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...