Integrating Bicycling and Public Transport

When Rutgers University prof John Pucher was last in Vancouver, he gave a stirring speech on cycling, the podcast of which went viral.  (You can find it here.)  John also took the opportunity to check out how cycling integrated with our public transport. 

He and colleague Ralph Buehler have just puplished a definitive paper on bike-transit infrastructure, comparing cities all over North America, in a paper for The Journal of Public Transportation.

This paper provides an overview of bike-transit integration in large American and Canadian cities. It begins with an analysis of national trends in bike-and-ride programs such as the provision of bike racks on buses, accommodation of bikes on rail vehicles, and bike parking at rail stations and bus stops.

Most of the paper, however, is devoted to case studies of bike-transit integration in six large American cities (San Francisco, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington, and New York) and two Canadian cities (Vancouver and Toronto).

Much progress has been made over the past decade in coordinating cycling with public transport, but the demand for bike-and-ride far exceeds the supply of facilities in some cities. More funding, in particular, is needed to provide more secure, sheltered bike parking at rail stations and to increase bike-carrying capacity on rail vehicles.

 You can read the whole paper here.  

 

Health, Meet Planning

Common sense suggests a stong relationship between healthy people living in healthy communities as a consequence of good planning.  But only recently have those responsible for health programs sat down with planners, and vice-versa.  Now the results of some of those conversations are becoming apparent.

The Healthy Living Issue Group of the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network has just released a report that summarizes intiatives across the country.   Bringing Health to the Planning Table: A Profile of Promising Practices in Canada and Abroad can be found here.

 

The report profiles case studies within 13 Canadian communities from across Canada where collaborative approaches to improve health outcomes have been a key consideration in planning decisions related to the built environment.

This approach was chosen so that the successes (and lessons learned) of a variety of different projects could be shared with other communities. With one case study from each province and territory it provides a pan-Canadian perspective. Two international examples highlight similar work happening abroad.

More here from the Public health Agency of Canada on their Healthy Living Strategy.

ULI’s Emerging Trends in Real Estate

The B.C. District of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) will be hosting its most popular forum of the year – Emerging Trends in Real Estate – on November 23 at the Terminal City Club.

This year, the keynote speaker is Jonathan Miller.  Miller has more than 25 years of communications and marketing experience in the real-estate industry as a partner in Miller Ryan LLC.  For the past 17 years he has authored the ULI’s premier annual industry forecast and speaks extensively on suburban and urban issues.

 

The local panelists are Avtar Bains (Colliers International), Jason Cottle (RBC Capital Markets Real Estate Group) and Cameron Muir (BC Real Estate Association).  The moderator is James Patillo (Grosvenor Americas).

Event Details 

$50 / $60 ULI members / non-members private sector

$40 / $50 ULI members / non-members public, academic, non-profi t,

Young Leaders (real estate professionals under 35 yrs)

$30 / $40 ULI members / non-members students

Registration deadline: Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Register online at britishcolumbia.uli.org or by phone at 1-800-321-5011

For more information, please contact jeannie.bates@uli.org