Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Nov. 19 - Help Cycling and the Environment Win Big

Please encourage at least 10 of your friends, family and coworkers to vote for Mayor Robertson, Vision Vancouver and COPE on November 19. Phone them, text them, email them, buy them brunch or dinner or for that special friend, invite them on a vote date. Nothing says love like voting for a better future. More info on voting at the bottom of this message. Even if you can't vote in Vancouver, you can still encourage others to vote and vote for candidates who support cycling in your community. 


Here is a handy guide to the Vision and COPE candidates that you can print out:
https://votevision.ca/sites/all/files/Vision_Cope_Ballot_for_print.pdf

A Critical Election for the Future
This is more than just a critical election for the future of Vancouver. With all the media attention cycling has received, the eyes of the world will be on Vancouver. A landslide for those who strongly support the environment and cycling will send a powerful message to other city's where politicians  are considering putting in bike lanes and other green measures. Just squeaking by is not good enough. With 62% of Vancouver residents including 76% from 18-34 years old supporting bike lanes, we have the numbers behind us but that does not matter if they don't vote.

What Bike Lanes Mean to You
Please feel free to copy any of this message you what. However, please consider making your own personal message. For Burrard Bridge, many of you wrote to council with powerful accounts of what better bicycle facilities meant for you, your family, your friends and community. These personal messages made a real difference. Please let the people you know the difference the separated bike lanes have made in your life and what a network of these around the city would mean for you and the people you care about.



The Greenest City
Vision Vancouver and COPE councilors and Mayor Robertson approved the Greenest City Action Plan to transform Vancouver into the world's Greenest City by 2020. Improved cycling, walking and transit are critical components of that plan.

Cycling for All
For me, cycling downtown is now an enjoyable safe experience, not an extreme sport. What most encouraging is seeing people cycle downtown with their children. A few Sundays ago, I saw a girl around five surrounded by three adults cycling happily along Hornby. A few days later, I witnesses a family of four with one child on a trail-a-bike and one cycling on their own turning from the sidewalk on Main onto the Dunsmuir Viaduct. I look forward to the day when there is a separated bike lane along Main so they aren't forced to cycle on the sidewalk. 

People's Safety Must be the Priority
Politicians who place people's safety above traffic flow need to be rewarded by reelecting them. Perhaps the best example of this is the 30 km/h speed limit along Hastings in response to numerous pedestrian deaths. Even though it has been proven that at speeds above 30 km/h crashes are far more likely to be deadly for pedestrians and cyclists, a vocal minority, including the NPA opposed this. Fortunately, like in the separated bike lanes, Vision and COPE councillors supported safer speed limits.

Candidates with Bad Bicycle Ideas
The NPA does not support the Greenest City Action Plan nor does it support safe separated bike lanes. In fact, the NPA's Anton is promising a moratorium on these safe bike lanes. Their other candidates are not any better. Ken Carko of the NPA, has proposed "seasonal bike lanes" removing the protection for cyclists in the dark and rainy times of year when they are needed most. His running mate, Sean Bickerton, is promising to licence cyclists, an idea that has proved expensive, impractical and ineffective in every city that has tried it. Not to be outdone, the Green Party's Adrienne Carr piped up with bike-free streets. She quickly back-pedalled into an equally bad idea of banning bikes from curbside bus lanes forcing cyclists to "share" the middle lanes with traffic or more likely, just force them onto the sidewalks. Not great or safe result for pedestrians or cyclists. The obvious solution would have been separated bike lanes but Carr has not yet committed to that.

We can't afford another Rob Ford
While unlikely, unless we are can't get the majority of people in Vancouver who support the environment to vote, a loss by Mayor Robertson, Vision and COPE would send a chilling message to politicians around Canada and North America. Other mayors would likely think twice before taking the bold actions needed to solve our many problems including climate change and energy and resource depletion. 

We must ensure that this does not happen.

Voting Information
City of Vancouver Election Information including how and where to vote:

Vision Vancouver

COPE

Volunteering
Please consider also helping Vision and COPE get the vote out!
http://cope.bc.ca/get-involved/volunteer/

Vision Vancouver Vision Vancouver needs cyclists to deliver poll-cards all day Thursday + Friday. If you can help out contact, brenton.walters@votevision.ca or 604.568.6913 ext 108.

Other Information

COPE Candidates to Put Bike and Pedestrian Safety First

Vision Vancouver's Environmental and Cycling Record and Platform

Gordon Price's take on cycling "policies" put forward by candidates:

posted by Richard Campbell @ 12:55 PM

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