Written By: Alice Morgan (Co-Chair), Jared Kolb (Co-Chair), Miia Suokonautio (Secretary)

Introduction

The Halifax Cycling Coalition hosted a visioning workshop Saturday October 18th. The workshop involved two guest speakers and a series of working group sessions outlining the challenges to cycling in the HRM, asking participants to envision Halifax in 2020 and creating action plans for the next five years. The workshop took place in Dalhousie University’s Architecture and Planning Building on Spring Garden Road and was attended by 38 people.

Speakers

The visioning workshop’s first guest speaker was Cape Breton medical doctor Chris Milburn (former president of Velo Cape Breton and cyclist of 20 years). He began the day by examining the health benefits of developing active transportation infrastructure. Chris outlined cycling’s potential to reduce air pollution, combat climate change, and to address health issues in North America. Dr. Milburn described the opportunities in Nova Scotia, and in Cape Breton Regional Municipality specifically, to promote healthy lifestyles by creating active transportation infrastructure.

The second speaker of the day was HRM’s Transportation Demand Management Coordinator. Hanita Koblents gave workshop participants an update of the municipality’s activities relating to cycling and active transportation. She explained how city staff began planning around cycling and active transportation with the Bike Plan in 2002 which included the creation of the Bikeways Advisory Committee (soon to be the Active Transportation Committee). The Red Book (municipal service standards for the design of road ways and transportation infrastructure) was amended to accommodate bicycles and other active transportation. This has led to the creation of several bike lanes throughout HRM. Ms. Koblents updated participants on bike lanes created over the last few years and those planned for 2009. Hanita said that cycling infrastructure in HRM is so far fragmented but that the city is looking to connect existing infrastructure in the future.

Sessions

Following the presentations participants were divided into six groups to come up with challenges facing cyclists and would-be cyclists in HRM. Each group was asked to come up with a list of their top 10 challenges and present them to the facilitators to be added to a large ‘mind map’. The result of this was a giant spider web of challenges on the side wall of the working space. Challenges on the mind map included infrastructure shortfalls (not enough signage on bike routes, poor lighting, poor maintenance, etc.) education and awareness gaps (cyclists not following the rules of the road, the “fear factor” of biking in traffic, driver awareness, etc.) limited bike racks and secure parking, lack of political will and many others. The challenges were prioritized using “dot-mocracy”, where each participant was given 5 dot stickers to place on the issues most pressing to them. The end result was a visual display of prioritized challenges to cycling in the HRM.

The second session engaged participants to envision their ideal city in the year 2020. Participants were given blank maps of the HRM on which they drew and described the cycling infrastructure and programs they would like to see in 2020. No restrictions were placed on development possibilities and participants were encouraged to think creatively. Participants presented their ideal city to the workshop in two minutes or less. The ideas presented included Can-Bike courses in elementary schools,; strong political and financial support from city council for cycling activities, including cycling role models and leaders; bicycle hubs (or nodes) throughout the city with functional and secure bike racks, showers, and lockers; extensive trail and bike lanes connecting the city centers to outlying areas; car free areas or days; and infrastructure on buses and other transit. The HCC collected the six maps with the 2020 plans at the end of the session.

The final session of the day mapped out how to overcome the challenges presented in the initial session to work towards the ideals envisioned in the second sitting. As described by the mind map, the facilitators summarized the 6 biggest challenges to cycling on Bristol board, which included Education, Advocacy, On Road Infrastructure, End Point Infrastructure, Connectivity and the Physical City. The facilitators placed an issue on each table and asked participants to the table that interested them most. The new groups worked to develop 1 year, 2 year, and 5 year goals to tackle their appointed challenge.

Some ideas from this session include:

On Road Infrastructure – Lobby city council to increase signage on existing bicycle routes and work with railways to develop bike lanes along rail lines.

Advocacy – Get bike traffic on radio traffic reports, make more use of The Coast’s green column, have regular press releases to lobby government on issues facing cyclists, publish updates on bike infrastructure, and establish an incident and accident tracking system for HRM.

Connectivity – Create a “Bike Book” for NS tourism using input from non-peninsula residents and other cycling groups throughout Nova Scotia, connect all off peninsula trails to on peninsula trails.

End Point Infrastructure – Create a competition for bike rack art, create work place facility guidelines for business within HRM, create a mobile bike valet available for different public events.

Education – Develop and promote driver education courses that include bicycle awareness education, host community bike rides, have a local not-for-profit ride with city councilors, host an “8-80 Festival” where kids bike with seniors.

Conclusions and Implications

The facilitators closed the workshop by underscoring the importance of involvement from the general membership in carrying these projects forward. They also highlighted other opportunities to get involved with the HCC, such as several open Board of Director positions. The facilitators thanked everyone for their participation and concluded the workshop.

The workshop was an important experience on a number of levels. Through a city-wide promotional campaign, the workshop attracted 38 members and non-members to discuss cycling issues within the HRM. Not only did this re-engage the community around such issues, it also provided the HCC Board with a number of key priorities going forward. Additionally, the workshop brought media attention to the issues as we were reported on in the Chronicle Herald, the Coast, CBC Radio Information Morning, News 95.7 and the University of King’s College newspaper.

In addition, several participants came forward to express their interest in joining the HCC Board of Directors or volunteering on an HCC sub-committee. Evaluation forms collected by participants indicated that the visioning day was an overall success, served to inspire the work ahead and participants were thankful for the opportunity to share their perspectives.

Next steps will be for the HCC Board of Directors to develop short and long-term action plans based on the priorities indicated in the visioning workshop. The HCC membership and the broader community are encouraged to participate in the work of the subcommittees to continue to advance the role of cycling in the HRM.