Active Transportation in 2020 and the BC Budget Challenge

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Eight months ago, the BC government unveiled its new active transportation strategy, Move Commute Connect, as well as a set of guidelines intended to inform design and engineering best practices related to cycling and walking infrastructure.

The announcement occurred at the BCCC’s inaugural Active Transportation Summit, which we hosted in New Westminster, and it was a bittersweet affair.

On the one hand, the sudden and tragic loss of our President Arno Schortinghuis the previous December still clung to us all, especially because the strategy being unveiled by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI) was something he had worked so hard to encourage for many years, and looked forward to seeing.

On the other hand, after 20 years of advocacy by this small but very active team of volunteer Board members, staff and contractors, the choice of our event to launch the province’s first-ever set of goals and standards dedicated to cycling, walking and rolling invited great anticipation and enthusiasm about the prospects for BC to take the lead on a 21st century approach to mobility in Canada.

Somewhere between bitter and sweet lay the skepticism. Would the initiatives outlined by MoTI in Move Commute Connect express real commitments to change in a timeframe that would meet the needs of British Columbians? How would the values expressed in that document jive with proposed designs for mega-projects like the Massey Tunnel replacement, or major road improvement projects like Highway 97 in Lake Country, or the Kicking Horse Canyon in the Rockies? What kinds of firm commitments to bold financial investments in active transportation would accompany the strategy, and would they be obvious?

You could reasonably suggest the answer to the last question would also answer the first two. Paraphrasing former City of Vancouver head planner Brent Toderian, “The truth about a province’s aspirations isn’t found in its vision. It’s found in its budget.”

At last week’s 2020 BC Budget reading and subsequent review of the various budget and strategy documents, the actual impact of Move Commute Connect was revealed. Despite Minister Claire Trevena having said, “we’ve listened, and we’re taking new steps” around active transportation, from a vision and infrastructure policy perspective, it appears to be status quo for BC’s most vulnerable road users.

There were no budget dollars allocated specifically to active transportation. No line items for cycling and walking, either at the Ministry level or on a per-project basis. Designated a “CleanBC” initiative — having been informed by the provincial government’s climate change strategy — Move Commute Connect was not one of the many CleanBC projects touted by Minister George Heyman in question period last week, when defending his government’s many commitments to the environment.

It’s as if the active transportation strategy never happened.

This disappointing and somewhat alarming gap in Budget 2020 — and all the related missing pieces in the MoTI Service Plan related to AT — seems to harken back to earlier eras, when cycling was just not part of the provincial conversation. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, active transportation was not really “a thing”, and we had no broad, mainstream cultural imperative driving the everyday discourse towards big, bold moves aimed at resolving existential crises.

But this is a different era, and it’s become achingly clear we need new laws, systems and structures in place. Cities and towns across British Columbia are seeing a new kind of boom.

Biking has been joined by hovering, scooting, and rolling as the fun and fit thing to do for our commutes and daily tasks…but we lack appropriate definitions and rules in our provincial road legislation to account for these new mobility devices.

More people are using cargo bikes to take their kids to school or shop, but despite voiced commitments to VisionZero, our neighbourhood streets are dominated by oversize vehicles moving too fast for everyone’s safety.

The e-bike revolution is clearly here, benefiting older folks and those with longer-than average commutes, but the province won’t drop the PST or provide motor vehicle trade-in incentives to encourage more uptake of this very real mass transportation solution. Yet, they dropped the PST on e-planes —what one of our Directors has justifiably called out as, “a big promise for pie in the sky”.

I didn’t anticipate we’d still be struggling to make the case for active transportation in 2020. It’s sad and frustrating…but also, from an advocacy perspective at least, somewhat inspiring.

There’s still lots more work to be done.

This was my thought in the fall when I heard the BCCC would be looking for a new Executive Director to replace the inestimable Richard Campbell. A key contributor in the cycling advocacy community since the early 1990s, Richard was a founding director of BEST, HUB Cycling (back when it was known as the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition), and the BCCC.

Richard led much of the planning, the fundraising and, at times, the sheer brute force operational push required to make the 2019 AT Summit happen, despite the loss of Arno and the uncertainty of what the province would announce. But knowing it had the potential to wrap up the better part of two decades of advocacy with a pretty bow on top — better policies, more money, and stronger provincial commitments towards cycling, with an eye to future legislative remedies for active transportation — Richard and the team steamed ahead. 

Most notably, the event took a significantly more inclusive approach to walking and transportation accessibility for people with disabilities, a significant broadening of the overall message that we can do better for all forms of mobility, and all British Columbians.

And yet today, just one month into my role as Executive Director, and with the reality of Budget 2020 having sunk in, we’re back to what feels like square one.

The good news? In just over 30 days, I’ve had the good fortune to meet and talk to people in government (members of all three parties and their hard-working staff), advocacy organizations across the province (often volunteers), the private sector, and many other walks of life, about what they expect from the BCCC.

I’ve heard a lot about the expectation that we focus on helping advocacy groups outside of Metro Vancouver and Victoria’s Capital Regional District, to build knowledge, engagement and capacity to help make cycling safer, more inclusive and accessible in all regions.

I’ve heard about the desire for BCCC to also help coordinate provincial advocacy, to consolidate and strengthen the voices pushing for faster progress, greater equity, and justice for vulnerable road users. Yes, we’re talking Motor Vehicle Act reform. We want a VisionZero strategy with teeth. And we’d like to see changes to ICBC legislation that include an acknowledgement of vulnerable road users, instead of assuming we’re all customers.

We’re working on this, and I can tell you without reservation that responses have been positive, even encouraging. I believe we can move the dial on all of this.

That’s because this is a time when other jurisdictions in Canada and the US have done some of this hard work of change, and established precedents for what we need to see in BC — more just and evidence-based laws, stronger policies, better designs, and more inclusive and accessible facilities. Other provinces and states are taking bold steps to accommodate the growth of walking, cycling, wheeling, and all the emerging new mobility innovations.

Best of all, we know that active transportation supports population health, reduced congestion, cleaner air, safer communities, and happier British Columbians.

We have the strategy. Now let’s implement it…and do it boldly, without delay.

Please support our work in 2020 and beyond. Join the BCCC so your voice can be heard, donate to support our work, volunteer your time, or use the power of your organization’s means and reach by sponsoring our shared vision for active transportation in BC.

We’d love to hear from you, or anyone in your life who you feel would like to support the cause.

And stay tuned — we’ve only begun this work and sharing our progress with you…

Thank you!

 
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Colin Stein
Executive Director

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