BCCC member Brendan Ladner, a Whistler resident, wrote the following post as an open letter to British Columbia’s newly appointed Executive Council members responsible for transportation - Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Rob Fleming, and Minister of State for Infrastructure Bowinn Ma.

Minister Fleming and Minster Ma,

Bicycles, and e-bikes in particular, have been shown to eliminate the need for a motor vehicle; for many in BC, a bike can replace a second vehicle, and at a fraction of the cost.

More people who already cycle for transportation and recreation would travel both within and between municipalities by bike if it was safer to do so.

By leading the way forward with more ambitious active transportation policies, the Province of BC could be a leader in affordable, green mobility, and provide fast and efficient transportation options for all.

Please help update our transportation infrastructure planning and engineering practices to meet the challenges of the 21st century. 

Here are some ideas:

1. Every highway in BC should have protected bicycle and micro-mobility travel lanes.

2. Unprotected or painted bicycle lanes should not be permitted on provincial highways; research findings — now widely cited — show they’re more dangerous than no bike lane at all.

3. As a demonstration of the province’s commitment to transportation equity, every metre of BC highway within the jurisdictional boundaries of a municipal or regional government should have a separated and dedicated accessibility path for walking and mobility device use.

4. Mass transit and active modes should be prioritized on every highway through the use of advance lights, dedicated lanes, and direct routing.

5. Active travel lanes should receive the same year-round maintenance as motor vehicle lanes. 

6. Every project plan for provincial infrastructure should begin with its contribution to active transportation improvements and network connectivity.

7. On a dollar for dollar basis, investments in paved highway space should be matched by increases to e-bike subsidies. (Example: 47,000 people, or almost one in 10 British Columbians, could have received a $2,000 e-bike subsidy for the same cost of the current expansion of MacKenzie Ave and Island Highway in Victoria, or $96 million). 

To help illustrate the challenges of the existing transportation policy in BC — the status quo — I will use my hometown of Whistler as a case study. 

Like many small towns, Whistler was built as a “semi-rural” town; there are no sidewalks and every property has to have a driveway; in fact, parking capacity must be built with every residential development. Unsurprisingly, personal transportation accounts for over 60% of Whistler’s CO2 emissions. 

In Whistler, as in many suburban and rural towns and cities in BC, provincial Highway 99 is essentially ‘Main Street’. In some cases, as in Oliver, the portion of the highway passing through city limits is literally named Main Street.

In Whistler’s case, main street has no sidewalks, no bus lane, no bike lane, and at nearly every intersection there are left turning bays for cars. 

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI) is responsible for this and all portions of highways that serve as main streets…and this is a problem. That’s because the very existence of this transportation standard is based on what may have been a great idea in the 1950s, but is sorely out of step with our everyday, human concerns in 2020. 

So, it was with great interest that I anticipated MOTI’s release of the results of a transportation and safety review contracted out to engineering firm McElhanney. At a cost of $422,000, the final report included short-, medium- and long-term options for highway improvements within Whistler municipal boundaries. The options were all predicated on the idea of expanded capacity for motor vehicles. And nothing else. 

As there wasn’t a mention of transit, cycling or walking in the report. Whistler staff actually asked McElhanney to look for ways to move more people as opposed to just more cars. According to MoTI, in concluding the report McElhanney decided that:

…none of the options that they actually reviewed came up as a particularly high benefit-cost ratio; none of them come out clearly as a project that sort of should be done right away.

And so it was almost unsurprising when the municipality recently unveiled its own activated pedestrian crossing at Alta Lake Road. It included “pork-chops”, those little pedestrian islands placed between a high-speed travel lane and an advanced right-turn lane. 

Whistler planning and engineering staff likely knew how dangerous and hostile those pork chops are to people on foot. But who can they look to for a transportation vision or policy that will push them to do more for road safety, or for vulnerable road users?

In this, and so many other locations in the province, our outdated provincial highway policies have become local safety issues. This must change.

Ministers, please exert your leadership on CleanBC transportation goals and investments, and update transportation policies that affect road safety on provincial highways connect to and pass through small cities and towns across the province. In doing so, you will be working for the safety of all British Columbians, and for the future resilience of this province.