Stronger Kamloops

 After years of advocacy, I have pushed back against many outspoken bike advocates in Kamloops who get mad at "crosswalks" or the elimination of a right turn lane, or complain about jaywalking, or protest the narrowing of a road, or the introduction of a stop sign. But those  Traffic Calming  measures once deployed far enough, have more to do with the solution than expensive protected bike lanes (assuming we can learn to design good ones). Complaints about crosswalks, and eliminating turn lanes are actually complaints of motorists, but once on bikes, these things are actually solutions. Narrowing roads and adding stop signs create roads that motorists avoid. Vancouver and Victoria's 'Quiet Streets' bike infrastructure are built on exactly this premise. And a read of Larry Beasley's ' Vancouverism'  or Vancouver to Amsterdam transplants the Bruntletts ( Building the Cycling City ) will quickly inform you that these cities learned from the gold standard ...

Kamloops Bike Advocacy has a problem. We keep trying to market using your bike as a 'commuter' or 'errands' but that is just not effective advocacy as most Kamloops folks cannot see that as their reality. But if Strava stats are anything to go by, more than 20,000 people in Kamloops - residents and tourists - regularly ride their bikes for fun. And those riders are driving to ride their bikes. Not to mention the hikers and walkers. I would suggest that Bike Advocacy in Kamloops could make much bigger waves by advocating to connect the places people are already going to ride their bikes; like Kenna, Batch, Pineview, Peterson, the Ranch, Valleyview Nature Park; and expanding undersized places like Schubert Drive, Rivers Trail, MacArthur Island, Aviation Way.... and in doing so will build out alot more , well used, bike infrastructure - with less political friction than we have now.  Council, Staff, and the general public view cycling and hiking/running as leisure activiti...

 One of my great hero's, Charles Marohn, came to Kamloops September 22nd 2022. Somehow I never upload this to the blog, and so here we are! He is a 'recovering' traffic engineer, who has alot of techincal knowledge in what we do, and why we do it - but had broad contextual knowledge as well 

Places like the Effie Arts Collective, or in this case, BeTeased Food Truck in the Shuswap - are part of a long line of community arts spaces that we have celebrated collectively time immemorial. Each year that passes the regulatory climate they operate in becomes less and less able to do so - even though our parents and grandparents - rich and poor, participated meaningfully and inclusively in their communities this way for decades.  For this reason, one needs to write letters to support food trucks so that they can host a community dance - the type of event that they have been hosting successfully for ages. I decided to include my letter as the subject of this post. -------- The girls held their hands in front of them and squirmed their fingers. The boys tapped their feet restlessly. Around the floor the old folks sat, smiling slightly, holding the children back from the floor... And the girls were damp and flushed, and they danced with open mouths and serious reverent faces, and...

 Victoria Street is great. Its a great street. Wide walking lanes, short cross walks, lots of shops, restaurants and vibrancy. Its the logical choice for all sorts of public events, and the nicest street in our City. But it is hemmed in on both sides by high-speed, wide, loud and dusty Lansdowne and Seymour. These two streets were designed in a bygone era: of large chip trucks coming through Downtown, and based on ideas about traffic engineering in the 70s  and 80s that have proven ineffective - that is why big cities all over the place are replacing their large, high speed, one ways with slower speed two lane streets - with slower average car speeds, but overall higher capacities. And improved Commercial Vibrancy. In 2019, then Councillor Denis Walsh was asked "what single thing he would fix about downtown". Mel Rothenburger was surprised to hear Denis say - make Seymour a Two-Way Street again. As the article mentions, despite it being an idea 'on the books' for 20 y...

 The South Shore has a special privilege when it comes to park spaces. Nearly every neighbourhood has some level of Nature and Recreational Park area - Barnhartvale, to Valleyview, to Peterson Creek, Kenna Cartwright and Pineview/Iron Mask Trails. The South Shore supports vast mountain bike networks, dog walking trails, unique landscapes and trails for all weather. Importantly, those parks are connected to their communities in a way that folks can walk, bike, ride, walk the stroller, right from home, without having to get in a car. However on the North Shore, the area of the City with the most number of folks cycling, the flattest land, and the fewest drivers - North Shore residents have no convenient access to a nature park without significant amounts of driving - yet Lac du Bois Provincial Park (Colloquially "Batch") is extremely proximate to almost every part of the North Shore - yet one cannot access it on foot or bike from these very areas. I obviously am here to advocat...

 The City of Kamloops is huge, surrounded by Nature all around. That is a good thing. Proper wilderness is only a few clicks north. But North Kamloops, home to most of the Kamloops residential population, and at its highest densities, likely to get higher, is most lacking in park area.  North Kamloops is best positioned to absorb the most amount of infill, from the flat land, to the sandy soil, to the river access, existing transit and a large amount of under-developed land. Living on the North Shore is great, and will continue to get better as more folks move to the neighbourhood - more and more neighbourhood businesses will be supported, the parks and streets will get safer with more foot traffic, and the access to all the cities jobs with the shortest possible commute make the North Shore desirable now, and that will only grow. But in order to maintain the best quality of life for our Cities residents, especially those on and moving to the North Shore, we need to address th...

 I know the title of this article is deliberately inflammatory in its title, but then again, you may get to the bottom of this article and feel inflamed! But it seemed like a great follow up to my last piece on the Red Bridge , and its video by Vancouver based 'About Here' in discussing the lack of vibrancy on Vancouvers Waterfront - posted again below should you be interested: Lets just jump right in to the examples - perhaps too many of them - but I want to drive home how widespread, varied and exciting parks can be in other cities big and small. Starting in Paris at (dans)  Jardin Tino Rossi Along the banks of the Seine, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of folks meet to danse and watch the dancing in this idyllic spot. Technically, the dancing is here every night of the week - but in reality it is an unorganized and organic event that has no specific times, dates or sizes. Along the park you will find folks, and their boomboxes, playing various kinds of music. The crowds ...

This article, in its really long form, is a Case Study in how I think we should be doing Urban Planning. From building on the successes of existing Active Transit, to doing the opposite of Tax Exemptions (way at the bottom), to improving stormwater and flood infrastructure, to boosting economic productivity. Schubert is a cool ' Drive '!! It runs North to South along the North Thompson River - all the way from Downtown to Westmount. Very clever people decided to run the 'Rivers Trail' along the drive, giving over the riverfront for public enjoyment. They built a Multi-Use Path many years back along its length to be enjoyed as a walking and biking recreation trail. And it is very well used! Named after Catherine Schubert, who as an Overlander, walked from Winnipeg, via Edmonton, to Kamloops - Jasper to Kamloops through the winter, pregnant to some accounts - is some of Kamloops best recreational walking today.  Marketed as both 'commuter infrastructure' and recre...