Cris Basualdo

points as to why cycling should be prioritized.

I have been a cycle-commuter for more then 10 years and have worked to make cycling better in Edmonton in a variety of ways (chiefly through festivals, education and advocacy). It would be ever so encouraging to have the City of Edmonton step up to it’s stated commitments to cycling and active living.

I look forward to your response.

Kind regards

Karly Coleman

[Attached lobby document]

name is Karly Coleman. I am a cycling advocate and educator in Edmonton, and have been riding city streets since 1992. My experience includes several tours that took me through larger urban centres, including Vancouver, Toronto, and Montréal, in addition to many hours cycling on prairie highways. I am also Edmonton’s only Bike Traffic Reporter and ride regularly reporting on cycling conditions and issues. Therefore, I was both delighted and disappointed to read Nathalie St. Denis’s article on cycling in Alberta in your April 2010 issue of Alberta Views. My delight was in reading what I viewed to be an accurate profile about cycling in Alberta, an activity which many people are choosing for transportation, in addition to being a hobby. However, the article missed the opportunity to highlight utilitarian cycling, which is beyond just cycling to work. Utilitarian cycling is when you incorporate cycling into all of your transportation needs, including grocery shopping, errands, and visiting people. The choice to adopt utilitarian cycling can be life- and cityscape-changing because of the impacts it has on personal economic and health concerns, as well as neighbourhood liveability.

A related issue for utilitarian cyclists is the importance of effective cycling in traffic, not necessarily the need for bike lanes or segregated pathways. This issue was also not highlighted in your feature article. Although it is noted in the article that bicycles are vehicles as per the Alberta Highway Traffic Act, Ms. St. Denis mentions on page 37 that “Ideally, cyclists and drivers would share the same lane as little as possible, with cyclists using specially designated on- road lanes or off-road paved pathways.” She does not mention whose ideal this is, nor why it is ideal.

As an experienced cyclist, I do not share Ms. St. Denis’ preference for diverting cyclists off of city streets. Ms. St. Denis justified this preference with assumptions about driver frustration (around sharing something that is not solely the purview of motorized vehicles), with not everyone wanting to ride in Alberta (presumably because of the weather or perhaps the distances between amenities, or convenience, which encompasses the two previous excuses and many more), and with infrastructure limitations (where bicycle lanes end abruptly or do not link coherently). However, I see the challenge to more people choosing utilitarian cycling as one of education or rather, an incredible lack thereof, for both cyclists and drivers.

In my view, money spent on education is better than money spent on segregation because uneducated cyclists on segregated facilities are at greater risk; they are only “safe” between intersections. At intersections, the segregation facilities either stop (also noted in the article), or make the intersection more confusing (because there’s more stuff going on). Cyclists on the road, operating according to the rules of the road, are easier to see and integrate into the flow of traffic. They are predictable, and therefore safer, as accident statistics show. Cyclists and motorists who don’t follow the rules and expectations are at greater risk – yet bikeway proponents want to reduce risks by adding separate infrastructure that absolutely requires yet another layer of rules and priorities for safe operation. (The article in fact mentions just one such example: the “right hook” inflicted by a right-turning motorist on a cyclist in a bike lane.)

Everyone knows how to ride a bike; “as easy as riding a bike” is a cliché. It is my experience that everyone BELIEVES they know how to ride a bike, and this belief makes them difficult to convince that cycling in urban centres is not the same as riding around on the sidewalks and quiet streets of their neighbourhood. Uneducated cyclists think they are safe because of the relatively long zones of safety. So, unprepared, they approach a tricky traffic situation they have not been taught how to negotiate. Learning to ride a bike is an intensive process, which requires skill-building, an understanding of how bicycles actually work, a knowledge of traffic flow and lane destination issues and how to communicate with drivers whilst riding.

Education standards for both cycling and motor vehicle operations need to be dramatically higher (as indeed they are in Europe, where it is well-known that infrastructure alone is not sufficient). If it were compulsory for everyone to take cycling education similar to the motorized vehicle education program, and the provincial standards for these skills were aligned with current CanBike teachings, there would be less frustration for all parties using the roads, less cost to taxpayers for additional specialized cycling infrastructure, and likely more people adopting utilitarian cycling into their lifestyle. More trained cyclists on Alberta roads translates into increased economic and health benefits for the riders, a better standard of living where the concept of a complete street is a reality, improved environmental benefits for Albertans, and ironically, much better drivers – of all kinds – on the roads.

Sharing the road is not the answer, nor is dividing it up. The road is not toy for car drivers to share as part of the right of car ownership, it’s there to use, by everyone. The taxes we pay to live in our cities make streets for everyone, not just car drivers. A complete street includes pedestrians, cyclists, and motorized vehicles. Cyclists are on the roadway. Learn to drive, learn to ride, and the puzzle is solved.

The Two Wheel Challenge

I think if we want to get more people cycling more often, Alberta needs to adopt more education and less engineered infrastructure for cyclists.

Properly trained drivers and cyclists can coexist on our roads with minimal re-engineering of the infrastructure.

Clearly judging from the cyclists St Denis chose to interview, cyclists are not well versed on how to safely and effectively coexist with motorists in Calgary and Edmonton.

Cyclists need to learn to ride correctly, then exercise their legal right to ride on the road. Motorists, seeing proficiently and lawfully operated cycles sharing their space more frequently will learn to coexist civilly and safely.

The Canadian national standard for bicycling proficiency education is the CAN-BIKE program, a course that teaches vehicular cycling.

The tenets of CAN-BIKE education include where cyclists should ride on the road and how and when to yield to other traffic. It teaches cyclists that when riding in a wide lane to ride just to the right of through traffic. In a narrow lane that is unsafe to share, it teaches cyclists to ride where motorists passenger tires normally track in order to force the motorist mostly over the lane line to pass. There is no need for cyclists to ride in the gutter.

CAN-BIKE teaches cyclists to stay away from the curb when they are going straight through intersections to take the right most through lane that serves their destination. In other words, stay out of right turn only lanes when going straight and claim the lane through the intersection when it serves straight through or right turning traffic.

When turning left in multi-turn-lane intersections, cyclists should take the right most lane that serves their destination so as to end up as far right as possible after turning left.

Taking mobility away from motorists in order to isolate cyclists on fully segregated on-street facilities creates conflict at every intersection. The safety in doing so is illusory.

I think the City of Calgary has it right. In 2003, the major road design guidelines were changed to include wide curb lanes on all new construction. The design dimension of the outside lane is now 4.3m instead of 3.7m by the old standard.

There is a case for wider separation of cyclists and motorists, but it need only occur for roads with posted speeds of 60 kph and higher.

On the other hand, urban traffic fatalities could be reduced dramatically by adopting a province wide default reduced residential speed limit of 40 kph instead of the current 50 kph. Several Alberta municipalities have already taken this action including Banff, Airdrie, and Sylvan Lake.

Alberta has three cities and a few dozen certified CAN-BIKE instructors. The province could be more helpful in facilitating CAN-BIKE cyclist proficiency education.

Don Hollingshead CAN-BIKE National Examiner Calgary