Bicycle Helmet Law (Section 184 of the Motor Vehicle Act)
• Amend the Bicycle Helmet Law to exempt adults
• Amend the Bicycle Helmet Law to exempt adults on municipal streets
• Amend the Bicycle Helmet Law to exempt adult users of non-sport bicycles
• Amend the Bicycle Helmet Law to exempt adult users of bike share bicycles
• Amend the Bicycle Helmet Law to delegate exemption powers to municipalities

Actions available to the City of Vancouver:

• Pass a motion requesting that the Province amend the Bicycle Helmet Law
• Amend the Municipal bylaw to allow cycling without a helmet around the seawall
• Instruct VPD to focus on all other safety measures
• Instruct VPD to publish all tickets, so the public can see the disproportionate time wasted on helmets over lights, speed, intersection jumping; and bikes rather than cars.

Actions available to the Vancouver PD:

• Focus on all other safety measures covered by law: failing to yield, lights, bells, dangerous behavior.
• Abandon the practice of roadblock ticketing, especially on designated cycle routes.

For more details on Sit Up Vancouver, bikeshare and the adult helmet law, please visit http://helmetchoice.ca/

Love bikeshare: support helmetchoice.ca

Contact:
Chris Bruntlett
Spokesman, Sit Up Vancouver
chris@henryglegg.com
778 837 2998

About Sit Up Vancouver: The satirical Church of Sit-Up Cycling was established to highlight the irrationality of BC’s adult helmet law, through its “essential religious practice” loophole. Sit Up Vancouver wholly endorses the use of such accident-preventing safety measures as lights, bells, height, strict compliance with traffic signals, a leisurely pace and the use of dedicated cycling streets and lanes.

British Columbia is now one of only a four states in the world with an adult helmet law - unlike seatbelt laws, for example, which are ubiquitous. Mexico City and Tel Aviv famously repealed their law to allow for Bike Share.

Minister Shirley Bond, responsible for the Motor Vehicle Act, and Councillor Heather Deal, who holds the cycling portfolio in Vancouver, have responded to calls for repeal with two fallacies:

1. Helmets protect heads in case of impact.
This is true whether taking a bath, falling at home, walking, riding the bus, or driving. Over-65s falling at home and drivers are a far greater burden on BC’s head injury hospital wards. This is not an argument that supports an adult helmet law for cyclists only.

2. There is no evidence that helmet laws limit cyclist numbers.
A. This is simply not true: the global evidence is freely available at http://cyclehelmets.org/. It is estimated that cyclist numbers fell 30% in BC after the introduction of the law, but sadly no thorough data were gathered.
B. Repealing the law on a trial basis, before the introduction of Vancouver bikeshare, would allow this evidence to be gathered.
C. A simple thought experiment can help dispel this argument: what might the result be of a helmet law for walking or riding the bus? Clearly many people would choose to avoid those modes on that basis. Ergo, mandatory helmet laws should clearly be expected to limit cyclist numbers.

Convenience is key to Public Bike Share systems. Helmet rental hinders that.

Manufacturers recommend replacing a helmet that is so much as dropped, due to invisible interior cracks. Wearing a helmet whose history is unknown is safety theatre, no matter how much checking is done. Source: http://www.livestrong.com/article/365038-should-i-replace-my-bicycle-helmet/#ixzz1xo6V5hJx

Melbourne Bike Share has less than one tenth the usage of Dublin Bike Share. They are similar sized cities and Melbourne has better weather. Melbourne has an adult helmet law. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1211.html

Repealing the law does not mean banning helmets. It just means adults may choose, based on their circumstances. In Portland, with no law, helmet use is higher than in Vancouver. Source: 77% helmet use in Portland http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?a=327783&c=44671 Source: 68% helmet use in Vancouver http://cyclehelmets.org/1103.html

The law could still apply to children under 19. Like smoking, drinking, voting, sexual relations, gambling and driving, restricting the freedoms of minors is common in BC, Canada and Internationally.

Healthcare costs will not rise: they may even fall. Today, more people suffer head injuries in BC while walking and driving, than while cycling. There were 15000 drivers, 2000 pedestrians and fewer than 500 cyclists injured in all of BC in 2009. Source: ICBC accident reports. http://www.icbc.com/road-safety/safety-research/collision-statistics

More cyclists means fewer accidents and a healthier population. Bike Share and Helmet Choice encourage safety in numbers and healthy, active transportation. Source: Head injuries and bicycle helmet laws. D.L. Robinson. AGBU, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia. Accepted 6 February 1996. Available online 26 February 1999. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001457596000164

Thin-skinned vehicular cyclists

When the ever-more-frequent articles appear, documenting the wonderful return of normalcy in cycling to these shores, there are always some who seem to take personal offense.

@graeme_0@situpvancouver just don’t get this article at all. I ride a race bike w/cleats - and ride purely for pleasure - joy even!

@IcemanYVR@graeme_0 @situpvancouver I agree, I ride with cleats and spandex, it’s fun. Article not entirely accurate.

@graeme_0@IcemanYVR @situpvancouver I also challenge anyone to do my 30min commute on a 40+lb dutch bike. You’d have to be insanely fit.

@graeme_0@IcemanYVR @situpvancouver sit on the lions gate during rush hour and count how many cyclists dress like pedestrians.

Nobody is suggesting that everybody should be on a sit-up bicycle. Indeed, everybody who is cycling in Vancouver today, should probably carry on as they are. Clearly they’re a-ok with the cycling status quo, because they’re doing it.

The point is that people dress like pedestrians most of the time: when they’re walking, riding the bus or driving their cars. If bicycles are to continue recent gains in mode share, then they must appeal to those same people.

A city with helmet choice, with heavy (bixi bikeshare) bikes, with abundant safe separated infrastructure and cyclists dressed like pedestrians, is a normal modern city. There are still “one-less-car” road warriors, and sportsmen with cleats and spandex, but they’re the minority: participants in a niche sport, like sports walkers, hikers, joggers or sports drivers. They’re not banned or shunned or made illegal or whatever; but they’re also not the only thing you see on the streets.

Sit-up cycling isn’t an attack on you. You carry on. Tennis whites, scuba gear, soccer shorts are also niche attire: please recognise that wearing special clothes will always be more niche than not, by definition.  

Instead, our harping on about sit-up cycling, civic cycling, cycle chic - whatever you want to call it - is an attempt to show that cycling can be just as normal as walking, driving and taking the bus.

Two policy suggestions

Vancouverites pay property tax to the City of Vancouver, and Sales and Income tax to the province of British Columbia.

Vancouverites then elect public servants to legislate and invest tax funds on their behalf for the social good, i.e. to mitigate market failure by

1. regulating individual and corporate behaviour (e.g. violence, pollution)
2. offering unprofitable public services (e.g. health, education, transit) and
3. protecting and maintaining publicly-owned capital assets (e.g. roads, sewers)

Sit Up Vancouver believes Vancouverites’ public servants are failing to improve (i.e. worsening) the lives of their electorate in the following two simple ways.

1. The Helmet Laws

Adult helmet laws discourage cycling by presenting it as dangerous. Cycling is not dangerous in BC. Annually, more head injuries are suffered by over-65s falling at home, than by cyclists of all ages do falling off bikes.  More cyclists means safer streets: discouraging cycling means more dangerous streets.

Vancouver should repeal the all-ages helmet bylaw, at the very least for adults (i.e. those trusted to vote, drink, drive or smoke) on residential (non-arterial) streets. The province should amend the Motor Vehicle Act to repeal the all-ages helmet law, or at least to extend the current three exemptions to adults on residential streets or adults riding a non-sport bicycle.

The power to amend the Vancouver bylaw lies with Vancouver city council, and Councillor Heather Deal. The power to amend the Motor Vehicle Act lies with the Attorney General, Shirley Bond MLA for Prince George.

Both Vancouver City Council and the BC Legislature want to see public support for the amendment before acting. Therefore you should write to Councillor Deal and Minister Bond now.

In the interim City of Vancouver should advise Vancouver Police Department to prosecute only dangerous behaviour, such as riding on sidewalks and running red lights. Ticketing tourists on the seawall, Hornby or on 10th is a counterproductive waste of police time and taxpayer dollars.

2. Well-designed streets

Vancouver has three separated bike streets (Carrall, Dunsmuir and Hornby), many calmed “bike boulevards” parallel to commercial arterials, and many painted bikelanes.

The bike boulevards seem to have been chosen with little regard for hills. They should be allowed to meander to provide the path of least resistance and, for ease of navigation, should be marked with a dotted green line up the middle of the street.

Doorzone painted lanes on arterials are worse than nothing at all: they encourage cyclists to ride between fast-moving and parked cars. No sane parent would allow their 8-year-old to use this infrastructure, therefore they are useless.

Bike lanes should be on the sidewalk-side of parked cars, ideally at sidewalk height as on Carrall, or at half-height. All arterials over four lanes wide should be reduced by 1.5 through-lanes (moving parked cars inwards) to accomodate separated bike lanes at 75% the width of car lanes.

Intersections are heinously neglected, often ambiguous and therefore dangerous. Clear lessons in intersection design are available online to any interested party, so ignorance is no excuse: the current incompetent or malicious use of taxpayer funds must stop.

Response to Hon. Kathy Corrigan

Dear Minister

I was disheartened to read your primitive and contradictory response to Kyle Zheng. You cite arguments in favour of helmet usage, which would apply to any mode of transport, from walking to driving, to horseback riding, to skating. Your error is common, but sadly fallacious: arguments for helmet usage are not arguments for helmet laws.

Helmet laws do not entail 100% compliance, just as the absence of a helmet law does not mean a total ban on helmets. The two do not go hand in hand. Wearing a helmet is an independent variable vis-a-vis helmet laws. Portland, with no law, has higher usage than Vancouver.

When you enact a helmet law, everybody does not carry on as before but with helmets donned. There is up to 10% of the population that will ride a bike no matter what the law. That will vary based on infrastructure. Beyond 10% you’re into the realm of normal people who - yes - do care about the inconvenience, the overheating, the hat-hair that comes with carrying a helmet everywhere. They know full well that behavior is what counts, that riding a big slow comfortable Bixi-style sit-up bicycle, slowing when they’re unsure, avoiding car-full streets, stopping at stop signs and all that good stuff will put them in no more danger than a pedestrian. And so, just as a pedestrian would, they feel ridiculous in a helmet. Calling them names, telling them “you never know!”, isn’t going to get them cycling with helmets. It’s going to get them not cycling.

It is disingenuous and naive to claim support for bike share programs and increased cyclist numbers, while at the same time supporting the adult bicycle helmet law.

For reasons of congestion, pollution, health, wealth and overall societal happiness I dream of a Vancouver with complete streets and high cycling modal share. Public bike share has been called the ultimate gateway drug to utility cycling, and I believe it. I’m just really worried we’re Melbourne-bound with the helmet law left uncorrected.

For the future of Vancouver, I ask that you support adult helmet choice, and vote to amend the Motor Vehicle Act.

James Deroux

Response to David Hay’s letter in the Vancouver Sun

David Hay, Vancouver’s famous cyclist’s lawyer, has put pen to paper, presumably after much urging over the past few weeks. While he covers a lot of the well-worked arguments calmly, he is sadly not explicit enough about the negative effects of the law. Putting aside trivial factual errors in the piece (sadly, Australia has not yet repealed its adult helmet law, and no US state has an adult helmet law) I would take issue with two of David’s core arguments.

1. That the law doesn’t reduce the number of people cycling.
2. That we should build safe infrastructure first, thus making the law irrelevant.

We don’t need surveys and statistics to counter that first claim: a simple thought experiment will do. What, dear reader, do you believe the effect of a rigorously enforced mandatory helmet law might be on any other mode of travel?

When you enact a helmet law, all of yesterday’s cyclists do not carry on as before but with helmets donned. There is up to 10% of the population that will cycle no matter what the law. That will vary based on infrastructure. Beyond 10% you’re into the realm of normal people who - yes - do care about the inconvenience, the overheating, the hat-hair that comes with carrying a helmet everywhere. They know full well that behavior is what counts, that riding a big slow comfortable BIXI-style sit-up bicycle, slowing when they’re unsure, avoiding car-full streets, stopping at stop signs and all that good stuff will put them in no more danger than a pedestrian. And so, just as a pedestrian would, they feel ridiculous in a helmet. Calling them names, telling them “you never know!”, isn’t going to get them cycling with helmets. It’s going to get them not cycling.

When you enact a helmet law, you kill utility, non-sport cycling and with it a large enough demographic to politically support complete streets (point 2.). Vancouver has done a great job, but boy has it been a long hard slog for not very much. Most of the cycling improvements have been simply anti-car improvements (one-way streets and garden bulges, for example) which manage to command broader support.

That said, most of the streets in Vancouver are perfectly safe for cycling: the quiet residential streets, the bikeways, the separated downtown lanes, the seawall. It is perfectly possible to commute at a leisurely pace along beautiful safe streets and encounter no “conflict” with cars. Therefore, by David’s definition, the law is already irrelevant and it must be repealed. And if he does consider the law not yet irrelevant, then when would he?

David concludes with the admonition: “we ought to strive for a world where a helmet law is regarded as unnecessary.” This is the world today, David: we are already there. All of the world knows a helmet law is unnecessary, including places with universal healthcare and far fewer safe, calmed streets than Vancouver. However the law is worse than unnecessary: it is a hindrance to the complete streets you claim to support.

It is inconsistent to claim support for more cyclists – which by demographic definition means utility, citizen cyclists – and to support the adult helmet law.

- James Deroux

Sit Up Vancouver / Helmetchoice.ca

PS I can’t let one other claim lie, regarding driving: “There is an irreducible risk of disaster striking”. This is simply not true: the bull can be tamed. A parked car does not kill. A car traveling at 20kph has ‘reduced risk of disaster striking’ compared to one at 40kph. We can and must sacrifice speed for safety. Of course the mobility-impaired or burdened (delivery businesses, mom with kids and shopping) must be able to use the streets, but they must not be allowed to risk killing other peoples’ children while doing so.

Don’t confuse helmet laws and helmet use.

To the Editor:

Many people argue for helmet laws by quoting the advantages of helmet usage. This is fallacious reasoning. Helmet laws do not entail 100% compliance, just as the absence of a helmet law does not mean a total ban on helmets. The two do not go hand in hand. Wearing a helmet is an independent variable vis-a-vis helmet laws. Portland, with no law, has higher usage than Vancouver.

When you enact a helmet law, all of yesterday’s cyclists do not carry on as before but with helmets donned. There is up to 10% of the population that will cycle no matter what the law. That will vary based on infrastructure. Beyond 10% you’re into the realm of normal people who - yes - do care about the inconvenience, the overheating, the hat-hair that comes with carrying a helmet everywhere. They know full well that behavior is what counts, that riding a big slow comfortable bixi-style sit-up bicycle, slowing when they’re unsure, avoiding car-full streets, stopping at stop signs and all that good stuff will put them in no more danger than a pedestrian. And so, just as a pedestrian would, they feel ridiculous in a helmet. Calling them names, telling them “you never know!”, isn’t going to get them cycling with helmets. It’s going to get them not cycling.

When you enact a helmet law, you kill utility, non-sport cycling and with it a large enough demographic to politically support complete streets. Vancouver has done a great job, but boy has it been a long hard slog for not very much. Most of the cycling improvements have been simply anti-car improvements (one-way streets and garden bulges, for example) which manage to command broader support.

For reasons of congestion, pollution, health, wealth and overall societal happiness I dream of a Vancouver with complete streets and high cycling modal share. Public bike share has been called the ultimate gateway drug to utility cycling, and I believe it. I’m just really worried we’re Melbourne-bound with the helmet law left uncorrected.

I call on your readers to support adult helmet choice, and to write to their MLA today.

James Deroux

Founder, Sit Up Vancouver